Awareness among people and law enforcement can end menace

The tobacco industry is strategically roping in every Bollywood super star for advertising its brands in the name of eatables especially ilaichi (cardamom) and Pan Masala. Basically, they know that these stars have a huge fan following and people, especially youth, worship them like gods. And these so-called gods have forgotten their responsibility to this society and are promoting killer products just for the sake of money which they already have in abundance. It's worth mentioning that tobacco/Pan masala  products are responsible for 90% of oral cancers, 40% of all body cancers, 30 - 40 % of TB cases, 20 - 30 % of atherosclerotic diseases like Hypertension, Diabetes, Brain stroke, Heart attacks, and many more diseases like Respiratory diseases, Impotence, Infertility and congenital diseases among newborn etc. Tobacco and Pan Masala are killing more than 13 lakh people annually in our country India. Bollywood stars over a period have become significant contributors to Tobacco / Pan Masala-related morbidity and mortality.  It is not that these Bollywood stars are not aware of these issues as the undersigned had communicated all these to every Bollywood super star including their wives individually in writing in 2016 and continued to communicate on different occasions later also. But they continue to promote tobacco brands in one or the other way.

Now one particular brand which was earlier being promoted by Ajay Devgan and Shahrukh Khan has recently roped in Akshay Kumar also. Akshay Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan do a lot many health campaigns but after promoting tobacco brands, their convincing power in such campaign will fall drastically and they should decide whether they want to do campaigns to promote or destroy health. Amitabh Bacchan was involved in such tobacco advertisements in September 2021 and there was lot of noise against this in all kinds of media then how can one believe that Akshay Kumar of the same industry was not aware of this news, that too involving the “Shehanshah” of Bollywood?  These Bollywood stars are just exploiting the feelings of masses by pretending to be ignorant about facts.Ignorance is no excuse to get away from punishments of violations of law. It is high time that enforcement agencies should wake up and book these stars along with the tobacco brand companies under section 5 of COTPA ( Cigarette and Other Tobacco products Act) 2003. Promoting tobacco brands in the name of any product including ilaichi comes under the Surrogate advertisement and such advertisements are banned under section 5 of COTPA.  It is worth mentioning that Amitabh Bachchan also apologized to the public and said he has withdrawn from advertisement but the fact is that that advertisement is still going on in different medias. Similarly Akshay Kumar has also apologized but also communicated that “the brand might continue airing the ads till the legal duration of the contract that is binding upon me. “ This is again the strategy to befool the innocent fans/public. Akshay Kumar further states that “I have decided to contribute the entire endorsement fee towards a worthy cause.” Money earned from endorsement of killer products will not have any benefits to any worthy cause, instead will spread negative vibrations and negative effects. Why cannot Akshay Kumar return the money back to the brand company and break the contract immediately so that ads are stopped immediately? It is high time that public especially youth should not follow these stars blindly and not get be fooled by such advertisements. Awareness and enforcement should go hand in hand if we have to protect our youth/ future generations or even the whole planet from the menace of tobaccos and Pan Masala.

(The writer is additional Director, Health, Government of Delhi. The viewsexpressed are personal.)