India is the third largest consumer of tobacco in the world. Its not cigarettes that majority of Indians prefer but bidis, which constitute 70% of the tobacco smoked.

Bidis are more harmful then cigarettes, as they give more toxins like carbon monoxide, ammonia, phenol and hydrogen cyanide and contains more tar and nicotine than conventional cigarettes. So it causes more damage to the body then a cigarette.

Less tax on Bidis, more deaths

Smoking bidi is a growing menace in India with 100 million people smoking bidis, and 6 lakh deaths caused every year. The younger generation try bidi under the belief that its less harmful, since its cheap and has no warning label. Many a times, tobacco used in bidis may be mixed with flavors such as chocolate, vanilla, clove or pineapple to make them attractive to youth.

Bidis are smoked primarily by men, especially in rural areas, and are rolled by women, often in their homes. Since it provides large-scale employment, bidis are under-taxed compared to cigarettes.

A roller can make about 1,000 bidis a day and is paid Rs 40 to Rs 80 for the day’s work. But 10% of all female bidi workers and 5% of all male bidi workers are children under 14, and nearly 50% of these workers ultimately die of tuberculosis or asthma.

Tax on bidis are currently just one-twelfth of the tax levied on non-filter micro cigarettes (purchased by the poor) and just 2% of the tax on more expensive standard filters cigarettes.

But if the price of a pack of bidis was doubled from about Rs 4 to Rs 8, or if the excise duty was at par with other tobacco products it can reduce the consumption of tobacco.

Each day 55,000 children in India start using tobacco, Gutkha the chewable tobacco is aimed at the younger generation of the country. But you may wonder how do these companies manage to reach the minds of this children when they are not allowed to advertise these products.

After the ban the companies opened their doors to surrogate advertisement, an advertisement has the logo or brand of another company advertised within it. Lets take a look at this report done by a french channel on surrogate advertisements done in India.



One of the biggest surrogate advertisement market is the film Industry Bollywood, in 2004 and 2005, 89% of all the released movies had smoking scenes in them. Below is a small documentary on smoking in movies, with interesting statistics on the current scenario in India with regards to smoking.



According to research done by the Salaam Bombay Foundation, 3260 children between the age of 12 to 17 years fro municipal and private schools were asked to fill out a self-administered questionnaire.

When asked to recall slogans of any tobacco company or brand…

• 71% recalled Manikchand – Oonche log, oonchi pasand


• 12% recalled Goa – Yahan bhi Khilate hain, whan bhi, Goa No 1


• 2% recalled Sanket


• 0.4% recalled Shimla


• 15% recalled other brands

When asked to associate slogans with brands 63% could associate the slogan while 37% could not. What kind of a message will a child get from, Oonche log, oonchi pasand

Some of the observations learnt through this research is that, Gutkha advertising has had a deep impact on the minds of children although it has been banned since August 2002.

As children cannot easily disassociate Manikchand Water from Manikchand Gutkha, tobacco manufacturing companies should not be allowed to use surrogate advertisements. TV and radio are the hotspots as to where these messages are broadcasted to the children, the future of our country!

Image Source:

Cartoon by Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi