Prohibition is often double-edged. In many cases, it is perfectly logical and therefore rationally acceptable. Yet, it is also edged with unreason. The zeal with which a ban is imposed and the desire to defy it could both tip over into perverse excess. The Union health minister is to be lauded for acting on his vision of good health firmly and clear-headedly. It is now established beyond doubt that tobacco kills. And although the modern understanding of freedom can make room for those who knowingly choose to harm themselves, it cannot allow harming others knowingly, for that is what passive smoking amounts to. The nationwide ban on smoking in public places is action taken on all these grounds. But choosing the Mahatma’s birthday to kick it off is to obscure its impeccable medical logic with an unwarranted moral symbolism. Yet, when the State takes it upon itself to regulate private freedoms for the sake of public well-being, it is not just Indian lungs that are going to fare better. Stopping to think about others before lighting up, an unthinking reflex for many, is bound to increase the sum of what the national campaign calls “basic human consideration”.

What remains questionable, however, is the way the health minister has chosen to impose the ban. A gradually phased imposition would have worked better, instead of plunging the country in various kinds of unreadiness. From the printing of challans for the fines to the construction of separately ventilated smoking rooms in restaurants, the practical consequences of the ban requires massive changes in the way things have to be done, quite apart from the careful awareness-raising that must accompany such a projected change in human behaviour. The minister’s prohibitionism must also work out its sensible limits, instead of extending itself uncritically to censoring films and regulating endorsements. Cigarette-smoking is one thing, but indulging in burgers and fizzy drinks quite another, and the State must think several times before regulating adult freedoms in the name of public welfare. It also remains to be seen how rural India reacts to and absorbs such a ban, for almost all of the campaigning so far has been with the urban smoker, active or passive, in mind. There is a great deal at stake, the minister will have realized by now, when it comes to things as banal as cigarettes and condoms.