The government’s new GST rates on tobacco products look less like policy and more like politics in disguise. cigarettes slapped with 40% GST while bidis rest comfortably at 18%? That’s not taxation; that’s strategy.
Let’s call this what it is: appeasement. By sparing bidis, the state signals it cares more about tribal vote banks and rural employment numbers than about health. True, tendu leaf collection feeds tribal families and bidi rolling employs lakhs of women. But should livelihoods come at the cost of lungs? Or worse, should the government actively encourage one deadly product just because it’s “homegrown”?
This selective taxation is hypocrisy of the highest order. We are told cigarettes kill, hence tax them to the skies. But bidis kill too — and faster, according to several studies. Yet because the poor man smokes them, we suddenly decide not to touch his “small joy.” Translation: his health doesn’t matter, only his vote does.
The irony? The same government spends crores on “Quit Tobacco” campaigns. posters scream tobacco kills, but policies whisper only if it’s factory-made. It’s a cruel joke.
If the state genuinely cared, it would balance public health with rural welfare differently — perhaps by investing in alternate employment for tribal communities, not by protecting a killer industry. The forest leaf that fuels rural incomes shouldn’t double up as a death sentence.
Right now, this GST move is nothing more than a smoke screen. Behind the haze, elections loom. And the people, once again, are left choking.
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