Koolimadu: India's first tobacco free area

Even as dedicated efforts are on to make three districts of Kerala, viz., Trivandrum, Ernakulam and Kozhikode models in tobacco control by following the provisions laid out in Indian tobacco  control law, COTPA, 2003, here's an engaging story of Koolimadu in Kozhikode.

Reproducing the story carried by the India Today on 15 December 1996 that recounts how locals of Koolimadu turned their village into India's first tobacco free area.

While acknowledging that the current status of Koolimadu with regard to tobacco control has not been checked, the story is being carried here for the sheer energy it provides to Kerala's tobacco control efforts.

Weeding out tobacco

Inspired locals turn their village into India's first tobacco-free area

For most smokers, the statutory warning on cigarette packs means only puff and nonsense. But the 2,200 villagers of Koolimadu, 25 km from Kozhikode town, have taken it very seriously.

With the Kozhikode district administration declaring it tobacco-free, smoking has not just been banned in this tiny hamlet, you run the risk of being excommunicated for a day if you flout the ban.

At village gatherings now, tendrils of smoke curl up only from tea glasses. Wizened women no longer chew away at pukayila (tobacco leaves). And the village shops no longer stock the cigarettes or beedis that used to make them richer by about Rs.2,000 every day.

It was a death that sparked the campaign. In 1994, chain smoker Ahmed Kutty, 58, a regular at the popular village reading room, Akshara, died of cancer. And the founders of the reading room, E.A. Moideen and Kader, all smokers in arms, who learnt how cancer is linked to heavy smoking, decided to launch an anti-smoking movement in the village.

Says Kader, a smoker for 30 years: "Kutty's death came as a shock. His sudden demise, caused by smoking, was enough of a deterrent."

It wasn't easy. Die-hard smokers were initially not interested in a fresh lease of life just because it came smoke-free. And a lot of women - like Kader's compulsively pukayila-chewing mother, Ameena - felt they would much rather die than kick their addiction.

But the village elders, whose diktat runs in the 250-odd houses here, ensured that the campaign was a success. Explains Moideen: "We printed no-tobacco pledge cards and went to every house in the village and asked everyone to sign or put their thumb impression on them." Persuasion finally worked. As did Kutty's death.

The promise of a long, healthy life rather than a rasping early death was not enough to wean away smokers from their addiction for good. The supply had to be cut off at source. The campaigners approached the two village stores which sold about 300 packs of cigarettes and beedis every day and asked them not to replenish their stocks.

Says a shop owner, M. Khalil: "They bought whatever was there in the shop for Rs.300 and made a public bonfire. We thought we lost some good business but later realised that a healthy, smoke-free life is much more rewarding in the long run."

Next, the campaigners got in touch with the Kozhikode branch of the Nehru Yuva Kendra (NYK) - established by the Centre in November 1972, to mobilise rural youth for development work in villages - for guidelines on how to systematically eradicate tobacco from the villages.

Placards, festoons and banners ("Stop smoking, save family" and "Koolimadu is tobacco-free zone"), were put up. Banners at the village bus stop entreated travellers not to smoke while they were in the village.

Koolimadu residents who can't help lighting up risk being excommunicated for a day. But this punishment has not had to be enforced yet. 

The inveterate smoker, of course, has only to walk about a kilometre to either Nairkuzhi village in the north, Mavoor village in the south or the banks of the river Chaliyar in the south and east to enjoy a smoke.

This also means that the anti-tobacco campaign has not caught on in any of the other villages. Neither does the district administration have any plans to mobilise such campaigns elsewhere in the area.

But inside Koolimadu, smoking remains strictly a no-no. Says local civil engineer K. Abdullah, 29: "We have groups of youth to monitor the ban." Fortunately, according to Kozhikode NYK coordinator M. Anil Kumar, the punishment of being excommunicated for a day for defying the ban has not had to be enforced as yet.

Ultimately, the effort to banish tobacco may turn out to be the healthiest investment Koolimadu residents have made till now.