Shortly after the government announced a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in March, the Indian Council of Medic...
Shortly after the government announced a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in March, the Indian Council of Medical Research’s Department appealed to the public to “refrain from consuming the Smokeless Tobacco products and spitting in public places during the... epidemic”.
Following this directive on April 4, several states ramped up the penalty for spitting in public places. Since time immemorial, governments have found it difficult, if not impossible, to regulate so-called vices such as smoking, drinking and gambling. Can a blanket ban on spitting actually end expectoration in public places?
Perhaps India could take a lesson or two from the manner in which the United States handled its tuberculosis crisis in the late 19th century. After the country realised that the “sputum vector” – or “promiscuous spitting” – was the sole cause of spreading tubercular germs among the population, it launched the American Tuberculosis Crusade. Officials grappled with a key question: how to strike an intelligent balance between two competing demands – safeguarding public health against the extremely dangerous tubercle bacillus while restricting individual freedom to spit.
The broad lesson learnt in the US was that the “public civilising goal” of inculcating “spitting etiquette” is unattainable if the state depends ony on enacting laws against...
