Daily Times

Two major drug busts in India within short span of two months have rung alarm bells and serious concerns regarding the credibility of Indian security agencies in international drug regulatory bodies. In the recent past, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) arrested a group of partygoers in Mumbai for consuming drugs. Figuring large among them was Aryan Khan, son of a prominent Muslim movie star, Shah Rukh Khan. Interestingly, the Indian drug control and law enforcement agencies have named Aryan Khan as the main accused though he was merely a guest at the party. The narcotics were headed to Delhi, the Mundra port. Reportedly, a shipload of heroin originated from Kandahar and was loaded into two containers at Iran’s Bandar Abbas Prot. Similarly, an earlier seizure in Mumbai had originated from Iran’s Chabahar Port, which an Indian company owned by Indian business tycoon, Mr. Adani, manages. How will the Mundra, Adani Port, benefit from the consignment landing there? How did such a big heroin haul land at the Adani-owned Mundra Port when the final destination was Vijayawada Andhra Pradesh? Where were the security systems of Mundra Port which encouraged the opium smugglers to direct their precious booty to this western Gujrat port? Was the drug cartel populated by warlords aware of the imminent take over by the Taliban and wanted to clean up the fields before the religious extremists that had banned opium cultivation in the past? From the largest democracy to drug safe haven, India is obviously crestfallen and world does require a paradigm shift in dealing with it. Strangely, what never gets noticed is the complicity of western powers in the enlargement of poppy plantations in the war-ravaged country. The western media, which monopolized the coverage of Afghanistan, never seriously blamed the occupiers as they went about perpetuating a myth of the country being a “graveyard of empires”. An estimated of about 50 million Indians are believed to use drugs. Their consumption has only gone up during the period from 2001 to 2020. Given their precap, India, via sea and air routes, continues to be a drug-of-choice place for the country’s well-heeled. An estimated one Million cocaine users in India can afford to pay upwards of Rs. 5000 per gram.

Credible evidence suggests that after the Taliban were ousted in 2001, poppy cultivation in Afghanistan jumped to 3400 tons in just a space of two years from the low of 180 tons.

Credible evidence suggests that after the Taliban were ousted in 2001, poppy cultivation in Afghanistan jumped to 3400 tons in just a space of two years from the low of 180 tons. The Taliban regime had banned opium cultivation, and since then, there has been no looking back. The UNODC reckoned that by 2003 the Afghan drugs were raking in $2.3 billion from growing poppies to trafficking its derivatives. When the time came for the United States led international forces to leave Afghanistan this year, the production had reached astronomical levels of over 9000 tons. The drug mafia is rescuing this bountiful crop of 2020-21 from the Taliban, who ironically are being accused by the India/West for living off drug proceeds. In 2008, UNODC Executive Director, Antonio Maria Costa, claimed that after the collapse of the Lehman Brothers that led to the global meltdown, drug money was used for opening up cash strapped investments banks. Shockingly, India is blaming Taliban’s for its self-created drug problem. Indian drug market size and volume points in opposite direction. The rough estimates of the size of India’s illegal drug business show that it has a volume of Rs. 30,000 crores. Extrapolating from the Rs 3,000 crore worth of drugs seized annually, and seizures making up roughly around 10 percent of the trade. The exponential increase in size of Indian domestic drug consumption owing to cheap and uninterrupted supply can be judged by a 2019 report by the Indian union ministry of social justice and empowerment. It estimates the use in Indians at 2.6% of total drug use, thrice the global average of 0.7%, the veins and windpipes of an estimated 57.8 million users worldwide.

Sadly, an unfathomable greed for money has got India into drug trade. Despite the illicit cash pouring into Indian coffers, the overall impacts on Indian society have been disastrous. Even more troubling is the fact that children are the most susceptible to the easy availability of drugs. Juvenile cases registered under the NDPS Act rose 21 percent during the year to 264 in 2020 from only 123 in 2015 and 82 in 2010. When the heroin leaves Afghanistan, it has a value of around Rs. 10000 per kg. There is an exponential rise in India’s domestic drug business. A 2019 study by two JNU professors, based on the National Family Health Survey 2015-2016 (NFHS-4), found that, at 70.8 percent, the prevalence of substance abuse among northeastern men is 20 percentile points higher than the rest of India. A report by the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) last year found that the AIDS-related mortality per 100,000 populations in India was estimated to be the highest in Manipur (36.86), followed by Mizoram (28.34) and Nagaland (26.20). Likewise, the drug problem in Assam is alarmingly high. From Myanmar, narcotics sub-stances reach Assam via various routes originating mostly in Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram. The acclaimed analysts/ subject specialists and mainstream international media are inclined to draw solid conclusions based on recent events and past facts regarding Indian state’s involvement in world-wide sophisticated drug peddling network. Furthermore, the world had witnessed in the recent past, how India has become an international market of radio-active materials. Indian state patronage in dangerous business of sale/purchase of weapon grad radio-active material has further supported the flourishing India radio-active market. This indicates towards Indian governments’ greed for easy money to further speed up its ambitious agenda of enforcing its hegemony in the region.

The sudden withdrawal by US from Afghanistan has left the Indian drug trafficking network in a highly compromising situation. International experts have concluded that India is consolidating its gains and more pronouncedly destroying evidence to avoid eventuality of its links to drug money. Another opinion being substantiated after the ill-planned United States exit from Afghanistan is that India has been funding its expensive proxy games in the region, particularly, against Pakistan using the Afghan drug money. It is pretty interesting to note that during the period of US-NATO backed Afghan governments, the enlargement of poppy plantations in the war-ravaged Afghanistan was carried out on exponential pace. Indian intelligence network managed and controlled the complete supply chain of poppy products starting from plantation (on rather scientific lines), processing, smuggling and sale in international drug market. Yet, India would play an innocent victim. Astonishingly, Indian character of passing the buck to others and clever machinations of portraying itself to be a bullied sober child has engulfed the complete government machinery and public opinion. This national level psychological problem is endangering the regional as well as international peace and stability. Indians have developed a habit of inventing and believing self-serving concocted stories to accuse Pakistan and other neighbors in serious insinuations of sponsoring terrorism, funding banned terrorist organizations etc. The world must not turn a blind eye towards Indian involvement in illegal highly dangerous business of drug trafficking, believed to be a threat to human existence on the planet earth. The UNODC may inquire the issue to un-earth the ground facts and the international community must also realize its shared responsibility to demand immediate remedial measures to safeguard the future of next generation. The sooner it is done, the better. But, who cares!

The writer is a civil servant by profession, a writer by choice and a motivational speaker by passion!