I was at the walkout on Thursday where a couple of students read out an email from the Vice-Chancellor, Somak Raychaudhury. He had asked the Ashoka University Student Government (AUSG) to “suggest effective alternative measures” to address issues that “we all are concerned about”. The AUSG and the Ashoka Behavioural and Insights Team (ABIT) proposed detailed solutions to ‘these issues’, wherein the documents mostly focused on addressing substance use. I gathered that this was the actual rationale behind introducing bag scanners and the emptying of pockets, even if it was behind the smokescreen of security theatre. This amused me at first but enraged me soon after. Having spent the past few years on several university campuses in India and the United Kingdom, I have seen the short and long-term effects of alcohol and drug use in universities, so I tend to agree with the Vice-Chancellor on one count. However, clamping down on personal freedom and privacy is not an effective way to address the issue at all — the World Health Organisation would agree with me. Instead of deterrents or prohibitive approaches, harm reduction is an alternative that many international public health organisations rally behind.
The term itself is often misunderstood, so let me clear some things up. Harm reduction is a collection of evidence-based strategies that address alcohol and substance misuse to reduce their negative health and social consequences. Cessation and abstinence may not be the ultimate goals under such an approach. This fact in itself could ruffle feathers, but stay with me. Rather than surveillance or punishment, harm reduction meets people where they are and starts from there. Take, for example, being found with alcohol at the gate, having it confiscated, and the chance of a CADI (Ashoka’s Committee Against Disciplinary Infractions) case. To avoid such a consequence, students can and will shift to drinking alcohol — or using even harder substances — outside campus, in far more unsafe conditions. A harm reduction approach to alcohol use could involve designated spaces on campus to drink (does anyone remember the smoking room?), where people can access water coolers, plastic cups to minimise injury, non-alcoholic mixers, vitamins, and the like. This is just one example of an implementable change that can tangibly improve student safety.
I know there will be knee-jerk reactions to a suggestion that calls for safer alcohol consumption on campus. What about the legality of this? Is it not illegal to consume alcohol on the campus of an educational institution? What if this encourages people to drink more? Several American college campuses would beg to differ. Take heroin, for example. Heroin is a highly controlled substance with a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use in the United States of America. Its usage is a major contributor to the opioid crisis and is associated with the incidence of HIV infections. Yet, many universities, such as Brown University, take a harm reduction approach to substance use rather than a prohibitive one, providing safe use education, overdose reversal kits, drug adulteration testing kits, and overdose prevention sites on campus. While the substance use landscape of India is not the same as the USA, harm reduction programmes can and have been tailored to specific regional contexts to promote better health. Policies and laws in India currently treat harm reduction with caution, but such approaches have existed within the country since the 1990s, whether enshrined in national/state policy or not. The sheer volume of published articles that recommend harm reduction strategies makes it clear that it is an evidence-based approach with global success rates far better than punitive stances, whether the substance in question is legal (like alcohol) or illegal (like heroin).
The picture I have painted may make harm reduction seem like a permissive slippery slope of drug use, but it very much is not. There are growing evidence bodies (systematic reviews, scoping reviews, longitudinal studies, meta-analyses, etc.) to show that a consequence of harm reduction strategies includes reduced substance use (and yes, I include alcohol as a substance when I say this). More than anything, harm reduction saves lives, with such strategies having track records of reducing mortality rates for associated substance use disorders. I do not know about you, but I do not want this university to have death on its hands.
Despite this evidence, institutional bodies may hesitate to implement such measures due to pressure from various other stakeholders, such as parents and guardians, or out of concerns to do with legal repercussions. However, when it comes to national-level legislation, even the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act of 1985 has been amended to be less severe in its approach to people who use drugs. The 2021 amendment to the NDPS Act was a step towards forefronting public health goals, rather than incarceration. While the term ‘harm reduction’ is not used, its principles are starting to be more apparent in the state’s approach.
In order to address substance use, it must be recognised as a health concern rather than a moral one. Substance use exists within contexts of academic stress, interpersonal stress, adverse circumstances and a lack of alternative pleasurable situations, to name a few. A bag scanner will do precious little to deter someone from using any psychoactive substance, legal or illegal.
Health is not achieved through punishment, but through healing, and harm reduction is a justice and human rights-based, compassionate approach to healing.
I know that this in itself can raise alarm, especially given how morality around substance use is constructed. However, there are culturally sensitive ways in which harm reduction policies can be devised. Under such an approach, people are seen not as bodies to be policed, but as individuals existing within a broader context. Such strategies can often be more cost effective than punitive ones, not just for the university but for state and national healthcare infrastructure in general.
I do not, for a second, claim that substance use in India is not an issue. I am just saying that it is a health issue rather than a moral one. In the 2024 global status report on alcohol and health and treatment of substance use disorders, the WHO reports alcohol and substance use as a major public health concern. Despite growing panic regarding this, many developing countries show increasing rates of hazardous alcohol use. In India, most national and state level policies tend to take punitive approaches, but have proven insufficient to address the harms associated with alcohol and substance use. There is no denying that substance use of various types and frequencies leads to poor health outcomes and higher mortality (yes, including alcohol).
Now, when an entire country struggles to deal with a globally recognised public health concern, it seems like bad faith to put the onus on a handful of undergraduate students to come up with a solution — especially one that must be foolproof enough to warrant the removal of the newly installed props in the campus’ security theatre.
That is what I see the bag scanners and metal detectors as: a form of security theatre. These measures may lead to feelings of increased safety while ultimately not doing much to tangibly improve it. Who at this university feels more safe as a result of the new measures? If the events of the past week are anything to go by, I do not think it is the student body at large. Issues surrounding substance use are multifaceted and delicate — addressing them will require time, trust and collaboration. By dancing around the word ‘substance use’, the Operations team has added to an already precarious environment of tension and surveillance. The present atmosphere of suspicion can never lead to vibrant and thriving campus life. In order to address a problem, it must be named. Only then can open and honest conversations occur and the day that happens will be the start of sustainable, long-term change.
[Edited by Madiha Tariq]
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