Unmasking the appeal

By the time you finish reading this, another life in India will be lost to tobacco.

Yet the billion-rupee industry behind that statistic thrives, hiding in plain sight, cloaked in glamour, loopholes and deception. This is not just about smoking. This is how an industry systematically seduces the poor, manipulates the youth and bypasses the law, all to keep a deadly addiction alive.

In 2012, Maharashtra made headlines by banning guthka, a popular chewable tobacco mixture, infamous for causing oral cancer. Other states followed. But the celebration was short-lived.

Enter the twin-pack trick.

Manufacturers began selling tobacco and pan masala in separate sachets, packaged for purchase together. Technically separate, yet functionally identical to the banned guthka. On street corners, outside tea stalls, and near schools, it made a quiet return.

This was not an accident. It was a strategy designed to exploit a legal loophole, targeting low-income, less educated consumers who often prefer to buy with coins rather than notes. Their choices are manipulated not just by price, but by availability, addiction and aggressive marketing.

Picture this: the glittering lights of a cricket stadium. A billion eyes glued to the screen. A slick commercial featuring Bollywood mega stars: Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn and Akshay Kumar, urging you to “Zubaan Kesari” with Vimal. A mouth freshener, you say? Maybe. But the brand? Deeply tied to the tobacco legacy. This is called surrogate advertising, where products like Elaichi, deodorants or bottled water are used to sneak a tobacco brand into public consciousness. While the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) bans direct tobacco ads, surrogate advertising still lies in the grey zone. Akshay Kumar, ironically a fitness icon, faced public backlash for endorsing a surrogate product. He later apologised. But the message was already out by then. The brand was etched into millions of minds.

The damage was done.

Gone are the days when tobacco ads screamed from billboards. The industry has evolved. It is subtle now. It is social. It is algorithmic. It is on reels, gaming apps and meme pages, spaces where adolescents spend most of their time.

Most of them say that their products are for adults. But their ad placements, packaging and flavours scream otherwise. Candy-coloured e-cigarettes. Cartoons on packaging. Free samples outside schools disguised as “Energy boosters”. The packaging might say “zero nicotine” in bold, but buried in fine print is a disclaimer: “May contain trace levels.” How much is a trace when the user is 16? According to a 2017 study by the Salaam Mumbai Foundation, 85% of tobacco vendors in Mumbai operated within 100 yards of schools, a direct violation of COTPA. This is predatory targeting.

Moreover, the tobacco industry is also a master of illusion. It has now rebranded itself with the Trojan Horse of “harm reduction”. E-cigarettes and lighter tobacco products, such as “Gold Flake Lights” and “Classic Milds” are being pushed as “safer alternatives”. These names sound less dangerous, even comforting. But here is the truth they won’t tell you: most of these “reduced-risk” products are gateways for non-smokers, especially teens, into nicotine addiction. It is also a deliberate misdirection a way to retain the so-called “health-conscious” smoker without actually reducing harm. Studies show smokers of “light” cigarettes often inhale more deeply or smoke more frequently, nullifying any so-called benefit. The tobacco industry thrives on this false reassurance. Once hooked, the user is a customer for life or until death, whichever comes first.

In 2022, the WHO even called for a global ban on misleading descriptors like “mild” and “light”. But in India, these terms still float freely on packs sold across kirana shops.

In 2014, India proposed a bold regulation graphic health warnings covering 85% of cigarette packs. A move praised globally. But then, delays. Opposition. Confusion. It emerged that members of the parliamentary committee reviewing the proposal had direct ties to the tobacco industry. The fox, it seemed, had been guarding the henhouse. Eventually, the warnings were implemented. But the episode exposed just how entangled politics and tobacco have become.

When profit speaks louder than public health, even well-intentioned laws can be paralysed.

While the industry hides behind loopholes and celebrity endorsements, its foundations are built on something far more disturbing. In the bidi-rolling districts of Bidar and Gulbarga in Karnataka, child labour thrives in dusty rooms filled with the acrid smell of tobacco. Eight-year-old Meena rolls 500 bidis a day. Her fingers move with muscle memory; her lungs wheeze quietly in the corner. Her childhood has been sold for pennies; she is a cog in the wheel of a billion-rupee industry that counts on cheap, invisible labour.

Even ITC, one of India’s largest tobacco companies runs major initiatives in rural education, sanitation and the environment under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Schools are sponsored. Toilets are built. Trees are planted. But behind the green logo lies a dirty secret: the same company profits from products that kill over a million Indians each year. This is image laundering, pure and simple. A way to scrub the blood off the balance sheet while distracting the public from the core business of selling addiction.

The tobacco and nicotine industry in India does not just sell cigarettes, gutkha, or vapes. It sells illusions:

• That legal means safe.
• That glamour means trust.
• That the laws can have loopholes.
• That their good deeds erase the harm.

But behind all this is an intentional strategy to sustain addiction and expand profits.

It is time to stop calling it “marketing”. This is manipulation. This is a public health crime.

India is the second-largest consumer of tobacco in the world. The human cost is staggering. Every year, over 1.3 million Indians die due to tobacco-related illnesses. That is 3,500 deaths a day. That is one death every 25 seconds. Speak up and protect the next generation. Because the tobacco industry does not fear regulations, it fears awareness.