Sanskriti Talwar

Priti David

Editor

large_01-IMG_0608-ST-Nangals_women_demand_a_drug-free_village.jpg

medium_01-IMG_0608-ST-Nangals_women_demand_a_drug-free_village.jpg

small_01-IMG_0608-ST-Nangals_women_demand_a_drug-free_village.jpg

thumbnail_01-IMG_0608-ST-Nangals_women_demand_a_drug-free_village.jpg

01-IMG_0608-ST-Nangals_women_demand_a_drug-free_village.jpg

“Aethe roti kath mildi hai, chitta sare aam
milda hai [Here, food is scarce, but heroin is easily available].”

Harvans Kaur’s only son is a drug addict. “We try to stop
him, but he still fights his way, takes all the money, and spends it on drugs,”
says the hapless mother of the 25-year-old who is also a new father. She says
drugs in the form of chitta
(heroin), injections and capsules of psychotropic substances, are easily
available in their village. 

“If the government wants, they can stop drug abuse. If
not, more of our children will die.” Harvans Kaur is a daily wage labourer who
works at a potato storage unit in Raoke
Kalan village. She earns Rs.
15 for each bag she packs, and she manages to pack around 12, making roughly
Rs. 180 in a day. Her husband, Sukhdev Singh, 45, does daily wage work at a
warehouse in Nihal Singh Wala, over four kilometres from their village Nangal.
He also packs bags of wheat or rice, earning Rs. 300 a day when work is
available. It is their earnings that the family must rely upon.

Coming right to the point, Kiran Kaur, her neighbour in
this village in Punjab’s Moga district, says, “anyone who promises to eradicate
drugs from our village will get our vote.” 

Kiran’s
clarity is no doubt tied to the fact that her husband is also a drug addict.
The mother of two children, a three-year-old daughter and a six-month-old son,
she says, “my husband works as a casual labourer and is a drug addict. He has
been so for the last three years. Whatever he earns, he spends on drugs.” 



Looking up at the large cracks in the walls of her
eight-member family’s home she says, “where will the money to repair the rooms
come from?”

The
village Nangal of Moga district comes in the Faridkot parliamentary
constituency that will be voting on June 1. 

Six months ago, a 24-year-old man in Nangal died from a
drug overdose. The passing of a young man in his prime is still fresh in the
memory of the villagers. “There is berozgari [unemployment] and most young men sit idle and they fall
into bad company,” said Paramjit Kaur who has been working as an ASHA
(Accredited Social Health Activist) in Nangal village since 2008. 

She adds, “only the government can control this [drug]
situation.”  In 2022, 144 people in
Punjab (all male) died of drug overdoses (National Crime Records Bureau). 

During
the 2022 Assembly election campaign, Aam Aadmi Party national convener and
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal vowed to make Punjab drug-free within
three months if his party came to power. In a subsequent promise, Chief
Minister Bhagwant Mann declared in an Independence Day speech in Patiala on August 15, 2023 that the state would be free of drugs
within a year.



State governments, through the excise departments, <a href="https://dor.gov.in/sites/default/files/National%20Policy%20on%20NDPS%20published.pdf">control</a> the sale, use, consumption, and movement of certain
narcotic drugs. But locals say the sale and trade of drugs is a well-organised
mafia. “People from outside our village, who have links in Moga, Ludhiana,
Barnala and other places bring these drugs into our village,” says Butta
Nangal, a member of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee in Nangal.

As per the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances
(NDPS) <a href="https://dor.gov.in/sites/default/files/Narcotic-Drugs-and-Psychotropic-Substances-Act-1985.pdf">Act</a>, 1985, consumption and possession of
drugs in India is a criminal offence. “But even the cops are under dabav [pressure] to not take any
action,” points out Sukhchain Singh, also a committee member. He adds, “if the
MLA [member of Legislative Assembly] wants they can stop the drugs from coming
into our village.” Former sarpanch
(headman), Lakhveer Singh now with the Congress party also agrees, saying, “piche toh sarkar roke tey rukuga [If the
government intervenes only then will it stop].” 



But politicians are not addressing the issue, says
Nangal resident, Kamaljit Kaur. She says the AAP candidate for Faridkot,
Karamjit Anmol, did not speak in his rally about drug abuse. “He just asked us
to vote, promising benefits for the women voters,” says the 40-year-old, who
belongs to the Dalit Mazhabi Sikh community. “Unfortunately, none of the
[political] parties have spoken about it,” she adds as she walks towards the
open meeting called by the Congress party workers in May in her village.

With her husband’s addiction showing no signs of abating,
the burden of managing family expenses falls on Kiran, who labours in the
fields of landowners. The last time the 23-year-old earned any wage was in
February 2024 when she picked potatoes, her newborn lying in the field on a plastic sack beside her, in the shade of a tree. The work lasted for
about 20 days. She was offered Rs. 400 a day but was finally paid Rs. 300.



Her friend and neighbour, Amandeep Kaur worked
alongside her and points out that while [upper caste] farmers take them to
protests, farm labourers like them don’t get a fair wage. “Who stands with us?
No one. They ask us to stay behind because we belong to the scheduled caste,
yet we labour more than anyone.”

Dalits
like Kiran and Amandeep make up 31.94 per cent of Punjab’s population – the
highest for any state in the country (Census 2011). An increase in the daily
wage to a minimum of Rs. 700 - Rs. 1,000 was a major demand of the Dalit
labourers at the protest site.

The next work opportunity for women farm labourers,
Amandeep says, will come with the onset of the kharif season in June, when they will be hired for transplanting
paddy at Rs. 4,000 for an acre that works out to each labourer earning Rs. 400
a day. “After that, we will remain without work for the entire winter,” she
adds.

The other
option is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA)
programme, which guarantees each family 100 days of work a year. However,
Kiran’s mother-in-law, Baljit Kaur, 50, says they get no more than 10 days of
work under this scheme in their village. 



To help with daily expenses, Baljit works in an
upper-caste household for Rs. 200 a day. Amandeep earns Rs. 20 for each
textbook she covers with plastic. The women say that the additional income of
Rs. 1,000 a month promised by the Aam Aadmi Party government during the 2022
assembly elections, would really help. “We worked hard and paid Rs. 200 to fill
out that form, but to no avail,” says Baljit.

Now a
distressed Baljit is readying to send her youngest daughter, Sarabjit Kaur, 24,
to the United Kingdom in search of a job. A dream that has cost the family Rs.
13 lakhs, borrowed from moneylenders after selling their car and
motorcycle. 

Sarabjit graduated with a Bachelor&#39;s in Education two
years ago but has been without a job since then. “There is no point in wasting
our time here in Punjab since there are no jobs. There is only drug abuse [nashe],” she says. 

The
24-year-old will stay with friends till she gets a job: “It was my childhood
dream to go abroad. Now, that dream has become a necessity.” The family supply
milk twice a day to surrounding villages and are able to earn roughly Rs. 1,000
a day which goes towards repaying the loan and managing household expenses.



“As parents, we had to send her away eventually by
marrying her, but now we are sending her abroad. At least she will become
something and then marry a man of her choice,” says Baljit.

Nangal’s women demand a drug-free village

మాదకద్రవ్య రహిత గ్రామం కావాలని కోరుకుంటోన్న నంగల్ మహిళలు

போதையற்ற கிராமத்தை கோரும் நங்கல் பெண்கள்

ନଙ୍ଗଲର ମହିଳାମାନଙ୍କ ଦାବି ଗୋଟିଏ ଡ୍ରଗ-ମୁକ୍ତ ଗାଁ!

നംഗലിലെ സ്ത്രീകൾ ലഹരിമുക്ത ഗ്രാമം എന്ന ആവശ്യമുയർത്തുന്നു

ಮಾದಕ ವ್ಯಸನ ಮುಕ್ತ ಗ್ರಾಮಕ್ಕಾಗಿ ನಂಗಲ್‌ನ ಮಹಿಳೆಯರ ಬೇಡಿಕೆ

पंजाब की औरतों की मांग, नशीली दवाओं से मुक्त हों गांव

ગામને નશામુક્ત કરવાની હાકલ કરતી નંગલની મહિલાઓ

नांगल के महतारी मन के मांग, नशा मुक्त हो गांव

नांगल के महिला लोगन के पुकार, ड्रग मुक्त हो गांव परिवार

মাদকমুক্ত গাঁয়ের দাবিতে সোচ্চার নাঙ্গালের মহিলারা

ড্ৰাগছশূন্য এখন গাঁৱৰ সপোন দেখা মহিলাসকল...

ਨੰਗਲ ਦੀਆਂ ਔਰਤਾਂ ਦੀ ਮੰਗ – ਨਸ਼ਾ ਮੁਕਤ ਪਿੰਡ

Nangal village, Moga, Punjab, 142042, India

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

IN TELUGU - Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

Nangal’s women demand a drug-free village

In Punjab’s Moga district, heroin and other drugs are taking over the lives of young and older men, leaving the women to hunt for scarce jobs. It's a major poll issue here in General Elections 2024

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit