The fight against drugs cannot be won by government alone
In Chandigarh, Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria has issued a call that reaches beyond the machinery of law enforcement — an appeal for society itself to become the remedy. With nearly 23,000 arrests made under the 'Yudh Nashian Virudh' campaign, the state has demonstrated it can act, but Kataria understands that enforcement alone cannot uproot what culture and despair have planted. His outreach to singers, religious leaders, schools, and ordinary communities reflects an older wisdom: that lasting change travels not through courts and prisons, but through the stories a people tell about who they are and who they wish to become.
- Punjab's drug crisis runs deep enough that 23,000 arrests have not resolved it — the governor himself acknowledges that the machinery of law is necessary but insufficient.
- Kataria's meeting with beloved singer Gurdas Maan signals a deliberate pivot: if young people won't heed a government poster, perhaps they will listen to a voice they already love.
- The governor has walked on foot through Gurdaspur, Amritsar, and Jalandhar districts — not as ceremony, but as a visible act of presence in the communities where the problem is most alive.
- Schools, universities, NGOs, and religious organizations have all been drawn into the campaign's architecture, building a web of influence that enforcement alone could never weave.
- The unresolved question hanging over all of it: whether sustained collective will can outlast the powerful economic forces that keep the drug trade alive in Punjab.
Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria delivered a pointed message in Chandigarh on Thursday: the state's anti-drug campaign cannot remain a government operation. It must become something the people own.
The 'Yudh Nashian Virudh' campaign has produced real numbers — nearly 23,000 peddlers arrested, significant narcotics seized, courts processing cases. But Kataria, who also administers the Union Territory of Chandigarh, has long understood that enforcement cycles and cultural change are not the same thing. Arrests can disrupt supply; they cannot, on their own, alter what a generation believes about its own future.
Earlier that day, Kataria had met with Gurdas Maan, the singer whose voice carries genuine weight in Punjab's collective life. The conversation was direct: influential people carry a responsibility to shape what their communities find desirable. Maan agreed to join awareness marches and lend his presence to the campaign — framing the fight not as a legal obligation but as a shared duty to protect the next generation.
This is the structure Kataria has spent the past year assembling — schools, universities, religious organizations, athletes, and cultural figures who can speak to young people in registers that resonate. He has also walked the ground himself, conducting a six-day padyatra through Gurdaspur and Amritsar, and a two-day march through Jalandhar — not as ceremony, but as a signal that the state's highest representative considers this worth his own time and feet.
Whether the combination of enforcement, celebrity reach, grassroots awareness, and personal commitment can actually shift the trajectory remains uncertain. Kataria is asking for something harder than any arrest: a change in what Punjab's young people believe is possible for themselves.
Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria stood before reporters in Chandigarh on Thursday with a simple but demanding message: the state's war on drugs cannot be won by government action alone. It must become a movement of the people themselves.
The numbers, at least, suggest the machinery is working. Under the state's 'Yudh Nashian Virudh' anti-drug campaign, authorities have arrested nearly 23,000 drug peddlers and seized narcotics in quantities large enough to matter. The police are making cases. The courts are processing them. But Kataria, who serves as both Punjab's governor and administrator of the Union Territory of Chandigarh, knows that arrests and seizures are not the same as change. A drug problem this deep requires something more durable than enforcement cycles.
Earlier that day, Kataria had met with Gurdas Maan, one of Punjab's most recognizable cultural figures, a singer whose voice carries weight in the state's collective consciousness. The conversation centered on a single premise: that influential people have a responsibility to shape what their communities believe is possible and desirable. Kataria pressed Maan to use his platform, his credibility, his reach among young people to argue against drug use not as a legal matter but as a question of dignity and future. Maan agreed. He committed to joining the awareness marches, to lending his name and presence to the campaign, framing the fight as a shared obligation to protect the next generation.
This is the architecture Kataria has been building for the past year. He has worked with schools and universities, with religious organizations and social groups, with athletes and other public figures who can speak to young people in languages that resonate. The strategy assumes something important: that a teenager is more likely to listen to someone she admires than to a police officer or a government poster. That culture moves faster than law.
Kataria himself has walked the ground. He conducted a six-day padyatra through Gurdaspur and Amritsar districts, moving on foot through communities, meeting people directly, listening to what they see and fear. He walked for two days through Jalandhar. These are not ceremonial strolls. They are attempts to be present in the spaces where the problem lives, to signal that this is not a distant bureaucratic concern but something the state's highest representative takes seriously enough to spend his own time on.
What remains unclear is whether this combination—enforcement, celebrity endorsement, grassroots awareness, and the governor's personal commitment—can actually bend the curve on drug use in a state where the problem has deep roots and powerful economic incentives behind it. Kataria is asking for something that requires sustained effort from thousands of people over years, not months. He is asking for a shift in what Punjab's young people believe about their own futures. That is harder than any arrest.
Citações Notáveis
The fight against drugs has to be turned into a people's movement— Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria
Protecting the youth from drugs is a shared responsibility, and I will contribute with my heart and soul to building a healthy, drug-free Punjab— Singer Gurdas Maan
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does the governor think this needs to become a 'people's movement' rather than just better policing?
Because you can arrest 23,000 peddlers and still lose. The supply chain regenerates. New people enter the trade. But if you change what young people believe—if you make drug use something shameful in their own communities, something their heroes speak against—then the demand itself shrinks.
And that's why he brought in Gurdas Maan specifically?
Maan is not a politician. He's a cultural figure. When a singer says something, it lands differently than when a governor says it. Young people listen to people they admire, not to authority figures.
The governor has been walking through districts himself. Does that actually change anything, or is it theater?
It's both. It signals priority. It creates moments where people can speak directly to him about what they're seeing. But more importantly, it shows he's not asking others to do something he won't do himself.
What's the hardest part of turning this into a real movement?
Sustaining it. Movements need constant energy. They need new voices, new reasons to care. In six months, the attention will fade unless something keeps it alive.
Do you think it will work?
I think it's the right approach. Whether it works depends on whether the state can keep the pressure on for years, not just months. And whether young people actually believe their futures are better without drugs than with them.