There is increased acceptance to women smokers in society



                   India is now home to second highest number of women smokers globally, after the US. According to a study published in the prestigious British Medical Journal (now officially known as BMJ), about 70% of adult males in India smoke. Among adult females, the figure is much lower, somewhere between 13-15%. But the number of female smokers has increased drastically from 1980 to 2012. The main drawback in assessing data for Indian smokers is that such smoking research data is sparse and incomplete. Whereas in the western world, the smokers' profile has been very precisely documented. 

So, I am a girl and I smoke. I try not to hide the fact that I do. Now, before I go any further on this topic, here is the disclaimer – my intention isn’t to glorify smoking. It is a health hazard that can have a serious impact. I literally experience it every day, when I climb the stairs or run to catch a bus or an auto. But, what can I say? I am just a flawed human.

Now, every smoker is always bombarded with advice from non-smokers about the hazards of smoking. However, for men, the advice is generally limited to health concerns, whereas for women it becomes a matter of character, morality and modesty. I am ‘fast’, ‘loose’ and ‘arrogant’. Why? Since I am a girl who smokes and is unapologetic about it.



‘Women should have the right to smoke.’

             Many might find this a weird feminist stance. ‘Are you really fighting for the right to harm one’s body?’ The answer to that is, not at all, no feminist movement aims to damage lungs. The struggle is about the right to choose for your own body, irrespective of what that choice may be.

Smoking kills, this we know. But for several women in urban India, not smoking isn’t always an informed, health-conscious choice. Often it’s not a choice at all, it’s a social construct. And for many who do choose to smoke, it’s a struggle or a secret you’re forced to keep.

From judgmental gynaecologists to the norm that reproduction is the tax every woman must pay for being born, for centuries societal pressure has been waging a war on a woman’s right to decide for her own body – and smoking isn’t any different. Whether it’s the closing scene in Alankrita Shrivastava’s Lipstick Under my Burkha or Lisa Haydon’s portrayal of a ‘free, liberated women’ in Queen, even Bollywood speaks of the emancipatory notion of the choice to smoke.


From answering a cigarette seller as to why I am buying a pack of cigarettes and who is going to smoke it, to people gawking shamelessly, passing judgemental comments and often being subjected to hardcore moral policing, the struggle is real. Women would look at each other with scandalised expressions, men would grin knowingly, young group of girls would giggle, young group of boys would call their friends to show them the spectacle and elderly people would instantly tag it as the leading cause of the decay of our generation. Often, it is empowering to think that me and my cigarette capable of single-handedly bringing down our civilisation and ‘culture’.




Even a few people with genuine concerns about my health advised me to stop smoking because it might interfere with my procreating abilities. The health advice for the men who smoke is generally restricted to the fear of lung damage. Though both concerns are scientifically valid for men and women, those people are okay with me having a damaged lung but definitely not a damaged reproductive system. Me not breathing is fine, as long as I can produce babies. Talk about choosing the lesser evil.

As a smoker, I sincerely hope that the cigarette does not possess the ability to tell the gender of its patron. And if it does, my life is in a great danger. Much, much more, than that of my fellow smokers from the other gender.



For decades, several Indian tobacco companies introduced women in cigarette advertisements in order to capture that same untapped market. Before the Act outlawing cigarette product advertising was implemented, in April of 2003 Golden Tobacco Company’s new line of Platinum cigarettes was launched specifically for women with an insert in the Mid Day titled ‘Understanding Women’. ITC Ltd, India’s leader in tobacco, identified women as a market and began to run print advertisements for Gold Flake Filter Kings which picturised a group of both men and women. Not to mention the famous Wills‘ ‘Made for Each Other’ campaign advertising Navy Cut cigarettes with the faces of a happy couple.




The trend of curbing a woman’s freedom exists across India in many colours and shapes, this is a fact. While the act of smoking itself is not a liberator or emancipator for women, despite what big tobacco would have us believe, the freedom of choice to smoke or not to smoke, is.