The school courtyard is louder than usual. A group of teenagers stand in a semicircle, some holding hand-painted banners and others mid-dialogue in a street play. Their voices rise in unison: a warning against drugs, a plea for a better future.

At the edge of the crowd, 49-year-old Lata Devi watches quietly. There’s no applause from her, no interruption, just a faint and relieved smile.

For a moment, her eyes linger on the children, on their confidence, their clarity, their refusal to look away from a problem that once consumed their villages. In those small hands gripping banners, she sees something she had once only hoped for: change taking root.

“I want the youth to be stronger and more focused towards building a better future for themselves,” she tells The Better India. 

Watching them now, it feels like that dream is inching closer to reality.

Across her district in Himachal Pradesh and five villages under her former panchayat, the grip of drugs has begun to loosen. But this story doesn’t begin here.

It begins with a quiet alarm, a growing crisis, and a woman who refuses to ignore it.

When a silent crisis took hold

In Himachal Pradesh’s Hamirpur district, drug use didn’t arrive with noise; it crept in quietly. What began as occasional alcohol abuse among young men slowly evolved into something far more dangerous. By the late 2010s, ‘chitta’ — a cheap, highly addictive form of heroin (drug)  had started circulating through villages.

At first, there were whispers. Then, it became a pattern — young boys skipping school, turning suddenly aggressive at home, even stealing from their own families to sustain their addiction. Over time, the consequences grew more severe; as dependency deepened, many lost control and some, tragically, lost their lives. 

“There were sudden deaths of young boys, most times in mysterious circumstances, probably due to overdose,” recalls former Superintendent of Police IPS Bhagat Thakur, who served in the district until late 2024.

The problem wasn’t just addiction; it was invisibility. Families hesitated to report, and children stayed silent, and in those close-knit rural communities, denial often ran deep.

It was around this time, back in 2014, that a homemaker named Lata Devi began noticing something was off.

A homemaker who refused to look away

Lata Devi’s world, at the time, was largely confined to her home. Married into a conservative joint family in Hamirpur, she spent years navigating social restrictions. But 2014 marked a quiet turning point.

She began volunteering with a local NGO, Asha Deep Jan Sanstha, supporting girls’ education and helping families with basic needs.

“We used to help with small things, right from fees to support during marriages; around 70–80 people worked together,” she recalls.

It was through this work that she began noticing the early signs of drug abuse inside homes. Whether........

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