The world's biggest smoking ban came into force in India yesterday - but try telling that to Om Prakash, an affable motorcycle policeman patrolling south Bombay in the midday sun.

His ears muffled by his enormous crash helmet, Constable Prakash misheard The Times query: whether he had yet fined any itinerant smokers caught lighting up in a public place.

Instead, he thought that the request was for directions to a suitable spot to enjoy a cigarette. “Yes sir, over there at bus stop. Sit down. Most comfortable,” he said, flashing a smile. “But surely smoking in public is now illegal? And isn't smoking at bus stands explicitly prohibited?” The Times asked.

“Which country?” Constable Prakash asked, cheerfully oblivious. “UK? Very good.” He gave a thumbs up as he zoomed off into the traffic.

If Gandhi had not been cremated, he would be turning in his grave.

The Mahatma forced the British to quit India while on a diet that seldom strayed beyond goats' milk and lentils. A struggle to give up smoking as a young man convinced him of the evils of nicotine and the ban was brought in to coincide with the anniversary of his birthday. It seems certain that he would be dismayed by estimates that 40 per cent of India's health problems are caused by tobacco.

Not even the most ardent supporters of the smoking ban, which forbids about 1.2 billion Indians from lighting up in restaurants, bars, offices and other public spaces, dared to hope that it would be implemented rigorously. “It will require a shift in the civic mindset,” Dr K. Srinath Reddy, the president of the Public Health Foundation of India, said. “This will take time.”

Such pragmatism is born of experience. India has already outlawed spitting and urinating in public to little noticeable effect. Across the country, even traffic lights command only cursory attention. Other efforts to dissuade antisocial behaviour, such as the recent “Anti-Honking Day” in Bombay - a plea for drivers to make less use of their car horns - have fizzled out.

Even those charged with upholding the new smoking diktat seem unenthused by it. Nimbalkar Parab, a policeman found enjoying an afternoon cup of chai at the roadside in Nariman Point, the commercial district of Bombay, said that he had no intention of fining anyone the 200 rupees (£2.40) that smoking in public is now supposed to attract. “If the Government wants to end smoking, why doesn't it close down the cigarette companies?” he asked.

There were places where the rule was in force. The barmen in the five-star hotels in Bombay, among the few places selling alcohol yesterday - Gandhi's birthday is a “dry day” in India - were policing it fiercely.

“Rules are meant to be broken, right?” said Matthew Thomas, 42, an American expat. He had hardly raised his expensive cigar to his lips before two barmen at the Opium Den bar in the Oberoi hotel had rushed over to apologise that he would not be allowed to light it.

Experts said, however, that it was the vast poor and often illiterate population of India, people who will never set foot inside a five-star hotel, who are most at risk from the smoking-related diseases that are sweeping the country.

In the less salubrious neighbourhoods of Bombay it was a very different story. In Grant Road, the centre of the red-light district, a request for an ashtray at one backstreet drinking den was met with a sneer. “Stub it on the floor,” the proprietor advised. “You need a light?”

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