The punch of liquor lies in prohibition by Gujarat govt

Prohibition in Gujarat is full of paradoxes. Other than Mizoram, Gujarat is perhaps the only state where there is total prohibition of liquor. Yet liquor business in the state is the largest thriving enterprise and consumption of alcoholic drinks is high. Is it that the flourishing liquor trade is actually the result of prohibition?

Where else but in Gujarat is it possible - at least in theory - to witness a trial where the judge may have a liquor permit, lawyers of both sides have the permits too but the accused is being prosecuted for drinking?

Then there is the strange case of the hoarding near Mithakali Six-roads in Ahmedabad. The hoarding carried a warning for the people: "Do not drive cars, while drunk." Justice Keshabe of the Gujarat high court rebuked the government about this and the next day the hoarding disappeared. Experience has shown that stricter the law against drinking, higher is the price of illegal liquor and greater are the profits. Strict laws also increase the temptation to drink and add excitement to the lure of intoxication.

Farmhouse parties and house parties with abundant liquor are not limited to year-end celebrations in Gujarat. The fact is, they take place all the year round and are quite common. Everyone knows where liquor is available and one can have any brand of alcohol, desi or foreign, anytime. Yet only the state government, the prohibition minister, the DGP and the police seem unaware of this.

Some time back, booing and shouting by the audience at a qawwali programme in Premabhai Hall near Bhadra in Ahmedabad attracted the attention of police. The uproar was over the delay in start of the qawwali, apparently because the organisers had gone out to get liquor for the singer. The police were surprised and reportedly told the organisers: "You should have come to the police station nearby. You would have got the liquor."

Ironically, the only champions and supporters of the prohibition law (besides Gandhians and social activists) are the police and the bootleggers in Gujarat and the adjoining districts of other states. The non-enforcement of the law is well-planned and the result of a tacit understanding between the law enforcers and the law-breakers.

The haftas (weekly payoffs) flow regularly and smoothly from the bottom to the top in government and police department. Regular raids on liquor dens and bootleggers, and arrest and imprisonment of offenders, are mere drama which provide the police with some good publicity. For, the truth is that the liquor mafias ensure that families of arrested or jailed bootleggers are not short of money while the hafta collection continues. This has been a regular feature of prohibition in Gujarat from the beginning. It is estimated that the money involved in illicit liquor business is almost equal to the loss in excise and customs duty of the state exchequer.

What a mockery of Gandhi! Had the Mahatma been alive, he would have been the first to demand the repeal of the Prohibition Act rather than let people live with hypocrisy and corruption. Heavy consumption of liquor is a serious problem, both in the developed and the developing nations, with serious consequences for public health and the social system. How to curb, control or minimize the consumption of liquor continues to be a major challenge.

Legal prohibition has not worked anywhere; it only leads to bootlegging, illegal activities, widespread corruption, reduced respect for the law and abuse of youths as carriers of liquor. The US had a very bad experience with prohibition. We, in Gujarat, are experiencing it every day. Traditional societies continue to drink, the poor drink to forget their hardships while the affluent are drinking as never before in the name of modernity.

Doctors say that moderate drinking may be good for health. But no one knows when 'moderate' becomes 'excessive', no one really knows. Nobody has time for a silent social revolution where people can enjoy life without getting drunk.

The problem has become much more difficult when drink parties are projected as an inseparable part of the modernisation process. Yet, we are not helpless.

If we want a more sober society and truly happy men and women, we have to go for a multi-pronged attack on the evil - a combination of satyagraha, planned use of legal regulations for minimizing the use of liquor, de-glamourising drinking and challenging the very concept of the so-called development and modernisation.

The author is an eminent lawyer and human rights activist