In the light of Maharashtra's prospective Alcohol Ban, why it makes sense, and why it doesn't.

Source: web.cortland.edu

      On the morning of the 24^th of July, news reports of Maharashtra CM, Devendra Fadnavis, suggesting an all-state liquor ban surfaced, instantly sending the internet into a state of panic. Facebook and twitter immediately reacted, with a barrage of shares of news articles, and innumerable cusses directed at the Government. What would the state ever do without alcohol! We'd have hundreds of youngsters flocking to Silvassa every weekend, just to have a drink. By the same evening, reports of how the Chief Minister had declared that there will not be a ban were out, and the internet was calm once more.

      But, the debate of whether or not alcohol should be banned anywhere, is deep, real, and very complex. For every decision the Government takes, there is a great amount of thought that is put in, and it is necessary to dissect that thought to see how much sense it makes to an individual.

      In relation to whether or not alcohol should be banned in Maharashtra, the first step we could take is picking up from what the Chief Minister said in his statement. "We will impose the [liquor] ban across the state after studying the results of the same currently imposed in three districts in the state." Liquor is a banned commodity in the districts of Wardha, Gadchiroli and Chandrapur. What is the scene here?

In the banned states

      Gadchiroli has been liquor-free (on paper) since 1992, Wardha, from somewhere around 1998, and Chandrapur, recently, on the 1^st of April this year.  

      In Chandrapur, the ban was the result of extensive protests by several activists, and groups of women. Alcoholism had become one of the district’s biggest problems. According to social activist Paromita Goswami, increase in alcohol consumption led to families being destroyed. Even schoolchildren took to drinking, and women and girls felt unsafe in public places. She added that unlicensed liquor was being smuggled into Wardha and Gadchiroli as well, through supply networks.

      Although the ban was supposed to save the districts from rampant alcoholism, things aren't going too smoothly.

      To begin with, country liquor is STILL a major problem in the three districts. In Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (MGIMS), Wardha, anywhere between 30%-50% of the patients in the indoor psychiatric ward are alcoholics, undergoing de-addiction treatment. These are statistics from 2011. We are talking about a point in time around thirteen years after the ban was implemented. Dr. Prakash Behere, head of the psychiatric department, said that most of the patients undergoing de-addiction treatment are manufacturers of country liquor themselves, and hence, get addicted really easily.

      An activist from Chandrapur, Bandu Dhotre, said that even though the ban exists, illicit liquor trade is thriving, and since it is not within legal purview, there is no regulation as to the quality of liquor.

      In Yavatmal, a police officer was stoned to death, when he attempted to intervene in illegal liquor trade.  

The Issue of Illicit Alcohol

      While alcoholism is a bane in several aspects, it is a necessity for some as well. In the words of social activist Vikas Amte, “Why people drink is an issue which must be addressed first. Labourers do hard work, and liquor and substance abuse are a panacea easily available to them... to forget the exploitation of labour, grief and pain." It is, hence, safe to say that alcohol is a need and therefore, alcohol will be consumed.

      Let us look at where the alcohol comes from. One lot of it comes from licensed breweries and registered brands, which are under the regulation of the government, while the other lot comes from local bootleggers, brewed without a licence, with unknown ingredients, which does not exist in the eyes of the government until discovered; more popularly known as hooch in the country.

      Every state has its own, indigenous hooch production units, irrespective if there exists a ban in the state or no. Be it the Hooch Tragedy in Mumbai this year, where alcohol isn't banned yet, or the Hooch Tragedy in Gujarat in 2009, where it is; people are victims to illicit alcohol everywhere. So that goes to prove a point; that alcohol obtained from unreliable and unregulated sources (not alcohol as a whole) is where the problem lies.

      Moreover, in Mumbai, even though 117 excise raids were conducted over a span of 18 months in the Malvani region, hooch continued to flow in. So why is there still a good market for hooch, despite a threat from the state, and the availability of good alcohol? Because it is cheap; hence, it is the alcohol of the masses.

Going the Dutch Way

      The Netherlands, regarded as one of the world’s most liberal countries, has adopted a very liberal drug policy. They legalised the use of Cannabis in coffeeshops in the country. What that did, was diversify the industry, give consumers multiple options to choose from, and limit their usage to just when they were in the coffee shops (since that’s where you got the best stuff).  As asserted by Marten Pieters (ex-CEO, Vodafone India, who was born and grew up in the Netherlands) while addressing a crowd of Indian students, most people there don't even consume Cannabis. But for those who choose to, there is always a safe alternative. On the other hand, in India, people smoke cannabis that is laced with substances like Opium, shoe-polish and rat poison. That takes the whole concept of inhaling toxic fumes to a whole new level!

      The popular argument is that government regulation works better than to ban a dangerous product, because where a market exists, there will continue to be a supply. But it is hardly as easy to govern India as is the Netherlands.

What Ameena thinks

      In conclusion, I would like to thank Ameena, my friend, and house-help, for giving me a direction to write this article in. Before I started working on this, I asked Ameena what she thought of the prospective ban. She replied, “Nahi karenge kuch,” (they won’t do anything.) When I prodded on and asked her why, and to elaborate on what she thought, she told me that whether or not they ban commercial alcohol, it is of no consequence to the public. She went on to tell a story of how she saw alcohol being made in her area when she was younger. A ditch of water; out of which dogs and strays drank, people answering nature’s call nearby, garbage strewn all over; this was the same water used to make alcohol. Whether or not you fell ill drinking it didn’t make a difference. The only way the alcohol ban made sense to her is if it meant that this unhygienic desi daaru was done away with, and what an articulate thought it is!

Opinion: How I see it, is that alcoholism is as much of a priority as healthcare, education and the likes. From when I taught underprivileged children at Asha for Education, Powai (thank you, St. Xavier’s College, for making social involvement a compulsory credit for graduation,) I saw the pain in children whose parents were alcoholics, and extreme pride in children whose parents were not. Addiction to alcohol has the ability to break families and kill relationships; which is probably why we hear of so many stories of how women go out and work hard, only for their husbands to blow the money up in buying alcohol.

My goal in saying is that it is just as important as the aforementioned, is to say that it needs budget allocation too. Probably, one way of working things out could be, that alcohol permits be made mandatory, and work in a way that: no individual can buy more than a specified amount of alcohol in a specified amount of time, and be sold in some areas at prices as low as, or lower than, illicit alcohol. This may, gradually, lead to the death of the hooch industry.

      I have no research to back my suggestion, and this is purely a shot I the dark. Mayhaps, nothing will ever change. But I surely do hope that the seriousness of the issue isn’t lost in the extreme grief of going dry eternally in the state. I, for one, got to understand a whole new dimension while writing this article.