Across India, States are marching
towards total prohibition. Kerala has embarked शुरुआत की on a 10-year path to total prohibition, by first limiting the
sale of “hard liquor” to five-star bars and restaurants and gradually reducing
the number of sale points. Bihar initiated a two-step plan, with a ban on
country liquor effective from April 1, followed just days later with a
prohibition on the sale of Indian Made Foreign Liquor, bureaucratese for
everything other than country brew(boiling
water so as to extract the flavor). Indeed, in a sign of the moral panic
that grips political parties at the mention of prohibition, the Bihar
Assembly’s successful adoption of the Bill banning country liquor was accompanied के साथ by a unanimous resolution by MLAs that they
would not consume alcohol. Now a similar competitiveness is playing out in the
Tamil Nadu Assembly election campaign. The ruling AIADMK has countered the
DMK’s pledge to turn the State dry by affirming a graded shift. This is not the
first time India has grappled with the social consequences परिणामों of
alcohol consumption, such as alcoholism, indebtedness and domestic violence.
For example, vestiges
अवशेष of
prohibition-era practices survive in States such as Maharashtra, though the law
tends to realistically look the other way; Gujarat of course continues to remain
dry. In recent decades, States such as Haryana and undivided Andhra Pradesh
adopted a prohibitory regime, but abandoned त्यागा हुआ it soon after. Whether the current spate of
prohibition legislation will sustain is unclear. But once again, the populist
solution of prohibition is being offered without attendant focus on the social
problems that it seeks to address.
The creep of the nanny state to
guard citizens from their worst selves खुद को, , or at least their lack of
self-discipline, is worrying. It is perhaps the overhang of the Gandhian spirit
of the Directive Principles of State Policy in the Constitution that inhibits
politicians and civil society from shedding hypocrisy and initiating public
advocacy of moderation. However, there is a pragmatic case against prohibition
as well. Banning the sale and consumption of alcohol has, in this country’s
experience, not been an effective check against its use. It has only
criminalised the activity, with disastrous consequences for individual health,
the economy and administration — these include bootlegging, liquor mafias,
spurious liquor, and a complicit police. It also deprives वंचित States of an important source of revenue. For
instance, in Tamil Nadu nearly Rs.30,000 crore, or over a quarter of its
revenue in 2015-16, came from taxes on the sale of alcohol and excise on
manufacturing spirits. This income has enabled successive regimes from 2006
onwards to splurge
शेख़ी on
social sector schemes, especially the trademark programmes to supply free rice
to nearly all ration card holders, distribute consumer goods and maintain its
pioneering nutritious noon meal scheme for all children in government and aided
schools and anganwadis. Certainly, alternative sources of revenue must be found
if prohibition can virtuously नैतिक
रूप
से,
magically transform society. That case has, however, not been made, in argument
or by experience.
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