Joginder Singh
Mahatma Gandhi believed that the consumption of alcohol was a major social evil. He encouraged complete prohibition in India. With this in mind, the framers of the Constitution of India included Article 47 in the Directive Principles of State Policy, which reads: “The state shall endeavour to bring about prohibition of the use except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health.”
In deference to the Mahatma’s wishes, various states, including what was at that time the Madras Province and Bombay State, passed strict liquor laws. It has been rightly said that all of us like to make our own mistakes before realising the futility of our actions.
This was true in the US as well. Between 1920 and 1933, the American Government prohibited alcohol nationally with a view to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene.
The results of that experiment clearly indicated that it was a miserable failure on all counts. According to one analyst, “Men were drinking defiantly, with a sense of high purpose, a kind of dedicated drinking that you don’t see much of today… There were 10 times more places one could get a drink during Prohibition than there had been before”.
Another setback for prohibitionists was their loss of control over the location of drinking establishments. Before Prohibition, social activists and prohibitionists had used local ordinances and taxes, licensing laws and regulations, and local-option laws to prevent, regulate or discourage the sale of alcohol in the city centre, near churches and schools, on Sundays and election days, and in their neighbourhoods.
Prohibition eliminated those political tools. Instead, consumption of alcohol spread through speakeasy restaurants, in business districts, middle-class neighbourhoods, and other locations that were formerly dry, or gave the appearance of being dry.
Prohibition also led many people to drink more ‘legitimate’ alcohol, such as patent medicines (which contained high concentrations of alcohol), medicinal alcohol, and sacramental alcohol. The amount of alcoholic liquors sold by physicians and hospitals doubled between 1923 and 1931. The amount of medicinal alcohol (95 per cent pure alcohol) sold increased by 400 per cent during the same time. Those increases occurred despite many rigorous regulations.
At the beginning of Prohibition in the US, a priest stirred audiences with this optimistic prediction that, “The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile and children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent”.
But unfortunately, none of these expectations were realised. The policy of blaming liquor for everything, from diseases to crime to poverty and broken homes, was an absolute failure. In fact, America had experienced a gradual decline in the rate of serious crimes over much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. That trend was reversed by Prohibition.
When this author joined the Indian Police Service in 1961, Prohibition laws existed in Mysore, or what is now called Karnataka, as well as in many other places. As an IPS trainee, the author had to go with his fellow officers on Prohibition raids to stop the sale and manufacture of liquor.
I once asked my senior police officer why we conducted the raids mostly in the last week of the month. He said that it was done for show, so that entries could be made in the diary proving how the police was seriously enforcing the law. He also said that it had become an easy source of illegal gratification for junior cops and a few odd senior police officers.
Now Prohibition is being brought back to India. Kerala, with the highest per capita consumers of liquor, will implement Prohibition in a phased manner. Liquor bars in Kerala have to renew licenses every year but since the State Government has not issued any licenses since 31st March, 418 bars have had to shut down.
Starting 1st April, 2015, liquor will only be available in five-star hotels in the State. There are 14 five-star hotels in the State as of August this year. Toddy, which has an alcohol content of less than 10 per cent, will continue to be legally sold. Every Sunday will be a dry day. Kerala applies the highest State tax on liquor (around 120 per cent). This revenue, which amounted to about Rs5500.39 crore in 2009-2010, will now be lost. In fact, more than 40 per cent of the State’s annual budget revenue comes from liquor sales.
Kerala also has the highest per capita liquor consumption, over eight litres (1.76 gallons) per person a year in the nation, overtaking traditionally heavy drinking States like Punjab and Haryana. Rum and brandy are the preferred drinks in Kerala even though in other parts of the country, whisky outsells every other liquor.
Dry days are specific days when the sale of alcohol is prohibited. Dry Days are fixed by the State Government. Most Indian States observe dry days on major religious festivals/occasions, depending on the popularity of the festival in that region. National holidays such as Republic Day (January 26), Independence Day (August 15) and Gandhi Jayanti (October 2) are usually dry days throughout India.
States like Tamil Nadu, Mizoram, Haryana, Nagaland Manipur and Karnataka have imposed and relaxed Prohibition in the country often with disastrous consequences for State revenue. Nowhere in the world has legislating morality succeeded. Sinners cannot become saints because the law says that everybody should become a saint or have saintly traits. The job of the Government is to govern, not to tell an individual as to what is good or bad for him. If somebody still commits foolishness, social scientists and activists can seek to help him or her out of the mess.
The tradition of liquor consumption has existed in our country right from the dawn of history. Also, religion has nothing to do with alcohol consumption, though some people believe drinking is immoral.
Prohibition is an off and on policy in our country. It is about enforcing morality. Prohibition does not mean that people will stop drinking. They will merely find other avenues to do so, like going to neighbouring States for binge drinking and storing alcohol in bottles meant for non-alcoholic drinks.
