The Big Story: Bottling Bacchus 

The Cassandras warned of it as soon as Nitish Kumar’s government moved to ban alcohol in the state of Bihar. On the night of Independence Day, 16 people died from consuming spurious liquor in Gopalganj district in Bihar. Speaking to the Indian Express, the father of one of the deceased said, “Had IMFL [Indian Made Foreign Liquor, or factory-made liquor] been available, my son would have been alive today. I could not convince my son to stop drinking but good-quality liquor would not have killed him.”

It should not take 16 deaths to prove this point but, of course, this was known long before Kumar decided to implement prohibition. Legal clampdowns on liquor do not end it – they only drive the industry underground. The rich pay extra for bottles of alcohol while the poor have to make do with moonshine and hooch – which, without the quality control of formal industry, can often result it tragedies such as this one.

Gujarat has had prohibition since 1960 and it is common knowledge that alcohol is available freely. Prohibition, though, has resulted in a thriving bootlegging industry. What could gave been a profitable industry, filling the coffers of the state, is now fuelling corruption and criminals. The United States experimented with prohibition in the 1920s, only to see rising crime rates.

Yet, the lure of the headlines from implementing probation makes it a lucrative tool for politicians. Passing laws on banning things might not work ­– but the image of them doing something makes politicians go for it again and against. Even as a state like Mizoram ended its 17-year-old prohibition law in 2014, states like Bihar and Kerala paid no heed to this lesson and went ahead and put in their own curbs. And it isn't only India. Even in the United States, while there is no probation on alcohol anymore, the same moral logic has now dictated a “War on Drugs”, prohibition on drugs, which has again ruined large parts of American society without doing anything to actually stop the flow of drugs.

In the end, Bihari, Malayali and Gujarati voters will have to wise up and reject gimmicks from their politicians. Tackling issues such as domestic abuse or addiction requires serious, long-term efforts. Voters have to make sure that the PR-driven efforts to find a silver bullet in the form of a blanket prohibition law does not end up hijacking their communities.

The Big Scroll

  1. Why states should not ban liquor if they want to control it.
  2. Nitish Kumar admits prohibition hasn't worked – so he wants to punish people until it does.
  3. A history lesson for Nitish Kumar: prohibition does not work (yet demands for prohibition are growing louder in Tamil Nadu).
  4. The long and twisted history of prohibition in Tamil Nadu.
  5. Bihar’s attempt to ban liquor has lessons for Tamil Nadu (and other states considering prohibition).

Political Picks

  1. Una, Gujarat’s centre of Dalit protests, fears an upper caste backlash for its resistance.
  2. After criticising gau rakshaks, Narendra Modi course corrects and reaffirms his a commitment to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ideology.
  3. The story of Gilgit-Baltistan: Snatched by the British and then occupied by Pakistan.
  4. The Union government is set to revise wildlife and forest laws – a move that would a direct bearing on adivasi rights.
  5. How Omran Daqneesh, 5, became a symbol of Syria’s suffering.

Punditry

  1. In Frontline, AG Noorani criticises Pakistan-founder Mohamed Ali Jinnah’s refusal to accept an Indian offer for a plebiscite in Kashmir in 1948.
  2. The most important policy issue facing India as a nation today is the draft version of the National Education Policy 2016, says Shubhashish Gangopadhyay in the Telegraph.
  3. In Kafila, Arvind Elangovan asks whether the Indian Constitution speaks for a nation.

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Don't Miss

Aarefa Johari writes about the next act in Gujarat's Dalit uprising: Plans for mass conversions to Buddhism.

The untouchability, said Bhupat Rathod, continues even today. Dalit labourers are forced to carry their own cups to work and money is thrown at them instead of being placed in their hands. “With this kind of treatment, I would have been ready to convert to Islam too," he said. "The gau rakshaks beat up Muslims and Dalits both, but at least they allow Muslims into their homes.”