PROHIBITION IN KERALA : A RETROGRADE
STEP
BY AJIT NAIR
The proposal to
impose Prohibition in Kerala is a retrograde step indeed. It may possibly help
in winning the next election, as any emotive and divisive step could (and it is
both), but the State will pay a heavy price – in the short term certainly, and
maybe for decades to come. It’s certainly not a well-thought through decision. It
is as if politicians refuse to learn lessons from the bitter experiences of
other States in India and of other Countries. Kerala has the highest per capita
consumption of alcohol in India and steps must be taken to curb it – but
to impose Prohibition is to throw the baby out with the bathwater; a
dangerously simplistic solution to Alcoholism.
Oommen Chandy’s
stated aims are laudable – they relate to crime, health; and most notably
productivity. And so too is his unstated aim – to prevent the poor from wasting
their meagre emoluments on alcohol to the detriment of their family’s
well-being. As also drunken ill-treatment of wives, who presumably will all
vote for the Congress. But his method smacks of a sheer desire to win the
upcoming election and then repeal Prohibition when its widespread ill-effects start
to become tangible, since he’s too intelligent not to know the consequences.
And since he’s prepared no grounds by taking other actions to address the
problems he mentions.
The case of the
United States of America is illustrative. They imposed Prohibition in 1920 till
1933. It led to the rise of “La Cosa Nostra”, an FBI pseudonym for the Mafia,
who amassed so much wealth and power during those years that they dominated
American crime for most of the 20th Century. When Prohibition was
repealed in 1933, their vast assets (money and the well-organised Syndicates)
were astutely redeployed in prostitution, narcotics, extortion and in every
other aspect of organised crime, including organised murder. Their power
weakened only in the late 20th Century with the sensational disclosures
and testimony of Joe Valachi, a Syndicate member, who broke the Mob’s ‘omerta’,
the code of silence.
And drinking in USA
in the Prohibition years certainly didn’t stop – it merely reduced marginally and
went underground, leading to large-scale smuggling, huge loss of revenue for
the State (but a spurt in revenue for Canada and Mexico), a rise in home-made
‘stills’ and spurious liquor (and consequently deaths from it), increased crime
because of gang and turf wars, a surge in costs and potency of liquor (because
of reduced availability), problems of law-enforcement (including massive corruption
among politicians and law enforcement agencies) and the end of Self-help
societies. Prohibition created a black market that competed with the formal
economy, in sheer size and volume – unseen and below the surface, but
virulently malevolent.
With such
well-documented evidence available on the destructive nature of Prohibition,
it’s a wonder that first Andhra Pradesh and then Haryana briefly experimented
with and then quickly repealed Prohibition, after starting to experience
the same consequences. Worse in their cases, because a Country can seal its
borders to some extent; a State cannot. A classic case of “a fool learns from his own
experiences, a wise man learns from the experience of others”.
Gujarat is the
only State in India that has had an unbroken Prohibition law since its creation
in May 1960, presumably to honour its greatest citizen – Mahatma Gandhi. From
all the written evidence available, Gujarat faces the same problems that the US
did (albeit, in lesser measure) and reportedly, alcohol is freely available in
the State. Because there is no excise duty on alcohol, IMFL (regular brands) in
Gujarat is cheaper than in the rest of the Country inspite of being smuggled in
(unlike in the US, where it became costlier – because Duty on alcohol in India
is very high; at 30 – 50 %). Today, Prohibition is so deeply entrenched and such
a lucrative business for all the important players, including politicians and
the law enforcement agencies, that it can never be lifted.
Tamil Nadu,
which had Prohibition since even before Independence and lifted it briefly in
the 70’s, 80’s and the 90’s, finally repealed it in 2001. Excise Minister
Viswanathan informed the Assembly in August this year “the State government is
aware of the ills of liquor, but it allows regulated sales only to prevent
hooch tragedies, and because of the impracticality of total prohibition. With
no prohibition in force in the neighbouring states, Tamil Nadu cannot go for
it, as it would result in flow of liquor into the state from Kerala, Puducherry
and Karnataka.” Shortly, it will be a flow from TN to Kerala, since only three
districts in Kerala do not have a contiguous border with Tamil Nadu (or
Karnataka).
In AP, Chief
Minister N T Rama Rao imposed prohibition in the State on January 16, 1995 and
his son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu continued the policy after taking over as Chief
Minister by dethroning NTR. But on April 1, 1997, Naidu lifted Prohibition. His
contention was that the sale of liquor was fetching as much as Rs 3,000 crore
per annum to the State and that could be spent on various welfare schemes in
the State (and drinkers be damned !!). In fact, during the Prohibition years,
AP went into debt and had to borrow at prohibitive rates from private banks.
Does Kerala insist on wanting to be the
next crucible of this vitiating experiment ? Which has invariably failed ?
Can’t it learn from AP and from the most recent failure – Haryana ?
Prohibition was imposed
between 1996 and 1998 for a period of 19 months by Chief Minister Bansi Lal,
based upon an election promise he had made to his voters. The illegal trade in
liquor from Uttar Pradesh and Punjab spawned a mafia-like network that had the
protection of politicians in the state. After a drubbing in the Lok Sabha
elections for Bansi Lal's HVP, prohibition was reversed in Haryana. To offset
the loss of revenue, the government raised taxes and fees for various
state-provided services – power tariff was increased by 10-50%, bus fares by
25%, and petrol sales tax by 3%. New taxes were levied on businesses and
self-employed people. There was an alarming increase in deaths, resulting from
the consumption of spurious liquor especially by the poor. Illicit brewing and
liquor smuggling into the State became one of the biggest industries in the
state.
The effect of
Prohibition on Law enforcement is extreme. When politicians need money to fight
elections, they turn to the Mafia and thereafter become indebted to them and
protect them. Honest policemen register myriad cases against violators, while
dishonest ones feather their nest. The Judicial system breaks down – in the
face of thousands of complaints, and prosecution of the guilty is rare. Since
there is no special Police force to fight Prohibition, demands on them become exorbitant.
Law
enforcement therefore becomes the first casualty and Prohibition can never be
effectively enforced.
Occasional,
casual or moderate drinking is certainly not ethically or morally wrong by any reasonable
standards, even of health (though not by some religious standards). In the
absence of alcohol – ganja, heroin and other psychotropic substances will gain
currency. And these will have a much greater negative impact, in addition to
being cheaper. The ways to counter the impact of Alcoholism are laid out by the
WHO – education, banning of advertising (even ambiguous advertising, which is
prevalent), age limits, time limits and availability, and increasing social
awareness are some of the methods advocated. In Kerala, Labour reforms are
sorely needed – to induce some industrialization and are the solution to low
productivity and unemployment – since Tourism, on which Kerala is heavily
dependent will take a huge hit, because of Prohibition. In a lose-lose
situation, the State will lose heavily on revenue, and illegal hooch makers,
smugglers and distributors will gain immensely and the poor will suffer. Oommen
Chandy’s stated laudable aims relating to crime, health and productivity can
never be achieved. Crime will increase, and neither health nor productivity
will be affected. No hard-core drinker will give up, only the moderates, who in
any case were doing no harm – to themselves or to others.
The “Kerala
Model” has unique social positives, because while its GDP and per capita income
are low even by Indian standards, its Human Indices are more akin to the USA
than to India. It is this ‘Model’ which made the UNDP work on HDI as the basic
for developmental policies, rather than GDP. Even the Millennium Development
Goals incorporate many of the “Kerala Model's” unique features. It is these enormous
social strengths that eradicated illiteracy, that the Govt must work on to
combat the scourge of Alcohol, rather than banning it – an easy but totally ineffective method, smacking of
ulterior motives.
In the final
analysis, making illegal what many people really like to do is
counter-productive. If someone wants to drink – rich or poor, then he will drink – come hell
or high water. The desire to not want to drink or to drink in moderation must
come from within and can never be imposed from without.
The Goal of the Govt and of Social Reform
groups must be to try and instill this desire in the common man.