A Madhya Pradesh Minister hogged international headlines last summer when he gifted washing bats to 700 brides at a mass wedding function. He advised them to use it against their husbands and other family members if they don’t stop drinking. The first victim of the wooden bat was, ironically, a close relative of one of his ministerial colleagues.
Enraged women passengers reportedly thrashed the son-in-law of Agriculture Minister Gaurishanker Bisen’s when he created a midnight ruckus in an AC two tier coach of a train in an inebriated state. Subsequently, the jamai raja spent the night in railway police lock up at Nagpur, along with his bottle of empty liquor bottle.
Bisen belongs to Balaghat, currently in the throes of a massive anti liquor agitation that has engulfed several parts of the State. A woman died in Bisen’s constituency last month while picketing a country liquor shop near a school. Leading the ladies of the area is district panchayat president Rekha Bisen, the minister’s wife, who happens to be a politician in her own right.
Bizarre things are happening in MP as it encounters a spontaneous anti liquor agitation that has spread like wild fire to remotest villages. Social Justice Minister Gopal Bhargava, who presented wooden bats to brides as wedding gifts, had a message engraved on it: “Gift for cleansing drunkards”. He assured the brides, “don’t bother, police would not intervene.” Home Minister Bhupendra Singh said that police would not provide protection to liquor shops facing anti-alcohol agitation: “Directives are issued to cops not to help liquor contractors during protests.”
The political class has lent full support to anti-liquor agitation. Ministers are vying with each other. Revenue Minister Umashankar Gupta administered oath of abstinence to 61 grooms participating in a mass wedding ceremony. Bhopal MLA Rameshwar Sharma made 94 grooms shun liquor as the eighth vow of marriage. (Hindu wedding rites prescribe seven sacred vows.) BJP MLA from Sagar, Pradeep Lariya, chased goons of a liquor contractor with lathi and pelted stones at them when they tried to open a shop in a residential area.
It all started with Supreme Court order banning liquor sale on highways that came into effect last year. That necessitated shifting of hundreds of existing shops to new locations. Simultaneously, MP Government announced closer of 58 shops within a five km radius of Narmada as part of its grandiose campaign to save the holy river. As hundreds of these shops started scouting for new locations, citizens, particularly women, were on guard to prevent the outlets from entering their areas.
No one wants a booze shop, a mobile tower or a municipal garbage can near his or her house. Even shopkeepers in commercial area don’t like the sight of booze joints because it attracts shady characters and, consequently, discourages their women customers. Industrialists at Indore protested against shifting of liquor vends to industrial areas on the ground that it will deteriorate law and order and threaten women workers’ safety.
The excise department is expected to consult local citizens to decide an outlet’s location. But if the policy is implemented sincerely, the only place it can open a shop at is planet Mars. Unable to find a new place to relocate, many of these shops are actually operating from tents, wayside kiosks or van parked by roadside! Desperate liquor contractors, their losses mounting every day, are resorting to desperate measures and coming into direct conflict with local people, particularly women.
Women are not only picketing the shops they don’t want in their localities, they are also ransacking the new ones that have opened, setting on fire quite a few in the process. Women all over the State have resorted to protest marches, effigy burning, dharna, fasting, road blockades and gherao of officials to voice their protest. At many places, shopkeepers were forced to flee, downing their shutters. At Khargone, women presented bangles to the manager of a ‘dharmshala’ that has been rented out to a ‘madhushala’. At Vidisha municipal corporation employees dumped garbage in front of a shop. Particularly agitated are people of areas where shops are operating near educational institutions or places of worship. At Hoshangabd agitating women set on fire a shop in front of assembly speaker Sita Sharan Sharma.
Till 2016, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was dodging the issue. He maintained that total prohibition was not possible, ruling out as “impractical” the opposition’s demand for a blanket ban on liquor. But bowing to popular pressure he has now announced phase-wise prohibition. From 2018 shops will be shifted from residential area and from the vicinity of educational institutions and places of worship. Grapevine has it that the blanket ban may come shortly before the state assembly goes to poll by year end.
The big question is how will the cash-strapped Government meet the revenue shortfall? Excise comprises almost one-fifth of tax revenue, contributing about 9,000 crore to the State’s coffers. And the moot question is can prohibition be implemented effectively? The jury is still out on that.
Powers That Be, my column in DB Post of 14 May 2017
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