Bihar Liquor Ban is in Tatters

While the government makes tall claims, Bihar’s considered majority opinion on liquor ban in the state is that the negatives overwhelm the positives. It has become a fetishism for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Despite hundreds of reported and unreported deaths due to hooch consumption and economic ruination of the poor tipplers, the Chief Minister, who is also known by his sobriquet ‘Susashan Babu’ is not ready to sit down and have a rethink over the ban. This rigid approach to not back out on a decision even if it is doing the opposite to what was intended to is against his socialist background and professed approach to administration.

His political icon and Janta Party Chief Minister of Bihar in the late-seventies Karpoori Thakur proved an exemplary socialist, when he nixed the liquor prohibition just a few years after its imposition following reports of rampant smuggling and spurious liquor supply. But the political legatee of Karpoori Ji’s political thought is showing no signs of relenting on the ban.

Even such disparaging observations as “Liquor ban means big money for officials.” “Only mafias are benefitting from the liquor ban,” have no impact on the grave-digger of Lalu's ‘Jungle RaJ’ and harbinger of ‘peace and prosperity’ in Bihar. Social scientists term this ‘draconian’ law as a retro step. Liquor ban has never been successful in any of the states in modern times. Culturally drinking alcohol is considered a taboo in India, particularly in Bihar where the population is mostly rural. But statistics show that the consumption level among the rural people in Bihar is no less.

Most of the major hooch tragedies in Bihar were reported from villages located in Saran, Gopalganj, Nawada and Nalanda districts. Areas bordering Nepal have become hideouts for boozers to hang out for their drinks. Dhalkola on Purnia- Kishanganj highway (NH 31-27) is a paradise for them. “We along with friends stop over here for a peg or two of liquor and enjoy an overnight stay at one of the dozens of motels spread over 20 kms along the road”, said a regular boozer of Kishanganj. The area has become a most favourite place for them, particularly in the evening.

Similar is the situation in neighbouring Gorakhpur, Koderma, Siliguri, Deoghar and Buxar. Raxaul, close to Birganjj in Nepal, is an oasis for tipplers of their favourite brands. People throng this daaru destination over weekends.

It is difficult to put exact figures to the deaths and disabilities the hooch tragedies across the state have so far caused as families of the deceased cremate the victims’ bodies without informing police about it to avoid prosecution.

Ask any random person about the prohibition and bang comes the reply ‘it has failed’. Urban drinkers are somewhat discreet; in rural areas they are far less circumspect. It is humanly not possible for the state police to look into every nook and corner to make the ban fool-proof.

Though it also tried it at one time when it started intruding into hotel rooms in Patna and other cities micro-scoping for a bottle of tipple but the campaign invited only derision and anger. Its ruinous effect is visible all over the state. People say before the ban came into effect, there was one licencee to service a cluster of villages or colonies, now there are many more providers with an add-on facility of home delivery. Further, the ban has spawned a cottage industry of smugglers who have swelled the ranks of elites in the state.

“I know several persons, who were earlier living hand-to-mouth, have now amassed huge properties by smuggling in and selling liquor. They have built big houses and purchased luxury cars with illegal earnings from liquor. Overnight, they have joined the who’s who club of their colonies,” says an autorickshaw operator during a conversation.

The only credit he gives to the prohibition is that roadside drunken brawls have become a rarity but in the same breath he says but it has shifted indoors. Drunk husbands still beat their wives at homes. Purchase of liquor in the black market at exorbitant prices has added to the list of the causes for domestic violence. The government data claims that the state has seen 37 % reduction in domestic violence cases. But it is an erroneous concept to connect the beating of women by their husbands to drunkenness. Patriarchy is the fundamental reason for it. Drunkenness is only an aggravating factor.

The enforcement of blanket prohibition is a butt of jokes in conversations among people who say that the booze is available on demand, though at many times the market rates at which it is purchased in other states and then smuggled into the dry Bihar.

Tipplers need not go outdoors and seek out suppliers to quench their craving. Just make a call on their mobiles, your preferred brand will be on your table within a few minutes, people say. It is only consumable whose supply is available to the poor as well as the rich with equal efficiency.

Ambulances, postal vans, oil tankers, gas cylinders, trucks, vegetable and milk vans, and even coffins are the modes of clandestine supply of liquor, smuggled in from neighboring states of Bihar. But Haryana is in the lead on keeping Bihari babus wet.

Young girls, women and teenage boys have entered this illegal lucrative trade as carriers because the police do not consider them as suspects. The suppliers have coined code names for different brands. Blenders Pride is called `Badri Prasad’, rum is `Ramesh’ and Vodka `Safed Paani’.

The prohibition has hit the have-nots the hardest. Poor drinkers, for whose health and economic benefits the chief minister implemented liquor ban on April 5, 2016, have not turned teetotalers.

Their love for the thrilling sip is as strong as it was before the bottle was snatched away from them by the welfare state to save them from the adverse health and economic consequences, and their better-halves from their post-drink violence at home.

Vox populi say that instances of women being beaten by their stoned spouses are still there but are not reported to the police due to the fear of prosecution, which opens them out to corrupt policemen and predatory lawyers. The matter is solved within the family.

It was Nitish who introduced the liquor sourcing policy way back in 2008-09 which gave the state monopoly over the sales and marketing of alcohol. A separate Bihar state Beverage Corporation was made the nodal department of the licensing system.

Consequently, state excise revenue from alcohol in Bihar increased from Rs 750 crore in 2008-09 to Rs 3600 crore in 2014-15 which constituted 18% of the total state tax revenues. The state revenue from alcohol increased by around 500 percent in six years.

A rough calculation says that dry Bihar has been losing roughly Rs 20,000 crore each year due to prohibition. But the state government gives a damn to the revenue loss from liquor prohibition. It says that the Nitish gave priority to social amity and health benefits over the revenue loss while deciding to implement prohibition law.

Nexus between police, bootleggers, excise officials and mafias has given birth to a strong and thriving black economy. The involvement of police personnel in it cannot be ruled out. A senior police official admitted that as many as 75 police personnel in Tirhut zone (Muzaffarpur) were booked under the prohibition law.

Poor law violators bear the brunt of prosecution. Action against major syndicate operators is few and far between. For public-private partnership to state monopoly and then to total prohibition, the plight of women in rural areas inspired Nitish Kumar for the shifts. Women are also ruing the prohibition.

Politicians across the party lines, including NDA partners and Union Minister and former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi are strongly in favour of relaxation in the existing prohibition law. Manjhi is also of the view that none of the “big and influential people’’ are caught red-handed while breaking the law. Only poor and downtrodden are languishing in jails, he points out while making a fervent appeal to the Bihar government to have re-look at the existing prohibition law.

The Jan Suraaj Party convener Prashant Kishor has promised that his party will scrap the liquor ban within an hour if elected to power. “Only mafias are benefitting from the liquor ban. Liquor ban has led to illegal home deliveries of alcohol,’’ Kishor alleges.

Women entrepreneurs making use of discarded bottles of liquor seized by the Excise Department for making bangles, spike in the sale of milk, vegetables and fruits, improvement in the standards of life, increase in numbers of tourists visiting Bihar and better social environment are counted among the benefits of prohibition by the government. According to a 2023 survey, about 1.82 crore drinkers kicked the bottle following the prohibition, the government claims.

Also, the survey revealed that 99 % female and 92-93% male is in favor of continuing the ban. But a common call by politicians, social activists, political scientists and people in general is that the sooner the prohibition is binned the better it will be for people of Bihar as well as for the money-deficient Nitish government.

The million-rupee question before the Chief Minister is: whether he would carry on with prohibition in view of its past history and the consequences of his own decision? Liquor consumption is considered a taboo in India more on moral grounds than on its health or economic consequences.

There can be no two opinions that liquor is not good for health. Recent research has also found it carcinogenic. It is a bane for all. But to drive home its deleterious consequences, prohibition is not a solution at all. Counsel people about its damaging effects and let them decide for themselves to shun or moderate their consumption. Champions of personal liberty are of the view that the state should not decide, control or monitor people’s desires, likes or dislikes. It should avoid as much as possible intruding into what people should consume, how they dress and how they go about their lives. It boomerangs as it did in Bihar. Pan masala is also banned in the state but it is available at every nook and corner, and people consume it in the open.