Prohibition is like the Nehru jacket: an ideological costume that keeps returning despite periodic setbacks. After Bihar declared a total ban on liquor, other states like Madhya Pradesh are reportedly thinking of doing the same. These developments have been brought about by the increasingly active and widespread anti-liquor lobby, spearheaded by women who chronically have been the worst victims of alcohol abuse—as markedly distinct from what is called social drinking—by their menfolk.
It is felt that to argue against prohibition, or even to question some of its premises and objectives, would be unconscionable in the face of the brutal suffering that many thousands of women have undergone because of the easy availability of alcohol in their communities. Such considerations have made even constructive criticism of the prohibition policy politically incorrect.
The few voices that have been raised in protest against prohibition have proved ineffectual. Representatives of the travel and related recreational industries have pointed out the burdensome revenue losses that the states concerned will suffer, not only in terms of liquor excise but also by the inverse multiplier effect of reduced tourism.
As dissuasive as these facts may sound, they deal only with the arithmetic of finance which in any society worthy of the name must be deemed subservient to the calculus of moral benefit. Prohibition is a moral principle, like abortion, and if it is to be questioned at all it must be on moral, or at least, on ethical grounds.
It might seem frivolous, or even mischievous, to try and compare two issues as seemingly disparate as prohibition and abortion. However, there could be some parallels between the two. Both concern society as a whole but affect women the most, both underline the often conflicting claims between the individual and the state, and both have attendant cultural paradoxes.
Despite the Gandhian precept of ahimsa, contemporary India accepts abortion. In contrast, many so-called ‘permissive’ western societies either proscribe abortion, or at least have a highly mobilised anti-abortion or ‘pro-life’ lobby.
Feminists and many others convincingly argue that it is the individual woman who should have the final say on the issue, with the help of medical advice but not at its insistence. A woman’s body, including her womb, is her personal domain and she must enjoy a measure of autonomy in matters relating to procreation and the termination of pregnancy.
This is accepted in India in theory and abortion is deemed legal, whether or not the mother’s life is at risk.
However, in practice, this ostensibly pro-women legislation fosters male irresponsibility regarding contraception and is often misused to cover up cases of female infanticide. The cultural matrix of retrogressive paternalism is perpetuated under the guise of social progress.
Prohibition—which seemingly is also pro-women—may entail similar hidden costs. Conventional wisdom suggests that alcohol abuse, with all its attendant evils, exists because the alcohol is there. Take away the alcohol and the problem is solved. Such a peremptory approach, however, fails to recognise either the autonomy or the compulsions of the individual concerned and experience suggests that it is seldom efficacious in the long term.
A more sympathetic—and more effective—approach would be to accept that alcohol abuse exists because there are social and economic circumstances, of which availability or otherwise of alcohol is an incidental part, which drive people to seek temporary relief in intoxication. Take away the liquor and you will still have these circumstances which will compel those most vulnerable to them to turn to illicit hooch or even more dangerous narcotics.
Social problems are seldom solved by fiats from above which deny the individual the dignity of responsibility. Integrated family welfare—and not coercive sterilisation—has been accepted as the only way to solve the population problem. Similarly, it is not through proscriptive prohibition but through a prescriptive community approach that the problem of alcohol abuse might best be tackled.
A broader strategy to this end might begin with curtailing or disallowing drinking in public places such as the liquor vends themselves, and their immediate vicinities. The drinker would be constrained either to give up drink or drink within the environs of his community, earning collective opprobrium should he misbehave.
The real reason behind the resurgence of the advocacy of prohibition lies in our ingrained yearning for a paternalistic sarkar, however impotent such an entity may repeatedly have proved itself in alleviating our societal or individual distress.
A paternalistic government defines itself by the number of things it says you can’t do because you are too irresponsible to be allowed to operate without constant supervision. A truly democratic government progressively attempts to empower citizens in their civic affairs in the belief that only this will equip them to assume the responsibility presupposed by democracy. Paternalistic governance says ‘no’ to the citizen and ‘yes’ to its own powers of intervention; democratic governance implies saying ‘yes’ to the citizen’s right to decide while curbing its own powers to say ‘no’.
A paternalistic sarkar doesn’t need liquor to get high. It is already drunk on its own sense of power.
Jug Suraiya
Writer, columnist and author of several books
jugsuraiya@gmail.com