Will a booze ban actually work in Tamil Nadu?
By announcing that his party would take steps towards prohibition if voted back to power, DMK chief M Karunanidhi has set a cat among the pigeons. A day after the announcement, political circles were agog with murmurs of suspicion and voices of elation. While the PMK, which had already announced prohibition as its first priority if voted to power, called Karunanidhi’s announcement an attempt to hoodwink people since elections were round the corner, several other parties like the Viduthalai Chiruthaikal Katchi welcomed the decision. The announcement had also left some parties too bewildered to react. Some, like the CPM, trod cautiously, only calling for a more intensified struggle against the "liquor addiction" prevalent in the state, even while expressing doubts over the genuineness of the DMK’s announcement.
The announcement is more surprising since it was Karunanidhi who had lifted prohibition in 1971 only to reintroduce it in 1974. Between 1971 and 1991, prohibition was removed and reintroduced at several points in the state. In 1991, the state had banned arrack and country liquor.
Karunanidhi has perhaps touched a nerve too raw for the state government. For prohibition means killing the cash cow that forms a good part of the state revenue. According to Satta Panchayat, an organisation working towards prohibition, sales in Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC), which enjoys a monopoly over liquor distribution in the state, contributes towards 31 percent of the total revenue. "For the current year, TASMAC’s contribution has been over Rs 29672 crore while the total revenue has been 96083 crore," says Senthil Arumugam, general secretary of Satta Panchayat.
Interestingly, some DMK heavyweights are active in the liquor business. According to Arumugam, liquor worth Rs 3634 crore was supplied to the TASMAC by the distilleries owned by such leaders from the party for the fiscal year 2013-2014. "The total procurement made by TASMAC was about Rs 11,876 crore. It would not suffice to implement prohibition if voted to power. The DMK should now take a firm stand against the distilleries run by its party seniors," he says.
Karunanidhi might be fully aware of this, but sensing an opportunity in the shrillness of the growing voices in support of prohibition, the grand old politician of Tamil Nadu has made an announcement that was probably least expected from him. He made a mention of students and the poor getting addicted to liquor, besides women and children taking to drinking. Videos of two kids being forced to drink liquor recently made rounds on social media, sending shock waves across the state. Pictures of women clad in sari and girls in uniform consuming liquor are not uncommon either.
Prohibition is not new as a policy to the DMK. Making an impassioned appeal at a meeting in 1968, DMK founder CN Annadurai said he was ready to court arrest in the states that have lifted prohibition. But activists in support of prohibition can hardly bring themselves to forgive Karunanidhi for the "historical blunder" he had committed in 1971, "ruining generations of Tamils".
Whether Karunanidhi will set right the "blunder" by implementing prohibition or whether the announcement is yet another desperate electoral gimmick of a veteran seeking to win against all odds is anybody’s guess. But trust Jayalalithaa to come up with her quintessential unpredictability to turn the tables on the veteran.