How politicians play with liquor policy in Kerala
It has become a political and administrative ritual for Kerala to indulge in debates on how to eradicate the menace of liquor every March-April, the time for the Government to renew bar licences and to start implementing annual liquor policy. This March-April has been no different. In the middle of the election, the Congress-led UDF Government decided not to renew the licences of 418 of the total 735 bars in the State, pointing at their sub-standard facilities and stating that the move was part of its strategy to implement Prohibition “step by step”. The decision could have helped the Congress win some votes of the faithful of the Catholic Church, who have always been in the forefront of the crusade against liquor, but allegations have already come up that the refusal to renew licences is nothing but a ploy to extract bribes from bar-owners. Also, the history of the UDF's sincerity in its ‘commitment’ to ban liquor totally is not all that convincing. When in 1996, then Chief Minister AK Antony banned arrack, the cheap, colourless liquor sold at every street corner in God's Own Country, the Congress, its allies and the Catholic Church praised it as the first step towards Prohibition. But reality was totally different. On the one hand, nothing has been done since then to eradicate the ‘evil’ called liquor. On the other hand, statistics show that money spent on the costlier India-made foreign liquor by Keralites has gone up by more than 18 times in the past 18 years: If IMFl worth `477.60 crore was sold in Kerala in 1995-1996, this grew to `8,818.18 crore in 2012-2013. Today, tax receipts from liquor sales constitute one-fourth of the total annual revenue of the State making Prohibition a virtually unacceptable suggestion administratively. What Mr Antony did effectively was to force the poor consumers of liquor to spend more money on IMFl by banning the cheap arrack.
A fierce war on the issue is already on in the same Congress, which declared its resolve not to renew the licenses of “sub-standard” bars in the middle of the election. One section led by State Congress president VM Sudheeran is sticking to the decision, while a stronger section led by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy is arguing on the need for an approach of compromise, giving a good chance to the opposition left combine which has always adopted a policy of a silent promotion of liquor, to allege the involvement of money and also pressure from the liquor mafia. The issue went to the court, as it often happens, and no concrete decision has come from there either. In short, the Congress, driven by its innate hypocrisy with regard to policy matters, may continue the talk on its commitment to “step-by-step” prohibition while eventually ensure the free flow of liquor in the State. liquor in Kerala has proved to be a social evil, but the lure of money it brings seems to be irresistible to the funds-starved State and the avaricious politician.