A paradigmatic personality with high morale and unimpeachable integrity, Padmacharan Nayak will be ninety in January 2016. After having his MSc in Chemistry from the Ravenshaw College in 1951, he embraced a career in public life as he was deeply moved by the Satyagraha movement by Gandhiji. While still a High School student, he had joined the Quit India Movement in 1942. He left many coveted posts at the call of Mahatma Gandhi. Elected in 1961 as an MlA from Rajnagar by defeating former Deputy Speaker Jadumani Mangaraj, he was the cynosure of all eyes in the Assembly debate till 1966. Disillusioned by the heat and dust of muddy party politics, he relinquished it and became a custodian of the Gopabandhu Choudhury Ashram at Bari. He is a trustee of Malati Choudhury-Gopabandhu Choudhury Trust and has been waging a relentless crusade against consumption of liquor in Odisha for the last two decades. A pioneer of the Milita Odisha Nisha Nibarana Abhiyan, he is out and out in favour of prohibition not only in Odisha but also in the whole country. A prolific writer, his monumental book Anirban has brought for him the Sahitya Akademi Award. This nonagenarian remembers with nostalgia the great personalities of the pre-Independence India and is at pains to reveal how politics and public life have undergone a transition from the sublime state to a ridiculous affair in the present days of our decadent society. In an interview to The Pioneer, this unique personality among the living freedom fighters spoke to Sugyan Choudhury from his Nisa Nibarana office at Madhusudan Nagar, Bhubaneswar.
Why are you battling for prohibition in Odisha while the liquor revenue contributes a great deal to the State exchequerIJ
Ever since from my student days, I am against consumption of liquor. If you remember correctly, Gandhiji was up against liquor consumption and he even was in favour of total prohibition in the country. It is an unmixed evil and should be totally kept at bay. The income generated out of liquor transaction and sale contributes only 2.5% of the entire State budget amounting to approximately over Rs 8,000 crore. This can be compensated if the Government can take some strict economic measures without spending money in idle extravaganza like Rs-5 meal and Rs-2-a-kg rice schemes. Whatever profit these beneficiaries avail, they spend it away through liquor consumption. The health hazards in liquor consumption are many. Gandhiji rightly pointed out that taking liquor is worse an evil than prostitution.
What was a stumbling block on Gandhiji’s desire to ban liquor in our countryIJ
Gandhiji told that if he would be given a choice to do his first work in free India to translate his dreams into a reality then he would totally prohibit liquor business, that too in 24 hours. Gandhiji’s desire was impeded by the mindset and activities of the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. This is revealed from a letter from Nehru to the then Odisha Chief Minister Dr HK Mahtab wherein it was stated that there would be loss of revenue from this sector. Dr Mahtab had sought Pandit Nehru’s opinion on the liquor ban which was promulgated by his predecessor Nabakrushna Choudhury in the year 1956 in Odisha. Thus, it was Nehru whose laxity in this regard defeated the purpose of the Father of the Nation.
Could you enlighten about the liquor ban initiated by Nabakrushna ChoudhuryIJ
Nabakrushna Choudhury had prohibited liquor in 1956. The law was called Odisha Prohibition Act 1956. This Act prohibited manufacture of, traffic in, and consumption of, liquor and intoxicating drugs. This Act also provided punishment under Section-5 for altering or attempting to alter any denatured spirit and for possession of such spirit. But you know this historic ban of Choudhury was nipped in the bud owing to the halfhearted attitude of the successive Chief Ministers. In this connection, I want to state that the then Prime Minister Morarji Desai had offered that if any State would go for total prohibition, 50% of the loss of revenue would be borne by the Central Government. But in spite of all these, this Act could not come into force as our leaders were possibly gained over by liquor lobbies. Take for example the case of Andhra Pradesh, which had banned liquor during the Rama Rao tenure, but it was again in force during the Chandrababu Naidu regime.
Why are you for total ban on liquorIJ
You see the example of Gujarat, which has banned liquor. But reportedly, illegal trafficking of liquor occurs in Gujarat from Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Goa and other adjoining States. Hence, it is required that there should be a total ban of liquor and other intoxicants in the whole of the country. Gandhiji wished that there should be total prohibition in the country for holistic development of our people physically, mentally, vitally, aesthetically and spiritually.
What is on the agenda of the Milita Odisha Nisha Nibaran AbhiyanIJ
The Milita Odisha Nisha Nibaran Abhiyan is like a huge banyan tree these days which has its roots sprouting all over the State and being accepted enthusiastically by people. Wherever we start the awareness campaign culminating in a public meeting, people express spontaneously that prohibition should have been done much earlier. Tens and thousands of youths, senior citizens and especially women folk stand behind us resolutely for total prohibition. You will be astonished to know that a State like Kerala, which acquires a major chunk of its revenue from liquor sale, has opted for ban of the same limiting it to star hotels only. Kerala is going in a phased manner for prohibition. Kerala is not as fortunate as Odisha, which is endowed with natural assets including mineral deposits. Thus, revenue from the other sources can comfortably compensate the loss if total prohibition is imposed in our State. Meanwhile, we have established our units in 22 districts, including tribal areas. On 1st of October 2015, we are going to submit three lakhs of signatures of our people to the Chief Minister urging him for a total prohibition. We are also going to launch our Satyagraha on this day before each and every liquor shop in the State. The will of the people is supreme, and I am sure that this menace will be rooted out from our country and from our State. The younger generation of youths will take up from where I leave.
Are you getting any favourable response from the present State GovernmentIJ
Our State Government is callous in this regard. We have tried to meet the Chief Minister in a body. It is strange but true that the office of the Chief Minister took almost a year to give us an audience with CM Naveen Patnaik. I wonder what sort of an ideal Chief Minister is he who never listens to the grievances of his people over the last fifteen years by being not available in his grievance chamber. As a journalist and as a chronicler of daily events, you must make a note of the fact that all other Chief Ministers were approachable. Even Dr Mahtab, the Machiavelli of Odisha politics, was also highly approachable and sensitive to public grievances. Nabakrushna Choudhury went out to cleanse village ponds on Sundays and other holidays while he was the Chief Minister. Then what sort of response would you expect from the GovernmentIJ We know for sure that when this Nisha Nibarana movement gains momentum, the Government will bow down to peoples’ pressure and the liquor lobbies will vanish into thin air.