Kerala’s Catholic Church on Sunday issued a pastoral letter renewing its call for making the State liquor-free even as the war within the Kerala Bar Hotels’ Association, which had started after one of its office-bearers leveled bribery charge against a senior Minister four months ago in a development linked to the Government’s liquor policy, intensified.
In the circular issued by the Anti-liquor Committee of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC) on Sunday, the Church asked the Government to immediately announce an action plan to make the State liquor-free. The Church also criticised the State’s Congress-led UDF Government for the uncertainty over the promised plan to ban liquor.
The pastoral letter, read out in Catholic churches in the State on Sunday, said it would be a failure of the Government if the availability of liquor was not coming down even after the announcement last year of a new liquor policy envisaging total ban on liquor. This was the time for the Government to prove its sincerity in the matter of creating a liquor-free Kerala.
“The Government’s position will come under suspicion if it does not immediately announce an action plan to make Kerala liquor-free,” the pastoral letter said, adding that the Government measures promoting liquor should be viewed critically. The KCBC Anti-liquor Committee has been in the forefront of struggles demanding Prohibition for the past several years.
“The Church does not hold the parochial objective of freeing Catholics alone from the clutches of liquor. It is viewing liquor as a social evil affecting the entire Kerala society,” the circular said. The Government should put into practice steps to change the laws which safeguard the interests of the liquor lobby, it added.
The KCBC Anti-liquor Committee had faced the criticism that its anti-liquor struggles had weakened after the UDF Government watered down its own liquor policy. The Government had on August 22 last declared a liquor policy envisaging total liquor ban in ten years, but it diluted the same policy in December by permitting wine and beer parlours in closed bars.
“The conversion of closed bars into beer and wine parlours will prove detrimental to the society’s interests. The Govern-ment has so far not been able to present its liquor policy envisaging Prohibition in ten years in a way which the people can understand. Its liquor policy is a magic box about which even the Supreme Court had expressed surprise,” the circular joked.
At the same time, the war within the Kerala Bar Hotels’ Association, which had started in October last after its working president Biju Ramesh accused State Finance Minister KM Mani of taking Rs1 crore as bribe from bar owners, intensified with its president Rajkumar alias Unni questioning the right of Biju to convene a meeting of the association’s members.
Unni launched an attack against Biju on Sunday by saying that the latter’s action of calling a meeting of the association on Tuesday was violation of organisational discipline. “It is the general secretary who should convene meetings of the association. The general secretary does not have any idea of any such meeting,” Unni said.
Biju hit back saying that Unni was a spineless person and that he and others were afraid of facing the association members. “Unni is afraid of calling a meeting. The meeting I have called is not of the association but of the beer and wine parlour owners. It is being held for discussing their problems. The meeting will be held as scheduled,” Biju Ramesh said.
The infighting in the bar owners’ association had started after a major section of the association members and office-bearers, led by Unni, refused to support Biju’s standpoint in the statements they gave to the Vigilance probing the charge against Mani. This had emboldened the Government to defend Mani by terming Biju's allegations as hollow.