Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions: why I am doing it, what the results might be and will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.” Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar must have asked these questions to himself, as suggested by 4th century BC noble and wise man Chanakya, and got satisfactory answers on total prohibition.
Chanakya, also called Kautilya, the renowned royal adviser to the emperor Chandragupta Maurya, is possibly the first person who made the reference of grape based wine and condemned the use of alcohol while chronicling the emperor and his courtiers frequent indulgence of grape wine known as Madhu.
The annual report of the excise and prohibition department presented during the budgetary demand in the just concluded Budget session of Bihar Assembly too mentioned that it was Chankaya who first imposed ban on alcohol drinks. During the Maurya dynasty the manufacture, sale and consumption was either strictly regulated or prohibited and officials were appointed to check and regulate it by monitoring its standard and utility. Chanakya had also suggested punishment and fine for those founding flouting the rules or indulging in illicit alcohol. Chanakya in his Arthashastra expressed his opinion on wine and prohibition.
The total prohibition policy of Nitish Kumar, also known as Chankaya of Bihar politics, is getting three cheers from the 50 per cent population of women and also the men from across Bihar after he announced it on Tuesday.
Call it Nitish Kumar’s master stroke as it has not only been widely supported, his political opponents too have appreciated it. The total ban decision came all of a sudden that too when there is a lot of churning within his party JD(U) amid the speculations that after Sharad Yadav steps down, Nitish will take over the leadership of the party.
Notwithstanding the estimated Rs4000 to 5000 crore per annum revenue loss, the decision ahs been taken with firm and strong will power in order to save the society from disintegration and destruction due to growing bad influence of liquor particularly in hinterland of Bihar. There is also another financial calculation which estimated saving of Rs8,000 crore annually of the people who spent it on consumption of different types of booze. In excise trade, about Rs8,000 crore is involved of which 50 per cent goes to State chauffer as tax and rest to the liquor industries. Now, it is speculated, this amount could be used otherwise in education, health and other productive sectors.
Nitish rightly gave the credit for total ban to the women who had been pressing the government to ban the alcohol, the major reason for their hardships and financial crunch. For many years the groups of women in the countryside had been agitating against the opening of new outlets in the villages and making their menfolk and youths alcoholic. They had also been engaged in smashing the small manufacturing units of country liquor without police support.
Even the revolutionary decisions need public support. Had the CM not witnessed the public response to his partial prohibition policy he possibly would have not dared to take such a bold step. The women as well as men in urban areas rose in protest and held protest against the opening of the new outlets of the India made foreign liquor and this signal was enough for Nitish to fulfill his commitment of total prohibition in a swift reaction.
After all, Bihar is the land of lord Buddha and Mahavira, who too had discouraged the use of alcohol and it is also the karma bhoomi of Mahatma Gandhi who considered alcohol consumption s a great social evil and favoured complete prohibition in India.