In its enthusiasm to ban liquor, Nitish Kumar’s Government may have actually driven a fair few towards alcoholism. There are better ways to tackle addiction

In the US, the Volstead Act was passed in 1920 to ban alcohol. This prohibition stretched for nearly 14 years and established a parallel illegal economy, which led to the emergence of the mafia and promulgated a State-sponsored structure that protected the rich and powerful but came down heavily on the poor. Media reports of the time in the US noted that in a particularly amusing incident, when the police raided a bar in Denver, they found the local Congressman, the mayor and the sheriff sharing a drink. Who would have thought that Denver of the 1920s and the Bihar of today would have so much in common?

The interesting point is that even if you had not read the end of the first paragraph of this piece, you would have known that we are talking about Nitish Kumar’s Bihar and more specifically his prohibition. I use the two terms interchangeably because prohibition and the reckless and arrogant manner in which it has been introduced and implemented in Bihar is also a summary of the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) rule in the State. Prohibition, just like the NDA’s rule in Bihar, has been chequered with problems of administration and governance, and has led to a diversion of resources that could have been used elsewhere.

Let us start with the arrogance of the move. Nitish, almost whimsically, decided one fine day that Bihar would be a prohibition State. Any rational Government would have done some research on the effectiveness of the ban prior to taking such a huge decision or would have at least examined the abject failure of the policy on the ground and admitted that it had made a mistake. However, the current NDA Government lacks the foresight to make deliberated decisions and the humility to acknowledge its mistakes.

Why do we say that Nitish’s prohibition is a barometer of his governance in Bihar? Let us start with the suddenness of the move. Reminiscent of the catastrophic decision of demonetisation taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the ban was absolute. One would have hoped that the Government had already checked whether prohibition had popular support on the ground or not. No such deliberation was, however, done. As a result, what this policy has led to, is a rise in what Gary Becker, a Nobel prize-winning economist, calls “rational crimes.” That is, crimes committed by rational people since they weigh the possible penalty for being caught against the chance of actually being caught. In Bihar, while the penalty is severe, the chances of being caught are actually minimal. Let me rephrase. In Bihar, your chances of being caught are minimal if you can oil the palms of the police and the relevant authorities or if you are a VIP. But if you are a common citizen, your fortune rests with the Almighty.

In reality, there is no real prohibition in Bihar. Yes, liquor is banned as a concept but in practice, it is available when one wants to get it. As a travel agent told a reporter of a large national daily — “What prohibition? Daru (liquor) is available everywhere…even at local police stations.” What Nitish’s prohibition has introduced is mob violence between competitors who supply liquor to their customers. Since you cannot take another distributor to court for supplying liquor, the only option is to establish a local monopoly through violence. In the US, this violence was largely perpetrated by mobsters, who profited heavily due to the ban. In Bihar, it is often the police and Government officials who help establish monopolies and tend to profit heavily from them. The ones who suffer are not the suppliers of liquor but the consumers. According to the latest records of the police headquarters in Patna, a total of 2,12,323 arrests were made with respect to possession of illegal liquor, between April 2016 and January this year. Out of these arrests, only 19,500 were suppliers. Most of those arrested were poor, who could not afford to pay bribes, while the officials who made money off them suffered few ill consequences. The widespread proliferation of this corrupt system of bribing for liquor is well-known and many have complained about it and even more, have suffered due to it.

Another issue with prohibition is that it leads to dangerous forms of spurious liquor being widely available. This is because since possessing liquor carries a certain amount of risk, bootleggers tend to make the spurious drink more potent so that it has the desired effect in a small amount. Therefore, it is no surprise that reports of deaths due to consumption of hooch have been on the rise, especially in the rural areas, where many cannot afford the fancy liquor that the rich and powerful consume.

Going back to the example of the US, if Bihar is to be compared with Denver during the prohibition era, in a raid, you will probably find police officials and senior politicians drinking in bars but will also stumble upon the poor dying outside that very same public house.

The resources and attention allocated to this flawed scheme have come at the cost of other initiatives. If liquor was regulated and taxed, it would have raised the revenues of the State Government and would have allowed it to use these funds towards education and employment. Instead, what we have today is a disproportionate portion of the State’s resources, both monetarily and in terms of manpower, being diverted towards the Chief Minister’s flagship cause. The absence of police power has led to more crimes being committed since police officers would rather have the chance to earn easy money from alcohol consumers than face the prospect of checking crimes like rape and murder.

You may be of the view that the BJP would try to check this behaviour of Nitish and course correct but the party is supporting him. And going by the example of Gujarat, a State that also follows strict prohibition, it is obvious that the ban in Bihar comes with the blessings of the Centre.

This heady cocktail (excuse the pun) of ill-planning and arrogance displayed by the NDA is ultimately only at the cost of the common man of Bihar. The situation in the State is so appalling that one can say that the Nitish Government in its enthusiasm to ban liquor may have actually driven a fair few towards alcoholism.

(The writer is a former IPS officer and a member of the Congress Party)