Whining over wine

TN alias Tipplernadu may often be water starved, but rarely thanni starved. Ever since the bottle was uncorked in the early seventies, liquor has flooded this rational-cum-religious State as much as flattery, freebies and foul cash. The addiction looks set. The State budget is banking on booze and the bulk of populace are beholden to Bacchus.

Prohibition in TN is of pre-Independence vintage. Since 1947 to late sixties, Rajaji, Kamaraj & co ensured that Madras Presidency, that later morphed into Tamilnadu, topped economic and social indices without relying on any tax from liquor. Even DMK’s Anna, in his short stint, kept the State sober. Prohibition was very much a part of his party’s stated principles.

K lifted Prohibition in 1971 on the pretext that TN cannot remain an ‘island of camphor amidst fires of liquor all around’. Rajaji beseeched him personally to no avail. The evolution of liquor since then from a side dish to the State’s staple diet would make one groggy without imbibing a single peg. Even a drunkard’s walk and words would seem steadier and coherent than the course of State policy on liquor. Here is a diluted account of some hazy milestones. K himself did a U-turn and brought back Prohibition in 1974, after MGR broke away and also threatened to walk away with women votes. As it happened, MGR became CM in 1977 by promising Prohibition, among his other filmy fads.

It was now MGR’s turn for flip-flops. In 1981, a decade after K’s cup coup, MGR lifted prohibition by making illicit liquor the MN Nambiar. Villain hooch was poisoning his ‘blood’s blood’ and it was time for transfusion with official liquor instead, went his reasoning. Arrack and Toddy were sold through State-run shops while IMFL contracts went to pet private players. Then in 1983, A and T were banned but IMFL stayed put. State-owned TASMAC was born as a sole wholesaler. Political patronage ensured many rowdies and bootleggers became respectable barons overnight, even launching hospitals and educational institutions. The eighties were heady days, ironically under the great, good samaritan who shunned liquor so pompously in reel and real. MGR’s inside job, in a way, destroyed anti-liquor social activism, because the State’s ‘kudi’magans felt ratified by their very own ‘thalaivar’.

Post MGR, K’s regime, in 1989 sold cheap arrack in sachets, in tune with packaging tech. J as CM in 1991 banned it again, but IMFL continued and in chosen hands. In these two decades, there were several subtle and significant shifts typical of this tipsy trade, ranging from cartelised auctions to corruption to license, permit raj and what not. Finally, in 2003, J made TASMAC the sole retail distributor as well, through official shops all over the State. TASMAC now buys wholesale from breweries and sells thorough exclusive outlets, ubiquitous across slushy slums and ritzy malls. It is a bubbly State monopoly unheard of anywhere else in India. TN is on a national high in liquor sales. That in a few pints is the large and small of it, assuming you are still not knocked out.

The sudden ‘spirited’ political debate on prohibition thus seems like a mere drunken brawl. The chorus of cheers to ‘bar’ liquor is both comic and cosmetic. The ‘raw’ truth behind all that distilled falsehood is that it is lack of political will that fostered this social ill in the first place. Tax revenue at 30% though a harsh reality, is still an alibi. TASMAC is an undrying source of slush money to politicos, their henchmen and powerful vested interests. Politicos across parties who reportedly own breweries that supply to TASMAC, whoever is in power, have not denied such allegations. DMK and AIADMK aside, others are suspect too. PMK is a lousy lawyer for a good case and is now aghast at the prohibition bottle slipping from its hand. V’Kanth is better known as a ‘vice’ Captain! Libations are integral to Left liberal intellectual pretensions. Rahul who has landed in TN with Prohibition on his lips should better study Cong’s own historical hangovers in States it ruled. BJP seems dazed on this matter even without a swig.

In short, the political tribe is no alcoholics anonymous guided by people’s welfare but visible sponsors of this lucrative liquid, with eyes solely on pelf-fare. Again, Prohibition as a State policy will always be sacrificed in the name of fiscal necessity or illicit liquor. The issue in TN really is whether the State itself should be the vendor of what is inherently bad for public consumption. Otherwise, why have ‘dry’ days on Gandhi Jayanthi or during poll times? Really, Experience shows prohibition talk is just a populist rumour that will get ‘scotch’ed at first chance.

The solution, if any? The onus rests with society and the individual. But social drinking is increasingly a status statement, FB included. The glass is egalitarian, for classes and masses alike. It is gender neutral. Age too is no bar, what with cubs thronging pubs. Cinema and now, TV serials have made drink a must, be it merry or worry: the blurred warning at the bottom left of the screen is an eyesore! The credo? The choice between inebriated cheers and inevitable tears is wholly ours.

Indeed, it seems stupid in such a milieu to be preachy. Unless one is drunk!

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