Bihar prohibition: ‘Now that there is liquor ban, can Nitish Kumar ensure its success?’

At the same time, clarifies Arya Mohan, a student of Class 12 at DAV, BSEB Colony, Patna, she supports prohibition as well as Nitish Kumar and his “development vision”. “Prohibition is a great tool of women empowerment. In a low-income family, with its head a drinker, education becomes secondary. I am happy that some of these families probably understand the value of education now,” she says, adding that she has heard from friends stories of families being destroyed by drinking.

Arya laughs at the CM’s claim that people had started drinking milk instead of liquor, seeing it as part of the same politicking.

However, it’s time politicking around the issue ended, she adds. “Bihar is not the first state that has enforced prohibition. Gujarat did it years ago… We know the political designs of the Chief Minister. Everyone talks about him making prohibition a plank to support his campaign to be PM… But now that Nitish Kumar has enforced liquor ban, can he ensure its success?” Arya laughs at the CM’s claim that people had started drinking milk instead of liquor, seeing it as part of the same politicking. “I am not sure that claim is true,” she says.

Arya also wonders at steps such as police confiscating a house in case of recovery of a liquor bottle as the right way to go about enforcing prohibition. Arya, who scored 10 CGPA in her Class X boards, is preparing for her medical entrance. If she clears the entrance, she will be the first girl in her extended family to become a doctor, Arya says Her father Dharmendra Mohan Singh is a Railways guard while mother Suchitra is a housewife. She has two younger siblings — sister Alavya, 8, and brother Aarav, 6.