Opinion Express View on Bihar’s prohibition policy: A costly ban

The Nitish Kumar government Tuesday amended the stern Bihar Prohibition and Excise (Amendment) Act to enable release of vehicles impounded for transporting liquor, against the payment of 10 per cent of their insurance cover, as against the 50 per cent mandated earlier. This tweaking of the 2016 policy had become necessary because police stations were running out of space to keep these vehicles — over 50,000 four-wheelers are parked in 800 police stations across Bihar since the owners often prefer to abandon their vehicles rather than pay hefty fines to take them back. Tuesday’s amendment is only the latest in a series of changes that Nitish has had to make to moderate the liquor law since April last year. For instance, first-time drinkers can now walk free if they pay a fine of Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 — imprisonment was mandatory in the beginning. The government has removed community fines, reduced the term of imprisonment for drinking from 10 years to five. Another major change concerns ex gratia payment in hooch deaths: In February, the government restored the Rs 4 lakh compensation to the next of kin of victims, a provision Nitish had suspended after the first hooch tragedy in 2016.

These piece-meal changes are, in effect, admissions that Nitish’s liquor policy has failed. As the experience has been with prohibition elsewhere, Bihar’s liquor ban has led to a spike in illicit trade, hooch deaths, and arrests, disproportionately, of the poor and vulnerable. According to official estimates, 199 persons have died in hooch tragedies since April 2016. Over 3.75 lakh cases have been registered — 90 per cent of them related to consumption of liquor — with over 4.25 lakh arrests. At least 25,000 people have been imprisoned for violating the liquor ban — most of them are poor and from Other Backward Castes, Extremely Backward Castes and Dalits, ironically the political base of the JD(U)-RJD Mahagathbandhan.

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Nitish introduced the law, ostensibly as a response to complaints from women that the men in the family spent all their earnings on alcohol and beat them. But its potential as an election sop to win over women voters may have been exhausted – JD(U)’s vote share and seats have been declining. As he sets out to project himself nationally as a coordinator if not a leader in the anti-BJP space, which is the site for staking out a liberal challenge to Hindutva politics, Nitish should start by reversing the liquor ban that is both draconian and counter-productive.