I have spent a week or more in Gujarat, supposedly one of India's richest and best governed states. I am currently preparing a monograph-travelogue which I will place online when complete. In today's post I would like to focus on the tyranny of alcohol prohibition here. This is surely the result of Gandhian zeal and misplaced morality - but it continues under the BJP regime of Narendra Modi. My observations indicate that the effects of this policy are truly horrendous.
I am living in a village on the banks of the Narmada. I asked around - and sure enough, I obtained a bottle of IMFL whisky for 400 rupees. I bought beer twice - cans of Kingfisher (strong) for 100 rupees each. I also tried a couple of shots of desi sharaab at 10 rupees a glass - and awoke at 3 am feeling a little sick. In my wanderings, I encountered drunks twice, both drunk on desi. So the plain fact remains: This prohibition is NOT working.
The newspaper carried a photo from Ahmedabad, of a road-roller destroying thousands of bottles of liquor seized by the State Police. To me, it looked like the destruction of wealth. If that liquor had got sold, businessmen who sold them would have been possessed of the means to demand all non-competing goods on the market (Say's Law). Thus, it is not just the booze business that has lost; all other businesses have lost too. Wanton destruction, after all, is bad for society.
Another implication follows from Say's Law: that is, if those who buy prohibited booze at literally prohibitive prices had been able to obtain their pleasures at free market rates, they would have saved money - and that money would have been spent on other goods. Once again, all other businessmen lost.
The public health consequences of this tyranny are equally obvious: since most people are drinking desi sharaab, their health must be suffering. When I say "most people" I do not include only "the poor": the taxi driver who brought me here from Baroda said he drinks 30 rupees worth of desi every evening. He added that the bottles have no label.
As the one who holds aloft the Ganja Leaf Flag, I made some inquiries about my favourite high too. I was told to trek it to an ashram a few kilometres away. There, I smoked two chillums with some sadhus - but the stuff was no good, and even the sadhus complained!
Most people here smoke bidis. Many more perhaps chew tobacco. I was shocked to see a boy of about 12 or 13 buying a packet of gutka and stuffing his mouth with it.
I met a top-notch criminal lawyer who supported the policy of prohibition, saying it had "cleared the atmosphere." Of course, he would think so - for the more legislation that is passed criminalising voluntary exchanges, the more criminal cases there are for lawyers like him.
In another age, Gujarat "fought for freedom" - the Dandi March, etc. Where has that Freedom gone?
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