On Gandhi’s death anniversary last month, January 30, a sea of women — around 3,000 — poured into Bengaluru at the end of a 12-day march. There were 15-year-olds, there were 60-year-olds, there were middle-aged women. They came from far and near, and they came with one aim: to seek a ban on the manufacture and sale of liquor in Karnataka. Alcohol, they said, had ruined their sons, husbands, brothers, homes, dented their earnings, and eaten into the money meant for food and education.

Armed with a cloth bundles, unmindful of the blisters that had burst on their feet, they had marched from Chitradurga and crossed many highways before reaching Bengaluru.

Long days’ journey

The women had left their homes with a plate, a glass and some clothes. Sapnadeepa, 24, from Bidar, who was among those who had started out from Chitradurga, said they had covered 15 to 20 km each day; they had camped wherever they stopped for nightfall. “We stayed in mutts, panchayat offices, and government schools. People along the way were more than generous. Some arranged food, some others medicines and sanitary napkins. They gave us waterbottles, chappals, bedsheets, sweaters, even saris,” she said.

Sapnadeepa’s 28-year-old cousin was an alcoholic who fell ill and died in 2017. “I won’t be wrong in saying there is one wine shop for each house in our village,” she said.

Angry: A protester waves from a truck   | Photo Credit: Sampath Kumar G.P.

Unfortunately, the marchers — all members of the Madya Nishedha Andolana (movement for liquor ban) — could not meet Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and had to return empty-handed and with no assurances from the government. Their fight, however, is far from over, they say, now back home.

Bhagyamma, 30, from Davangere district, described how her father continues to battle addiction. “My father drinks his earnings away. We are four siblings; we got a bit of education with great difficulty. My mother continues to toil to repay the loans. My father ended up selling the land we owned because of his addiction. Alcohol addiction is like a virus and it has to stop. It is sad the government gave us no response, but we will not give up our fight,” she said. Similar agitations have been held by women in other States, such as Odisha and Tamil Nadu, where women and children have echoed similar concerns.

Root of distress

A 2017 report, ‘Farmer suicides — An all India study’, commissioned by the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare, Government of India, mentions drug abuse/ alcoholic addiction as one among the “prominent causes” for farmer suicide (4.4%). The other causes are bankruptcy or indebtedness (20.6%), family problems (20.1%), farming-related issues (17.2%), and illness (13.2%).

However, many of the other causes of suicide, such as indebtedness or illness, can be connected to alcohol addiction and drug abuse. “Without exception, the victim households of all the States were honest enough to accept that victims were alcohol addicts. Therefore, rehabilitation centres for drug abuse and alcohol addiction should be established,” the report suggests.

Bihar, the dry crusader

What impact has prohibition had on States where it has been implemented? Shaibal Gupta from the think-tank Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) says that studies conducted in Bihar after prohibition concluded in

A scene from the march: ‘We won’t give up,’ the women say.   | Photo Credit: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

favour of it. The report by ADRI and Development Management Institute (DMI), commissioned by the Bihar government in 2018, shows a massive rise in sale of expensive saris and honey, among others, in post-ban Bihar. The studies also say that 19% of households acquired new assets from the money they would have earlier used to buy alcohol.

Women, together

The report, ‘Impact of Prohibition on Economy, Society and Family Life in Bihar,’ notes, “With adoption of Prohibition Act, 2016, Bihar has become a ‘dry crusader’. The ban in Bihar is backed by social and economic factors, and thus enjoys full support from all sections of the population, particularly the women who run the households.”

Abhay Kumar, State co-ordinator, Grameena Kooli Karmikara Sanghatane, a rural labourers’ organisation that’s spearheading the liquor ban movement in Karnataka, said that the recent padayatra was the fourth attempt in recent times in the State. “The intention was to pressurise the government and highlight the fact that women in every taluk in the State have problems. United, we could manage to do it and a big support group has been formed now. All major political parties have been told about the problem. If none of them reacts, lakhs of women will either exercise NOTA or not vote in the coming elections. Let’s see if the liquor barons in the parties are the bigger pressure group or democracy,” he said.

The problem is not specific to region or socio-economic status. According to Kumar, “You can go to any village or city. As we were passing through Tumakuru and Bengaluru, women in slums came out to ask what the padayatra was about, and started telling their own stories of how houses have been destroyed because of alcoholism. We are not asking anything new. Prohibition is stated in Article 47 of the Indian Constitution. What has been done all these years?”

The women’s frustration is tangible. But can prohibition work? Governments have usually been unable to fully control sales or consumption of alcohol even after a ban, with people crossing over to neighbouring States or drinking spurious liquor or feeding off a booming underground market as in Gujarat. Are there other ways to control alcoholism? It’s a question that doesn’t have easy answers.

deepika.kc@thehindu.co.in