Toddy ban: Protest in Vikravandi ends prematurely with preventive detention

VILLUPURAM: Members of the long-standing Tamil Nadu Toddy Movement and the recently-founded TN Toddy Federation came together at Narasinganur in Vikravandi to protest the much-contested statewide ban on toddy. While there had been much planning for the day -- tapping toddy, educating the people about their rights and the urgent need to organise for it, the different factions barely got to gather at the banyan tree before they were carted away to the wedding hall in the neighbouring Kanjanur by the police on the grounds of unlawful assembly. The protest would have witnessed the participation of over 250 people (members of the two organisations, people of Narasinganur and a few neighbouring villages and those fighting for the cause from far corners of the state) if not for the preventive detention.

The protest, the first in the line of many planned in time for the election season, was organised with a twin purpose -- to establish that toddy was the food of the land and a vital source of income to villagers across the State, all in the effort to eventually get the ban removed; and, in the meantime, draw attention to the false cases being foisted on palm workers and find relief for it. “In very few districts are cases filed against palm climbers in the relevant sections if they were to be found tapping toddy. The general practice is to say they were found with illicit arrack,” said Deepan, lawyer and member of the Federation while addressing mediapersons minutes before he was made to board the police van to detention.  Pandiyan, organic farmer and third-generation palm worker in Narasinganur, said, “The ban on toddy is the government betraying the communities that have been dependent on this work for generations and the people of Tamil Nadu too. The reason given by the state government, over and over again, for the continued ban is that each palm tree would become a production centre and monitoring it all for adulteration would be a problem. Tapping pure toddy and getting it to people is our job, monitoring it well is yours. You do your job and we will do ours. Remove the ban; then, if anyone were found to be tampering with the drink, take any action you see fit.” 

Coordinator of TN Toddy Movement, C Nallasamy, who had also been detained after participating in the protest, put forth the same arguments he has been raising for nearly 15 years now. After what seemed to be yet another catch-and-release rigamarole, he remarked that this was them being stabbed in the back.

“Arrest us, remand us, let the case go to court. Then, we may get a solution. Detaining us only to release us in the evening is cowardly,” he charged.

The detainees were all released around 6 pm, same day.