Gujarat 'hooch tragedy' highlights 'discrimination against poor'

There is growing demand for the lifting of a liquor ban in India's western Gujarat state, after what has become dubbed locally as the "hooch tragedy", though church leaders and activists are divided on the topic. More than 150 people are reported to have died, and over 200 are in hospitals across Ahmedabad, the commercial capital of Gujarat, after drinking illegal home-brewed liquor.

"It is sad that lives of poor people are being taken for a ride by those trying to exploit prohibition," Bishop Vinod Kumar Malaviya, who heads the Gujarat diocese of the Church of North India, told Ecumenical News International on 14 July. "However, hooch tragedies should not deter us from carrying on with prohibition. Alcoholism is one of the biggest problems facing the working class," said Bishop Malaviya, who has previously opposed ending prohibition in Gujarat.

In deference to the "father of the Indian nation", Mahatma Gandhi, a Gujarati who was vigorously opposed to liquor, Gujarat is the only state where the sale and consumption of alcohol is banned. It is also one of the most advanced and industrially developed Indian states.

Bishop Malaviya said the government, "should make sure that prohibition remains not only on paper; the state should also make stringent measures to enforce it". Samson Christian, coordinator of the All India Christian Council in Gujarat, supports Malaviya's view. Christian told ENI that the government was showing "disrespect" to Gandhi by relaxing liquor bans to please rich industrial investors, who are flocking to Gujarat.

"One the one hand, government says there is prohibition and, on the other hand, they are allowing the free flow of liquor," said Christian. Jesuit social activist Cedric Prakash, who heads the civil affairs action group Prashant, said, "Prohibition in Gujarat has been a farce. Liquor is freely available across the state." He added that the situation was, "handy for the politicians and their cronies to make money at the expense of the poor".

One of the accused in the latest tragedy in Gujarat is a politician linked to the BJP (Bhartiya Janta Party), which holds power in the state. Concerned citizens say Gujarat has had many "hooch tragedies", both big and small, with unscrupulous business people, along with the connivance of politicians and government officials, distributing deadly brews sometimes made of poisonous chemicals.

"The church may not officially demand the lifting of prohibition but the reality is that prohibition has done little good to the people of Gujarat," said Prakash. He noted that despite prohibition, luxury hotels were "exempt" and could sell liquor to "foreigners", and this was "widely" misused, while the rich could also get branded drinks 'under the counter'. "In reality, the rich drink safe liquor while the poor have to be content with deadly cocktails," said the Jesuit priest. - Courtesy ENI