Rita Devi’s husband wept with his family on Tuesday night. The 35-year-old man, from a village called Kuransarya in Bihar, northern India, had just heard the state’s chief minister make an announcement. From the following day, said Nitish Kumar, all sales of alcohol would be prohibited in the state. “He was crying his eyes out,” Devi recalls. “He was holding me and saying, ‘The government has just saved my life.’”



Devi, like many other women in her village, had been campaigning for Bihar to become a dry state for months. She is part of a women’s collective called Mahila Kala Kendra, which went as far as forcibly shutting alcohol shops in some villages a few years ago. For women like Devi, alcohol is a gender issue and the ban is a symbol of empowerment for women. “Our husbands earn barely anything,” she says. “They don’t think about how they will feed their children, or how I will fill my stomach tonight, they just throw their money away on alcohol.”

Kumar, a teetotaller himself, had promised Bihar’s women the alcohol ban in his election campaign last year and, on the first day of the month, he forbade local brews in the state. He claims that, after encouragement from several women’s groups, he then decided to enforce complete prohibition, including on liquor imports. Alcohol abuse in Bihar, one of India’s poorest states, is linked to domestic violence, rape and suicide.

The ban is not the first to have taken place in India, where, according to the World Health Organisation, alcohol consumption has risen considerably since 2003 and is split sharply down gender lines, with men drinking three times as much as women, and 95% of women considered teetotal. Gujarat, Nagaland and Manipur have all banned alcohol. Other states such as Andhra Pradesh and Kerala have also experimented with partial bans.

Prohibition has not always met with success. In Tamil Nadu, temporary prohibition provoked violent protests in August last year and previous bans have led to the rise of a black market trade in alcohol. “You can easily get alcohol here,” one resident of Gujarat said. “It’s just that if a beer costs you 150 rupees (£1.50) in Delhi, it’ll cost 300 in Gujarat.”

What is arguably most significant about the Bihar ban is the sheer numbers it will affect. The state has 100 million residents, a population bigger than Germany’s. Success there could add serious momentum to prohibition movements elsewhere.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bihar is not the first state to ban alcohol, consumption of which has risen considerably since 2003, according to the WHO. Photograph: Bikas Das/AP

Anita Gupta, a women’s activist, said a complete lack of regulation had led to growing alcoholism and violence in Bihar in recent years. “They don’t even think about where they are putting up a bar. You can find them right next to schools, or areas where there are families. There’s no consideration for women and children at all,” she said.

But, already, some Biharis have expressed anger at how the ban is being enforced. “You can’t just give one day’s notice like this,” said Vinay Kumar Chaudhury, who works at the China Garden bar in the state capital, Patna. “Overnight, our livelihoods have been taken from us. The ban is probably a good thing for Bihar, but the government should provide an alternative for the people whose lives will be affected by it.”

Chaudhury said the China Garden had just paid the full amount to get its liquor licence renewed for the following year. “Why did they take our money if they were going to ban alcohol the next day? Nobody is thinking about what’s good for the country; everybody is just thinking about votes.”

People who drink in public places in Bihar now face up to 10 years in jail, and smugglers who bring in alcohol that causes death could get a life sentence. Manufacturing of alcohol will continue, though all local trade will – in theory – be strictly prohibited. Addicts will be able to get liquor with a doctor’s prescription note.

According to a report in the Hindustan Times, police across the state raided 1,159 bars and alcohol shops on Wednesday, and seized 20,000 litres of country liquor and 380 litres of spirit, and 85 people were sent to jail for violating the ban. Meanwhile, 749 people checked themselves into newly opened, government-run rehab centres for treatment, many of them reportedly experiencing withdrawal symptoms.

The ban will cost Bihar about 40bn rupees (£424m) in tax revenue from alcohol sales, which could severely set back state-run welfare projects and government plans. But Kumar said the ban was being implemented on moral grounds. “We don’t want such income that comes at the expense of people’s lives,” he said.

For women like Devi, the ban comes as a blessing. “We are very happy,” she said. “You should see our village. The men would drink and make noise late at night, and then you’d find them passed out outside the house the next day. Now all that will stop. We can look forward to becoming a family again.”