With the arrest of folk singer Kovan under sedition charges for singing anti-liquor songs, campaigners for Prohibition gear up to raise their voices once again.

It was a curious scene on 4 August across Tamil Nadu as tipplers gulped down their ‘cuttings’ in barely concealed glee. They were surrounded by the police and for once, rather than being harassed, were provided with security to guzzle that daily ‘quarter’.

Anti-liquor campaigners in Tamil Nadu had issued a strident call to shut down TASMACs (Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation), the government-owned liquor retail monopoly which runs bars across the state. Protests peaked in August following the death of Gandhian activist and anti-liquor campaigner Sasi Perumal, who climbed up a telephone pole in Kanyakumari district during a protest, only to die of heart failure while perched atop the pole.

Sasi Perumal’s family sat in protest for close to a week, refusing to receive the activist’s body. “Our demands are total Prohibition,” said Navaneethan Sasi Perumal, 35-year-old son of Sasi Perumal, during the fast in Salem. “The government must announce this immediately and implement phased Prohibition within 6 months. In Salem, the birthplace of my father, as well as in Kanyakumari, where he died – we demand immediate closure of all liquor outlets,” he had said.

An unfazed Tamil Nadu government stood firm, even as Opposition parties tried to cash in on the protests. “Government policy cannot be changed by violent protests,” said Tamil Nadu’s minister for Prohibition and Excise, Natham Viswanathan addressing the state Assembly a few days later. Charging the opposition with raking up a non-issue, he said, “It is only for political mileage ahead of elections that many parties are raking up the Prohibition issue.”

On Friday, the state government went one step further, arresting Kovan, a folk singer from Trichy, for performing songs criticising Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and her government’s policies on liquor. He has been charged with sedition. Kovan’s supporters have already taken to social media and messaging services like WhatsApp, sharing videos of Kovan’s songs as a mark of protest against his arrest. Anti-liquor campaigners are gearing up for another round of high pitched protests across the state, with Kovan’s arrest being the catalyst.

The argument for Prohibition

Anti-liquor campaigners argue that alcoholism is rampant in the state and is ruining families irrevocably. “We have walked across the state in an effort to raise awareness about the issue of alcoholism,” said Inamul Hassan, a founder of the People’s Movement Against Liquor and Drugs (PMALD), a group of students campaigning for Prohibition. “Children studying in 6th and 7th standard are buying liquor and getting into alcoholism now. We saw this across the state and it is alarming,” he said.

State Health Department officials confirmed that no studies or surveys have been done so far by government on the prevalence of alcohol-related afflictions. Smaller localized studies though paint a grim picture. Experts like Dr Lakshmi Vijaykumar, affiliated with the World Health Organisation, say that the average drinking age of the Indian has come down to 13 and 14 years from 19 years of age about ten years ago. Arguing for restriction of liquor sales, she says, “Of all my clients, amongst the people who consume liquor, only 15-20 percent drink in moderation, 80 percent fall into the hazardous drinkers category,” she added.

A survey of 12 villages done over two summers and released in August by the Magasool Trust, gives an indication of the scale of the problem. Findings show that alcohol-related domestic violence is sharply on the rise. 64% of women said they were beaten by husbands in households where the male drank every day. In households where the males did not drink, wife-beating stood at 9%. “We extrapolated our findings to the entire state and found that an approximate 1.3 crore men have drinking habits in the state, of which 70 lakhs drink on a daily basis,” said Jayaram Venkatesan of the Magasool Trust. “Rs 44,000 crores is spent every year on buying alcohol, meaning a loss of Rs 4100 per month per household on average. When it comes to daily drinkers, spending on alcohol shoots up to Rs 6500 per month per household. More money is spent on healthcare due to alcohol-related illnesses, averaging about Rs 2200 crores per annum,” he added. Venkatesan and his team calculated loss of productivity due to drinking as well. “Daily drinkers lose 14 days a month due to their addiction,” he said. “Loss of productivity is worth around Rs 20,000 crores per annum. This means an overall calculated loss of Rs 66,000 crores every year due to alcoholism, if you take into account all social, health and economic aspects of drinking.”

The argument against Prohibition

Those not in favour of complete Prohibition argue that such a move would only usher in spurious illegal liquor and hooch, which would cause deaths in the state. The other argument is one relating to the economy. One-third of the state’s revenues come from the taxes earned on retail sales of TASMAC. In 2014-15, TASMAC rang in revenues of Rs 24,164.95 crores, up from Rs 21,674 crores the previous year. Shutting down alcohol sales would mean a massive hit to the treasury of a debt-ridden state. In a welfare state that thrives on freebies, such a move would cripple many schemes, argue anti-Prohibitionists.

“We regret that we cannot implement Prohibition but if the central government proposed such a move, Tamil Nadu government will be the first to support it,” said Minister for Prohibition and Excise Natham Viswanathan in the state Assembly earlier this year.

Sources within the State Planning Commission told Firstpost on condition of anonymity that various proposals had been discussed in detail within the state government on the issue of Prohibition. One of the key proposals was to reduce the number of TASMAC outlets selling liquor from the current 7000, in an effort to restrict access to alcohol. “We have proposed this a number of times but the government is yet to take a decision on this,” said the source.

Politics of Prohibition

Sniffing blood, political parties across all spectrums in the state have jumped headlong into the issue, promising total Prohibition if voted to power in 2016. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the main Opposition party in the state, Vijaykanth’s Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK), Ramadoss’ Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), Vaiko’s Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) and the BJP have all issued clarion calls demanding Prohibition.

This stand is a result of pre-poll surveys done across the state by back-end teams of various political parties. “There is too much of a cry from the ground,” divulged a source within the DMK, of the survey conducted by them. “Votes are polarised, with too many people stating that they will vote for the party which promises to implement Prohibition. Women voters, especially, are united on this, so it is a very large votebank,” he said.

A state which has see-sawed on the issue of Prohibition since the 1970s, is once again on the brink of possible change. Which side will win? And how will Tamil Nadu implement Prohibition in an era of globalisation and urbanisation? Such a complex and layered issue cannot have a simple solution.