Times View

CHENNAI: The disruption may have gladdened those campaigning for prohibition, but it took the spirit out of the contest and amounted to sheer hooliganism. Members of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad ( ABVP ), the students’ wing of BJP , brought to halt ‘Octofiesta – Drink Up’, a beer festival organised in a hotel on Sunday, saying it encouraged people to drink. The protesters barged into Hotel Radisson Blu in Egmore with policemen in tow and stopped the event.The Egmore police, however, denied any role in stopping the competition.“The event was not illegal and we did not stop it. We were at the hotel only to prevent any untoward incident. The ABVP members said they would protest, but they left once the hotel management stopped the event,” said a police officer. The management at Radisson Blu declined to comment on the issue. While organisations affiliated to the Sangh Parivar are notorious for holding protests and demonstrations during Valentine’s Day celebrations, opposing what they term a Western import, this is the first time that ABVP is acting the moral police in Chennai.ABVP’s city organising secretary L Muthuramalingam, who led the protest, told TOI, “The hotel should not encourage people to drink which is why we stopped them.” He said the hotel managers claimed they only provided space for the event and did not organise it. The beer fest was in line with Germany’s Oktoberfest – Munich’s famous beer festival. “We are working towards an alcohol-free Tamil Nadu and we will achieve this within a year. We are particularly focussing on students whose development is affected by alcohol,” said Muthuramalingam.Reacting strongly to the protests, South Indian Hotels and Restaurants Association secretary T Natarajan said, “The festival should have been treated as a commercial event. This sort of social activism is bad for business. We also organise battle of the buffets, war of the DJs and other such events. Will they stop us from serving a dish tomorrow?” If they wanted to protest, they should go to the government, which issues licences for such events, said Natarajan. However, some pubs in the city were of the view that alcohol competitions could get out of control. “We are for responsible drinking and we don’t organise competitions as it may turn ugly,” said Uday Kumar, senior manager, Zara The Tapas Bar and Restaurant.State BJP chief Tamilisai Soundararajan said the party “fully backed” the protest organised by ABVP against the beer fest. “We have already undertaken various programmes, including fasts, for total prohibition in Tamil Nadu in the past few years,” Soundararajan said.It is bad enough the police often turn silent spectators when the moral police start throwing its weight around. But it’s baffling that in this case the law enforcement agency has allowed itself to be roped into disrupting a perfectly legal activity.Whether beer drinking competitions are good or bad on moral or health grounds is something that can be debated, but irrespective your stand, it cannot be basis for intervening to prevent them if the law permits it. The job of the police is to enforce the law, not make it what they would like it to be.