Back in the day: The DMK leader never forgot to remember how one of his forefathers and founder of the Swatantra party C. Rajagopalachari (CR) met him in the rain (July 20, 1971) and asked him not to lift the ban. | Photo Credit: THE HINDU ARCHIVES
With the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) planning to hold a rally in Kallakurichi on October 2 (Gandhi Jayanti) in support of the ban, the issue will once again feature in the public discourse, perhaps after a gap of 10 years.
Although a perusal of the contemporary political history of Tamil Nadu will reveal that the ban per se is not a vote catcher in the polls, political parties have, many a time, yielded to the temptation of raising the issue. More than a year before the 2016 Assembly elections, the subject captured the imagination of the public and the leader of the DMK, M. Karunanidhi (1924-2018), who is responsible by critics and part of historians for having removed the ban in 1971 and “made familiar with the habit” drinking for people, in July 2015 committed himself to take “intensive measures” to implement the ban in the State, if elected to power. A few weeks later, the former Chief Minister explained why he had to take that decision in 1971, because it was related to the finances of the State. “I always have a guilty feeling,” a report from The Hindu on August 6, 2015 quoted Karunanidhi as saying.
Revenue considerations are a factor
The DMK leader has not forgotten how one of the forefathers and founders of the Swatantra party C. Rajagopalachari (CR) met him in the rain (July 20, 1971) and asked him not to lift the ban. However, Karunanidhi said, as he had told the Assembly on July 1 that year, that the consumption of liquor through unauthorized sources had robbed the State of ₹20 crore a year in revenue. This just goes to show that revenue considerations are always a factor, when the authorities deliberate on the subject. In July 1937, when CR, as Prime Minister of the erstwhile Madras Presidency, decided to impose prohibition in Salem district initially, it lost revenue of about ₹11 lakh per annum. Likewise, in October 1948, when his successor, Omandur P. Ramaswami Reddiar, covered the then Madras State, with a total ban, the loss was ₹ 17.5 crore per annum. During 2023-24, the estimated revenue, which can be generated through the liquor shops of Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) by way of excise levy and Value Added Tax (sales tax), is ₹45,855.67 crore.
Karunanidhi’s U-turn ban came amid anti-liquor activists having a field day. During July 2015, Sasi Perumal, who was on a 1,000-day protest, died in hospital after he climbed a mobile phone tower in Unnamalai town near Marthandam in Kanniyakumari district and started losing consciousness at a high altitude.
Three months later, Kovan alias Sivadas, a folk singer and member of the extreme Left group Makkal Kalai Iyakkam, was arrested on charges of sedition because of his songs, which were down on the way the government gets revenue through liquor, “anti-State” and critical of the Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.
‘Prohibition is impossible’
In fact, immediately after Jayalalithaa re-emerged as Chief Minister in May 2011, her government publicly declared that the ban was untenable.
Three months later, intervening in a debate on the subject in the Assembly, he asserted that those who engaged in the “empty rhetoric” of prohibition were actually in the business of brewing and bootlegging. His Cabinet colleague, Natham R. Viswanathan, who handles the Excise and Prohibition portfolio, said that Tasmac stores have diverted more than ₹ 14,000 crore to the government coffers, which, otherwise, would have gone to anti-social elements and private parties.
The pro-ban campaign in 2015 and 2016 had an impact on the AIADMK. In April 2016, Jayalalithaa, while launching her party’s election campaign in Chennai, promised a gradual but complete ban in the State if the party was re-elected to power. In fact, 25 years earlier, the party, in its manifesto, made almost the same promise. The only difference in 1991 was the party’s guarantee to close “cheap liquor shops” (selling alcohol at government-approved rates in official shops), which had been opened during the 1989-91 DMK regime. After assuming office in June 1991 for the first time, Jayalalithaa, two months later, ordered the shops to be closed.
At the time of the 2016 Assembly elections, the PMK, another long-standing advocate of prohibition, had promised strict measures to enforce the policy. Later, the party contested in all 234 seats by projecting former Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss as its candidate for the post of Chief Minister. It draws a blank. What was surprising was that the AIADMK, which had a stand on prohibition, emerged as the winner and the victory broke the State tradition of alternating between this party and the DMK for power every five years.
Published – 17 September 2024 23:36 IST
