Drunk driver in Nitish Kumar's dry Bihar lifts the veil off prohibition policy
A drunk driver was arrested in Bihar's capital Patna after he nearly lost control of the school bus he was driving, clearly showing how chief minister Nitish Kumar's liquor ban is a flop show.
The incident occurred at the Income Tax roundabout early morning on September 24 when the van carrying children studying in the primary section of St Karen's School was seen speeding.
This is the state of affairs when Kumar has made enforcement of the ban top priority for his government, calling it the most secular policy ever and mobilising the entire law-enforcing machinery to clamp down prohibition with an iron fist.
The state government had introduced a complete ban on the sale and consumption of liquor on April 5, 2016. Not only that, Kumar has been pushing for a countrywide ban on the sale and consumption of liquor.
Kumar's contention is that all religions prohibit the consumption of liquor and hence, there should be a total ban on it.
"In all religions, be it Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism, consumption of liquor is considered bad. It needs a lot of courage to implement prohibition and I want to ask the Congress and the Left who talk a lot about secularism — why don't they ban liquor in the states they govern? Why don't they do campaign against liquor?" Nitish had said in 2017.
The driver, Manish Kumar, told The Telegraph that he had consumed liquor at a friend's birthday party in Kankarbagh. A fact which highlights how easily liquor is available in Kumar's dry state.
Kumar's liquor ban was enforced reportedly after women complained about domestic abuse at the hands of drunken husbands. They also complained about how their alcohol-addicted husbands spent all their earnings on booze.
Unmindful of the fact that men beat up women because of deep-seated misogyny, which can only be rooted out through education, sensitisation and strict laws, Kumar moved to ban liquor. He then hid behind the veil of religion to justify the move.
Religion prohibits liquor, and Kumar believes in religion, so liquor was banned. Damned be the references that religious scriptures offer about 'somras' and darned be the fact that not everyone believes in religion.
Thankfully, the idea of banning atheists has still not struck Kumar.
Kumar's contention has been that even if the state loses revenue banning liquor is fine because the smiles it has brought to the faces of people compensates for the move.
With a drunken man driving a bus with children aboard though, it seems like the liquor mafia is the one smiling.
The Bihar chief minister is also unmindful of the criticism the policy has drawn from his own coalition partners. BJP MP RK Sinha recently said the policy was a failure.
"There is a need to review the way prohibition has been imposed in the state... The tourism sector and hotel business in Bihar have been hit hard by prohibition. Big companies and MNCs are hosting their conferences and other functions in neighbouring West Bengal," said Sinha.
Sinha also drew attention to how the ban has led to a rise of liquor mafia and officials making a fast buck under the garb of implementing the ban.
When reports of hooch tragedies surfaced despite the ban being in place, Kumar countered them by saying, "Some people say prohibition has failed and should be withdrawn, citing a few incidents of deaths caused by spurious liquor consumption. Such people should remember that laws cannot be revoked just because a crime has not stopped."
So, even if the crime hasn't stopped, the ban must stay in place because, after all, religion says so, and Kumar is a man of religion, so focused on protecting religion that he failed to take note of how women, in whose name he introduced the ban, were being sexually exploited in shelter homes across the state.
If only politicians could stop trying to be politically correct all the time, guiding people as true leaders. Perhaps then Kumar could have spoken about responsible drinking.