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Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

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Congress was committed to alcohol ban law without being practical: MA Venkata Rao

Since the bulk of citizens did not regard drinking as a crime, they had no respect for the prohibition laws and did not cooperate with the police, wrote MV Venkata Rao in 1962.

The law prohibiting the consumption of intoxicating drinks in any form or quantity except for medicinal and research purposes was passed as part of the reformist new Gandhian life of free India after the advent of national independence in August 1947.

It was part of the Gandhian ideology like khadi and nonviolence to which the Congress was committed without much thought about the practical aspects of carrying out the spirit of the reform through legislation. Congress leaders had before them the example of the United States of America that had to abolish the Prohibition Law after years of futile attempts to enforce it through special police. It was passed in a moment of exalted idealism during the war of 1914-18 at the instance of temperance propagandists, cleric and lay, and reformers, educational and penal. They had collected impressive statistics of the amount of man-hours wasted by the ill-effects wrought by drink and of the demoralisation it worked in the domestic life of all classes from labour to the intellectual elite.

But actual experience of the enforcement of the law showed that the bulk of the people did not agree that the right of the individual citizen to drink in moderation for pleasure and social enjoyment should be abrogated by the compulsive force of the state. It was felt that state action in this sphere of life was an intolerable infringement of personal liberty and should not be allowed in a free country.

Since the bulk of citizens did not regard drinking as a crime, they had no respect for the prohibition laws and did not cooperate with the police and vigilance associations to enforce them. There was widespread defiance of the unwanted laws. Illicit manufacture and sale of liquor became widespread and made a mockery of the laws. Law was brought into contempt and legal offences increased.

We have been having similar experiences in India since 1947. People are beginning to doubt the wisdom of legislation of this kind to make men moral by law and governmental force.

A number of auxiliary repercussions unfavourable to........

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