By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram
Congress Party MP Shashi Tharoor has criticised the Kerala government’s decision to ban sale of liquor in the state.
He says the ban imposed last month came as a result of “somewhat bizarre one-up-manship of senior politicians competing with each other to prove they were holier-than-thou” and Chief Minister Oommen Chandy finally decided “he would rather let the state go into debt than see his personal reputation sullied.”
“Once the decision was taken, there was no going back; no one wanted to be branded as a votary of the demon drink. But in the days since it was announced, and even while the applause is yet to die down across the state, grim reality has begun to beckon,” the MP from Kerala said in his latest column on NDTV yesterday.
Last month, Chandy ordered the closure of all 730 liquor bars with a deadline of September 12 while allowing 16 five-star hotels, most of them part of international chains, to continue to serve liquor to their rich guests.
He also decided to close down in phases nearly 400 liquor outlets across the state, all operated by two state-run monopolies that contribute nearly one-fourth of the state’s tax revenue.
A complete ban will come into force from October 2, 2023.
“Some rumblings of discontent are already being heard amongst the very leaders who have ostensibly endorsed the decision, though they are muttered in undertones rather than openly expressed. For any politician who opposes the ban will be instantly tarred as ...an agent of the ‘liquor mafia’,” Tharoor said. “So political leaders remain unanimous in acquiescing in the decision, even while privately whispering their concerns.”
Only tourism and hospitality industry, which generates a whopping Rs230bn in annual revenue and employs thousands of youngsters in its hotels, homestays and leisure centres, has protested so far while opposition leaders caught off guard have just started a murmuring campaign.
“Bar workers and distillery employees, some 20,000 across the state, will be thrown out of work; they and their families will soon be clamouring for relief, in a state with levels of unemployment so high that tens of thousands of Keralites go outside the state each year looking for work,” Tharoor said.
“One (tourism) source claimed that 50% of the convention bookings this winter - a majority of those scheduled for non-five-star hotels - have already been cancelled. IT companies contemplating moving to the clean, green, tech-friendly environment available in Kerala say the fact that their employees might not easily be able to enjoy a drink after work has given them pause.”
Yesterday, scores of bar employees, many of them women, staged a street protest here by symbolically serving mud in a banana leaf, a reminder of what is in store for them when the entire state celebrates Onam next week serving sumptuous meals in banana leaves with a wide variety of curries.
Worse, Tharoor says, few expect the decision will actually reduce drinking. The Tamil Nadu government’s alcoholic beverages corporation, TASMAC, has announced that it will open a string of new outlets along the length of the Kerala border to cater to the demands of Keralite consumers whose excise duties will now fill the neighbouring state’s coffers rather than Kerala’s.
