How Nitish Kumar's Bihar is still on a high despite liquor ban

In Gautam Buddha’s Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has abandoned the Middle Path in favour of a fanatical ban on liquor. You can’t not only not drink in Bihar, you can’t store, manufacture or possess it in any form — save for the mildly fermented toddy. Now we know why the Mauryan empire once stretched from latter-day Magadh to the latter-day Islamic Republic of Pakistan — the authorities on both ends of the geographical swathe fervently believe they cannot let even one drop of the golden tipple contaminate their soil.

This kind of impassioned zeal, which characterises crusaders and campaigners and holy warriors, has now descended upon the self-described saviour of Bihar. For a whole decade, he charmed its people with his integrity, his vision of a liberal, progressive state and an incredible capacity to translate that vision into reality. Now, in his third term in power, Nitish has turned into a parental figure who believes he knows what’s best for his citizen children.

Makes you wonder if Nitish and Narendra Modi have more in common with each other, after all. Gujarat amd Bihar, apart from Nagaland, are the only states in India at present which have imposed prohibition. Gujarat went dry in 1960 in fitful deference to some Gandhian prescription — remember the Mahatma notably said that, “if I was appointed dictator for one hour for all India, the first thing I would do would be to close without compensation all the liquor shops”. Fact is, it is terribly easy to get any and all types of alcohol delivered to your home in any Gujarati city, with a red ribbon wrapped on the bottle for viewing pleasure.

Bihar is slowly moving in that direction. Since toddy is exempt, on the orders of Lalu Yadav, the stuff is being nicely spiced up. At a premium, everything else is also already available. And since alcohol abhors a vacuum, neighbouring states are lending a hand.

Marriage parties and mundan ceremonies have moved to Jharkhand in the south. The open India-Nepal border in the north and the “roti-beti” relationship between Bihar (and Uttar Pradesh) and the Terai mean that alcohol is easily available along the Raxaul-Birgunj to Sitamarhi-Janakpur stretch, and beyond.

Mamata Banerjee’s West Bengal has simply opted out of the “to drink or not to drink” dilemma and ordered that dry days be reduced to only four — Independence Day, Republic Day, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and Dol Jatra day, but only up to 2 pm — thereby encouraging young Bihari men to go east. Meanwhile in the west, only a couple of hours away on the Grand Trunk Road from Sher Shah Suri’s Sasaram, Banaras is readying itself to greet Biharis on day trips and nights out.

Alcohol Proof
But the truth is that Bihar is still getting tipsy. The Gopalganj hooch tragedy on August 15, in which 16 people were killed, is a ghastly reminder of the topsy-turvy world Nitish has created, albeit in an admirable attempt to control violence inside and outside the home and generally create a happier tola, village and city — his version of Mahatma Gandhi’s Ram Rajya.

It is certainly true, especially in the villages, that women have especially welcomed the alcohol ban because it shuts off avenues for men to drink, get drunk, beat their wives and harass their children. Village organisations and self-help groups are reporting that the money which once went into liquor is now helping support children’s education and a better maintenance of home and hearth.

But Bihar seems more than bewildered by Nitish’s evangelical streak. Unlike Bangladesh, where booze is banned but wine available for Christians to perform Sunday mass, Bihari Christians have to make do with grape juice. Unlike Pakistan, where non-Muslims are allowed to drink (and the Murree Brewery, lovingly run by a Pakistani Parsi, still produces some of the best whiskey in the sub-continent), and if you are a Muslim with a doctor’s receipt that gives information on “sharaabi ka naam” and “sharaabi ke baap ka naam” you can still get your daily quota, Biharis have been allowed no such religious relaxations.

Nitish is believed to have sternly told Bihar’s homeopaths, ayurvedic doctors and unani practitioners, who routinely use minute quantities of alcohol to help the medicine go down, that they have to now do without. No go.

This was the man who played both Hanuman and Ram in the elections last year — carrying Lalu Yadav’s RJD despite the pleas of Biharis who remembered the dark days of the Lalu-Rabri regime, and defeating the BJP in a battle worthy of the annals of both history and mythology — in the wake of which people began to openly speak of Nitish as an alternative to Modi in 2019.

But Nitish would blush ever so slightly and shy away in denial. The fact that he was decidedly secular, allowed the demolition of his family home in Kalyan Bigha when it came in the way of the broadening national highway and simply refused to promote his engineer son, gave him the contours of a hero. A hero of our desperately needed times.

Until he turned Bihar inside out on April 1 with the prohibition law, under which 12,154 people have since been arrested for possession, consumption, making, selling and smuggling alchohol. In his effort to create a model state, Bihar is now rewriting the Commandments. It is unlikely that the Buddha, who once lived and taught his disciples in Nitish Kumar’s home district of Nalanda, would have approved. Perhaps that is the lesson Bihar’s first son now needs to learn.

(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist)