The Jan Suraaj has said it will abolish it “within minutes” of coming to power, and the Mahagathbandhan manifesto has promised a rethink. But the one party that is not talking about prohibition in the Bihar elections is the JD(U), whose Chief Minister Nitish Kumar steered the Prohibition and Excise Act, banning liquor in the state.
In its 32-page manifesto released on Tuesday, the Mahagathbandhan said it would review the Act as well as remove the ban on tari (toddy) if voted to power. “Immediate relief will be provided to Dalits and other poor people languishing in jail for violating the law,” the document said. INDIA bloc’s CM candidate Tejashwi Yadav spoke about the livelihoods lost due to the law. “The community in the toddy business for generations has no other means of livelihood.”
Of the 12.79 lakh people arrested under the Bihar liquor law in the past nine years, more than 85% belong to Scheduled Castes, EBCs and OBCs – not exactly a fact the NDA wants publicised.
The prohibition Act was brought in by Nitish when he headed a Mahagathbandhan government. In 2015, defying predictions and the Narendra Modi-led BJP wave of 2014, the Mahagathbandhan had defeated the NDA to come to power. The sweeping win – led by Lalu Prasad and Nitish coming together after 21 years – had boosted Nitish’s projection as the Opposition’s alternative to Modi at the Centre.
The JD(U) leader had carefully worked towards acquiring this image, with a long and much-publicised antipathy towards Modi.
Prohibition was seen as lending Nitish the national plank he was looking for, given that Modi’s “vikas purush” claims were an effective counter to Nitish’s “sushashan (good governance)” credentials. A liquor ban also sat well with the Nitish government’s “pro-women” image, with the demand for prohibition primarily driven by women. It was also one of the promises made by the JD(U) during the 2015 Assembly elections.
Ironically, after he became the CM for the first time in 2005, Nitish was the one to introduce a liberalised liquor policy in Bihar, leading to the opening of liquor shops down to the village level, to boost the state’s revenues. Bihar’s revenue from excise consequently shot up from Rs 500 crore in 2005 to over Rs 5,000 crore by 2015.
The RJD, the senior party in the Mahagathbandhan, with 80 seats to the JD(U)’s 71, was not keen on a ban. Its OBC Yadav base has links to the liquor trade, and the RJD was wary of a backlash.
The RJD’s apprehensions, however, were swept aside by Nitish, who managed to get a resolution passed in both Houses of the Bihar Legislature in support of a liquor ban. More importantly, he did so with the support of the BJP – his former ally to whom he would soon return, seemingly overcoming his Modi aversion.
In the first week of April 2016, the Nitish government introduced a partial liquor ban, excluding countrymade spirits and toddy.
A day after this ban was enforced, the state saw a series of protests outside liquor shops. Most of the protesters were women from JEEViKA self-help groups, who were beneficiaries of a Nitish government initiative and his vocal supporters.
As the news came in of the protests, the CM seemed far from upset. Instead, he could barely hide his excitement as he told the media, including this reporter, at his Vidhan Sabha office: “Just wait for some days, we will give you another breaking news.”
That followed on April 6, 2016, when the Bihar Assembly passed an amended law, for a total liquor ban in the state. Introducing the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Bill, Nitish invoked Mahatma Gandhi’s description of drinking as “a social evil” and quoted Gandhi as saying in the Harijan magazine he edited that if he was made dictator for a day, the first thing he would do was ban liquor.
Prohibition and politics
The liquor ban was a hit among rural women. A 2024 Lancet report said 21 lakh women in Bihar reported zero domestic violence post the ban on liquor, a striking statistic in a state that accounted for as much as 40% of such cases, the highest in the country, during the 1990s.
However, barring rural women – who were anyway inclined towards Nitish – there were no obvious political dividends for the JD(U). In 2017, the JD(U) walked out of the Mahagathbandhan and into the NDA, which helped it get a boost in the Lok Sabha. But in 2020, the last Assembly elections, the JD(U) tally fell from 71 to 43, almost half the BJP’s. In the five years since, Nitish has done another foray into the Mahagathbandhan and back into the BJP, remaining the CM, but the JD(U)’s fortunes are now more or less seen as driven by its national ally.
Meanwhile, the prohibition law has proved difficult to implement, as predicted. In a speech in December 2021, then Chief Justice of India N V Ramana remarked that the Bihar liquor law “lacked administrative foresight”, resulting in “clogging” of courts.
In the years since, the Nitish government has brought in a host of amendments, such as waiving off of arrest provisions in case of first-time drinkers, as well as community fines and confiscation of houses in case any member of a family was caught consuming liquor.
The Nitish government has also been on the backfoot over a series of hooch tragedies in recent years, leading to deaths of over 300. Having once said in the Assembly “Jo piyega, woh marega (Those who drinks, will die)”, implying the victims get what they deserve, the CM in April 2023 announced Rs 4 lakh as compensation for families of all victims of hooch tragedies since the introduction of prohibition in April 2016.
Current elections
Within the Mahagathbandhan, it is the CPI (M-L) Liberation that took the lead on the issue, with its chief Dipankar Bhattacharya asserting that the coalition would “review the liquor ban” if it came to power. The manifesto released Tuesday was an affirmation of that resolve, though Tejashwi, who was Deputy CM to Nitish when he brought in the prohibition ban, has not addressed the issue directly.
The loudest voice on the issue is of Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor, who has been saying repeatedly that he would lift the ban on liquor “within 15 minutes” of coming to power. In an interview to The Indian Express, he said: “I am not against the ethical aspect of a liquor ban. But evidence-based policies across the world suggest that a liquor ban is not enforceable… Bihar’s liquor law is a total failure, creating an illicit economy of Rs 20,000 crore annually.”
RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari said it was not a surprise that prohibition was not being talked about by the JD(U). “The NDA knows it will not help the alliance. Rather, it has become a noose around the neck of the NDA – Nitish can neither claim to have enforced the law fully, nor can he lift the ban.”
JD(U) spokesperson Neeraj Kumar asserted that the CM’s decision had been proven right. “Several reports suggest that the quality of life has improved post the liquor ban. There could be some issues with the enforcement of the law because of limited police personnel and the porous Indo-Nepal border… But the benefits of a liquor ban cannot be disputed.”
BJP state vice-president Santosh Pathak questioned the Opposition’s “moral right” in talking about the prohibition law, as it was passed by the Legislature with a voice vote. Pathak added: “The law does have a lot of positives. As for Kishor’s take on it, we do not take him seriously as a political player.”