Forty-four-year-old E. Sivaganesan, a powerloom unit owner, is still nursing an injury on his head, which he allegedly sustained during police action against residents during a protest on April 11. He had joined others in his locality to agitate against the move by the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) to relocate a liquor outlet from the highway to a residential area at Samalapuram in Tirupur.
On December 15, 2016, the Supreme Court ordered the closure of liquor outlets and bars situated within 500 metres of highways, taking cognisance of complaints that they contributed heavily to accidents caused by drunk driving.
The court fixed March 31 this year as the deadline for closure of such outlets. Initially, all shops on highways were shut down. But what then followed triggered a wave of protests across the State. Within a week of closing the shops, efforts began to relocate them from highways to interior pockets of the State. Even as residents are putting up a spirited resistance, Tasmac employees say they are under immense pressure to identify alternative sites for the liquor shops.
Against this backdrop, what began as a protest in Samalapuram against the relocation of a liquor outlet culminated in Sivaganesan needing six sutures and other residents like S. Vijayalakshmi losing three teeth and suffering a hip injury and Easwari suffering temporary hearing loss after being slapped by a policeman.
A video of the incident went viral on social media and put Additional Superintendent of Police A. Pandiarajan in the dock for allegedly using force on a group of residents who were merely protesting against the relocation of a liquor shop on the grounds that it would disrupt order in their up-until-then peaceful locality.
Vehement opposition: Villagers dismantling a thatched shed meant for a Tasmac outlet in Madurai; (below) liquor bottles strewn on the floor after a shop was attacked by residents in Salem.
But far from turning downcast, the residents of Samalapuram are determined to continue resisting Tasmac's moves to relocate liquor shops, and have come to symbolise the opposition to liquor that has engulfed the State.
Protests against liquor shops, or even demand for total prohibition, are not new to Tamil Nadu — this is after all the land of anti-liquor activist Sasi Perumal, who died while protesting for prohibition in the State.
However, up until the incident in Samalapuram , the history of anti-liquor protests in Tamil Nadu had been one that was largely free of violence.
Women, kids worst-hit
The offices of almost all District Collectors in the State have seen round-the-year inflow of petitions seeking closure of liquor outlets, on the grounds that they cause immense hardship to people, particularly women and children.
Customers at these outlets invariably spill out of the small attached bars and create problems for residents, sometimes using the spaces in front of their homes as open-air bars.
Terming the Tasmac’s plans as a brazen attempt to relocate liquor outlets to their colonies at the cost of peace, residents and anti-liquor groups are going to great lengths like pulling down shops under construction or digging trenches to prevent construction material from reaching the alternative sites for shops that have to be shifted from the highways.
What is striking is that women, having endured and experienced first-hand the deleterious effects of alcoholism on their families, are at the forefront of the protests. In Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri, women are leading the agitations in villages.
There have been reports of women in a couple of villages in Dharmapuri maintaining night-long vigil to prevent liquor-laden vans from reaching new outlets to provide fresh stock. In one Panchayat, women seized a mini-van and released the vehicle with its stock of liquor only after the owner of the land, which was leased to a Tasmac outlet, gave a written undertaking that he would no longer let it out for the vending of liquor.
A protest at Moonur in Madurai turned violent when the locals pulled down the sheds that were being erected for a bar in front of a newly-opened liquor shop.
S.S.A. Basha, who runs a tea shop near Yagappa Nagar Main Road in Madurai, contends that the primary reason for the public anger is the Tasmac's desperation to open new shops in place of those that had to be shut along the highways.
The locations chosen by Tasmac for relocation seem to prove Mr. Basha's point. At Moonur, a local polytechnic and a primary school are located barely 200 metres from the proposed location of the liquor outlet. Ironically, a de-addiction centre for people affected by alcohol abuse is within 100 metres of the shop.
At S. Alangulam in Madurai, a school as well as offices of the Village Administrative Officer and the Revenue Inspector are located near the site for the proposed Tasmac outlet.
Acknowledging these problems, a Tasmac supervisor says employees of the closed shops have been tasked with finding new locations. “Senior officials are asking us to find alternative places for the closed shops, which we have to do if we are to continue in our roles,” he alleges.
While Tasmac officials claim that necessary clearances have been obtained to relocate the outlets, residents say revenue is being prioritised over public interest.
Swelling crowds
The issue, however, is not limited to the residents of the localities where the new shops are to come up. Residents of areas that already have liquor outlets are facing a different kind of problem — a significant surge in crowds.
A case in point is the liquor outlet at Mela Ponnagaram in Madurai, situated close to schools and a hospital. “With the closure of liquor shops on the highways, the crowd at this outlet has increased manifold, causing more trouble to the public,” says N. Nanmaran, former Communist Party of India (Marxist) MLA. Earlier this month, residents of Periyavalasu Four Roads in Erode staged a road blockade, demanding the closure of an IMFL outlet along Manickampalayam Road, due to a drastic increase in the number of customers there and the commotion caused by it.
P. Alagesan, who participated in the protest at Moonur, points to the conspicuous absence of the two major parties of Tamil Nadu in these public protests.
“The places where these shops are located are largely represented by members of either the DMK or AIADMK. In Moonur, the main opposition we faced was from a functionary of one of these parties, who had a vested interest in running the shop,” he claims.
Stiff opposition from residents, civic activists and welfare organisations has made relocation of liquor shops difficult in Tiruchi. As many as 119 of the 204 shops in the district were closed as they were situated on national highways.
Fear of sliding sales
Fearing a 30%-40 % dip in sales, officials are making frantic efforts to find suitable locations for liquor shops, but with little success.
Protests across the State have only slowed down the relocation process, and there is no sign that the authorities may rescind this move. Hence, petitions continue to pour into Collectors' offices.
Thus far, 10 outlets have been successfully opened at alternative locations in Tiruchi district. But plans for five outlets at Ambikapuram, Pandamangalam, Musiri, Thuraiyur and Manapparai were dropped due to public opposition.
In the Coimbatore region, 536 of the 840 Tasmac outlets in total were closed. Of these, 400 were located along State Highways and the remaining along National Highways. According to senior officials, around 38 shops have been reopened at new locations, despite protests from the public. Four relocated shops had to be closed in the face of opposition from residents and various organisations supporting prohibition.
In Erode, efforts to find alternative sites for 148 closed outlets have hit a wall of resistance from residential colonies.
In Salem, only 34 of the 137 closed shops could be relocated, as villagers in Edappadi, Mettur, Omalur, Attur and Vazhapadi stalled the move. In Namakkal, of the 153 shops closed, only 16 could be relocated.
In the Nilgiris, protests in Coonoor and Kotagiri have led to the district administration reconsidering relocation of shops to interior parts of Coonoor, Udhagamandalam, Kotagiri and Gudalur.
A senior Tasmac official says the shops can be opened at new locations if they do not come within 100 metres of places of worship and educational institutions, besides the stipulated distance from the highways as laid down by the Supreme Court.
Officials insist that Tasmac staff have been instructed to look only for sites that satisfy the above criteria. But the residents don’t want any of the closed shops to be relocated.
On the other hand, Tasmac employees, rendered jobless by the closure of the outlets on highways, also want a solution. “The Revenue department can solve the issue easily by identifying vacant government land, away from residential areas and poramboke lands,” says John Antony, state vice-president of Tasmac Oozhiyargal Sangam.
With employees of closed outlets set for an intensive hunt for alternative sites, a long-drawn battle is set to unfold, unless the government resolves to prioritise public order and peace over revenue.
Some credit Sasi Perumal with coaxing political parties into including prohibition in their agendas during the last Assembly elections. The impact was seen in the closure of 500 Tasmac shops after the AIADMK government came to power. Similarly, there is hope that the Samalapuram agitation will also not go in vain.
(With inputs from R. Vimal Kumar in Tirupur, Pon Vasanth Arunachalam in Madurai, C. Jaishankar in Tiruchi, Wilson Thomas in Coimbatore, S.P. Saravanan in Salem, P.V. Srividya in Krishnagiri, T.Madhavan in Chennai, and Rohan Premkumar in Udhagamandalam)
