Now what kind of a ruler is he who could break the backs of the very subjects who voted him to power and earn their wrath for all time to come? In the hot month of August last year, fellow traveller Amarnath Tewary and I hit the roads of Bihar to find out why Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who had ushered in a liquor revolution a few years ago, had taken the extreme decision of banishing spirits from his State. The jails were brimming with offenders. The State cops were on the verge of revolt as they felt overworked and ‘di-spirited’. August was a month of despair.
An exception, we found, were the women who quietly cheered the CM’s decision, but vocally extended support to their menfolk who had been rounded up for violating the recently enacted law against drinking. The worst sufferers, we found, were the Dalits and the Mahadalits like the Musahars. And they were making some measly money by selling local brew. Many of them were put behind bars due to the draconian provisions of the Bihar Excise (Amendment) Act, 2016.
A gloomy scenario
Drinking at home was forbidden and the police were under instructions to impound vessels if they were found containing jaggery (crucial to brewing local liquor). Arrests without warrant were added as provisions in the law. But there were no clear answers to what prompted Mr. Kumar to impose a blanket ban on liquor. Even his powerful principal secretary at Bihar’s Registration, Excise and Prohibition Department at the time, K.K. Pathak, who granted us an appointment, could not come up with a satisfactory answer. He regaled us with tales on how one should never stop wielding the stick. Gently, he added. The hotels wore a deserted look. The odd residents who had flown in for work said they were driving to the salubrious environs of Jharkhand just across for a drink.
But the Musahars really had nowhere to go. Just on the outskirts of the capital Patna, they were huddled in their sad shanties and looked morose. They did not want to speak to us. It was beyond their comprehension as to why a man they had voted for had turned against them and we were not certainly helping them find an alternative vocation.
After all these months, the law is still in place but the stories of men and women in jails have disappeared from the pages of newspapers. Mr. Pathak has been transferred after he made the grievous mistake of ordering the arrest of a very important person from the CM’s constituency.
