Last week I met him again in district Hissar and enquired if that piece of advice still stood. Well, yes, he answered, but the chances are that you’ll find much fewer drivers on the roads. People drink much like before, but now they are a little more furtive about it.
Drunkenness is endemic in this fast-changing society. It is not clear how much people drank 30 years ago when the green revolution was only a dream. Even then, it may be assumed that the landless labourer was eager to hit the bottle after a bone-weary day, slogging for the zamindar. Now, with more money in his pocket, alcohol is a quick shot against the dreariness of everyday life. For the farmer it is also a celebration of his new-found wealth and the conviviality of his friends. For the trader foreign-made liquor is proof of his elite position in this still largely agricultural economy.
Before prohibition, there were alcohol vends in every tiny town. And a couple of shopkeepers in every village illicitly extended this network down virtually to the consumer’s doorstep. It was a common sight to see men lurching down village lanes, or sitting in a group playing cards and drinking. The police would occasionally raid a shop here and there, but no serious effort was made to stop things.
Now, at least, men avoid drinking in public. Nothing is as disruptive of the bonhomie of guzzlers as the sight of a man in khaki and the prospect of a night in jail.
But the availability of alcohol does not seem to have decreased, especially in the border districts of Haryana. Only the prices have gone up. With fields stretching right up to the borders, it is hardly any effort to take a walk across and come back with a bottle slung in a bag under an arm. This is particularly true of the Punjab border.
I met one Amarjeet Singh who lives in a village some 15 km from the border. He has no land and works as an agricultural labourer, supplementing his income by smuggling in liquor. Amarjeet’s method is surprisingly simple. He cycles across to the nearest Punjab liquor vend and buys several sachets of country-made for Rs 9 apiece. Then in the evening he joins the ranks of the many workers and employees cycling back home, with the sachets in a dirty bag dangling from his handles. Pedalling with the crowd he passes the police checkpost and goes home where he sells the sachets for Rs 30 each. That’s a cool profit of Rs 21 per sachet and easily 200 rupees for the trip.
The Police can’t really be bothered about these small smugglers. Their lookout is for the truckloads of booze that the big fish bring in. That’s also where the real money is.
In Amarjeet’s village, prohibition has come like a godsend. There are 600 houses in his village, of which 200 belong to the landless labourers. Ownership of land is always a crucial factor in the village. Nearly a 100 houses of the landless are regular movers of alcohol across the border. They earn several times as much as the zamindar could possibly pay for a day’s back-breaking work, they are not under his thumb any longer, and it is easy work.
The cops don’t pay much attention to these petty activities. Even if caught, a quiet transaction of Rs 1000-2000 resolves matters to everybody’s satisfaction.
Over the last year of prohibition, the poorer sections of the villages near the borders are fast changing. On the basis of boot-legging money, many of the poor have made their houses pucca. People have more money in their hands and their consumption of food, clothes, transistors, wristwatches and, yes, alcohol, too, has gone up.
In an ironic side-effect of prohibition, a large part of the revenue which the state used to get and the profits which well-connected distributors monopolized is now going to the poor of the border districts. Just the other day Bansi Lal thundered in a rally that he knew who was spreading all that false propaganda about prohibition being a failure: it was all the doing of those fat traders who had previously cornered the supply of alcohol. Bansi Lal was right about at least one thing - those fat traders sure aren’t making much money nowadays.
Meet Sukhdev, who used to be a small-time dudhwala till a couple of months ago. His little business collapsed when one of his major customers, a halwai in the town, defaulted in paying him. With nothing to pay those from whom he had bought the milk, this owner of 2 measly acres found that his supply dried up very quickly. Now Sukhdev is listening eagerly to the tales of what seem to him to be small fortunes that his acquaintances have made in a matter of months. Earning Rs 2000 in a single day is quite easy it seems, and very tempting, too.
Many other small village entrepreneurs are turning in this direction. Making your own home-brew is easy. All that is needed is some jaggery and the bark of the kikar tree. Distillation is done with the help of a simple apparatus made of a drum, a pipe, a tasla and a pot. The heat is provided by cow-dung cakes. But not many choose to go in for setting up their own little distillery. Its quite a bother and so much easier to get some from over the border and peddle it.
But what about prohibition in Haryana? I posed this question to a well-dressed gentleman to whom I gave a lift. The only reason prohibition is not being lifted is because it would be very embarrassing for the government, he declared. It is much easier to find a drink now than before. In every second house you’ll find stock for sale, only its become much more expensive. The supply of alcohol has become decentralized, as it were. The distribution of the profits from it is much more egalitarian than previously. The poor are getting a decent cut out of what previously only the rich could earn fortunes from. Pretty good thing to have happened, it must be admitted.
Amman Madan Academic Staff College Block III, Old Campus Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi 110 067 ammanmadan@hotmail.com July 1997