In the course of upholding Kerala’s enthusiastic attempts to curb the free sale of alcohol, the Supreme Court also reminded all states that the Constitution places a responsibility on them to “at least contain, if not curtail, consumption of alcohol”. The broader principle of prohibition to help people in the context of liquor denuding family incomes in a developing country may even have allowed the judges to take a lenient view of the discrimination inherent in only five-star hotels being allowed to serve intoxicating beverages. To justify such an invidious distinction on the grounds of promoting tourism is risible. If the objective is genuinely to do with “saving” Indian society, then there is no reason to serve liquor to tourists, not all of whom can anyway afford the unconscionable prices that luxury hotels charge.
While the practical aspect is a challenge because such curbs are an open opportunity to the enforcers to make money in collusion with the illicit trade, the fear is the policy is aimed more at deriving political mileage. The kind of exemptions thought of suggest the policy is not aimed at what Mahatma Gandhi had in mind. The world’s experience with bans of any kind is different, except maybe in totalitarian states. If the curbs in Kerala lead to lesser per capita consumption of liquor from a high 14 per cent of “national thirst”, maybe there would be some benefit from what is otherwise a purely political decision by the leading party of a coalition which rules in many other states where prohibition is not in force despite it being one of the Directive Principles of State Policy.
