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Crime

Anatomy of a hooch tragedy

By: Santosh :+: Under: Crime, It Happens Only in India, Opinion
On: ⋅ May 21, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

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Hooch a.k.a desi a.k.a tharra a.k.a moonshine (illegal liquor) has claimed over 150 lives in South India wtih several others hanging in balance. [BBC]

Here is what happened:
1. Local elections held.
2. Historically, politicians bribe illiterate electorate with, among other things, liquor, to vote for them.
3. Local/state authorities, in their infinite wisdom since they know what is best for all, decide to ban alcohol sales.
4. This, of course, opens up the market for illegal sales of liquor.
5. Alcoholics and party animals flock in droves to bootleggers to buy this hooch.
6. Hooch traditionally is stronger than regular liquor and in an attempt to boost this strength above bootleggers used chemicals and pesticides.
7. People get sick and die.

And here is why it shouldn’t have:
All this could’ve been prevented had the authorities not tried to play god by banning the sales of legal liquor. Banning the sales of legal liquor achieves nothing. If someone can be bribed with legal liquor, they can just as easily be bribed with illegal liquor, or, surprise, money. Another myth is: people drink and vote for politician X who buys them drinks. Last time, I checked it was a democracy and the person with most vote wins. If there are more sober people perhaps they should vote against politician X. If there are more drunk people than sober ones, maybe they deserve politician X because he understands his constituency. Either way, by trying to ban liquor, because it will influence elections, the authorities are actually preventing the democratic process from maturing.

Liquor is a slow killer - well known fact. But they key here is slow, not 150+ people in a few hours for drinking a few mugs. Do these people have themselves to blame, since they chose to buy the illegal liquor? Perhaps. But then there is a reason they chose to go the illegal route, the legal option was abruptly shut down. There’s plenty of blame to go around and we can start at the top - this antiquated practice of prohibition that authorities still choose to indulge in, if for nothing, moralistic reasons.

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