Patna: It is for reasons of “humanity” that the Bihar government has decided to soften its stance towards drinkers and give an ex gratia amount of Rs 4 lakh to the families of those who died due to drinking spurious liquor, says state prohibition, excise and registration minister Sunil Kumar, a former police officer.
Speaking to ThePrint at his office at Patna’s sprawling Vikas Bhawan, Kumar says work in this direction is already underway. District magistrates have received orders to collect data on hooch deaths since 1 April 2016 — which is when prohibition came into effect in the state under the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act — and to ascertain who is eligible for compensation.
“On the basis of the post-mortem reports and circumstantial evidence, the DMs will decide which people died due to consumption of spurious liquor in the past seven years,” he explains. The funds for the ex gratia payment, he adds, will come from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund.
The decision to award compensation came in the wake of yet another ‘hooch tragedy’ in the state. So far, 31 people in Motihari, East Champaran district, have reportedly lost their lives this month after drinking adulterated liquor.
As the death toll mounted, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced the compensation on 17 April — contingent on family members writing to the district magistrate about the cause of death and also disclosing the source of procuring the spurious alcohol. The CM also said he was “deeply pained” by the deaths.
This was quite a departure from his stance during the last big ‘hooch tragedy’ in December 2022, in which an estimated 50 people had died in Chhapra district’s Saran.
Back then, Nitish had pushed back against criticism of prohibition, refused to award compensation to victims, and had also controversially warned “jo piyega, wo marega (those who drink hooch will die)”.
So, could there be a change of heart about the stringent prohibition law in the offing?
To this, Sunil Kumar’s response is an emphatic no.
“There has been no change in the law. The decision (to give compensation) was taken on the basis of humanity,” he says. Most victims come from economically weaker sections, he adds.
Kumar acknowledges that due to the law, “many people cremated their relatives out of fear without informing the administration”, but reinforces that families will get compensation only if a postmortem report shows that the death was due to spurious liquor.
Here are excerpts from an interview with the prohibition minister about the state’s liquor ban and the criticism around its efficacy.
Also read: Nitish Kumar is riding a tiger with prohibition in Bihar. Everyone knows it’s failed
‘More liquor deaths in UP, MP, Punjab’
A former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the 1987 batch who joined the Janata Dal (United) ahead of the 2020 Bihar assembly election, Sunil Kumar still seems to take an active interest in policing.
Last week, he visited Motihari and ordered local authorities to arrest anyone involved in the sale of spurious liquor.
“Prohibition has nothing to do with spurious liquor,” he says. “Illegal earnings are its driving force.”
“In the past (seven) years, we have seized lakhs of litres of liquor. At the same time, more than 230 policemen have been given strict punishment or dismissed for being involved with liquor mafia,” he says, occasionally fielding calls and greeting visitors from his home constituency of Bhore in Gopalganj.
Another problem in enforcing the liquor ban, Sunil Kumar claims, is that Bihar shares borders with Nepal, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal
“We have formed an anti-liquor task force, set up 84 check posts across the state, and set up 74 special courts. We have arrested more than 500 people selling illegal liquor from other states (since 2016),” he tells ThePrint.
Nevertheless, critics have blamed the state’s spate of liquor-related deaths on prohibition, arguing that the ban has helped bootleggers operate without any regulation, and that it is the poor buying cheap local liquor who are disproportionately affected. Last October, the Patna High Court also observed in an order that the law tended to target poor people rather than liquor mafias and that narcotics were proliferating after the ban.
Asked about liquor-related deaths, Sunil Kumar says that 2021 and 2022 saw an increased number of cases, but claimed that the casualties in Bihar had been relatively low compared to some other states.
“Between 2016 and 2022, the deaths due to drinking alcohol in Bihar have been much less compared to other states. More deaths have occurred in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab than here even though there is no prohibition,” he says.
It is worth noting that consistent data on Bihar’s hooch deaths is hard to come by. While BJP MP and former deputy CM Sushil Modi claimed after the Saran tragedy last December that “more than 1,000 people” had died due to spurious liquor in the state after prohibition was enforced, the state government has claimed the number is around 200.
Bafflingly, data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that only 23 people died due to consuming spurious liquor in Bihar during this span.
On clogged courts
While liquor-related arrests have been aplenty in Bihar, the state’s judicial system is notoriously clogged with pending cases filed under the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016. The conviction rate is also paltry.
According to an Indian Express report, between April 2016 and October 2022, more than 4 lakh cases were lodged under the liquor law. Of the 1.4 lakh cases that went to trial, less than 1 per cent ended in a conviction.
When asked about the pendency of cases, Sunil Kumar refused to comment. He did, however, point out that the law had been amended three times.
“Situations change with time. We gave relief to those people who were caught drinking alcohol for the first time. For this the law was also amended,” he says.
This amendment, which allows first-time offenders to get off with a fine rather than jail time, came about last March after the Supreme Court chastised the Bihar government over liquor cases choking the state’s courts.
‘Over 90% of people support prohibition’
Sunil Kumar claims that Bihar has seen a significant reduction in incidents of domestic violence, accidents, and “eve-teasing” ever since prohibition came into force.
This is among the reasons why most people, especially women, support the liquor ban, he adds. He points to the findings of a survey on the effect of prohibition, conducted across all 38 districts last year by the Chanakya National Law University (CNLU).
“As per the survey, more than 90 per cent of people, especially women, are in favour of prohibition,” Kumar tells ThePrint.
“When the chief minister took out the Samadhan Yatra, women openly appreciated (prohibition). However, people demanded that the state government take stricter action on these matters,” he adds.
CM Nitish Kumar had gone on the Samadhan Yatra, a state-wide tour, last January to feel the pulse of the people on prohibition and other issues. The tour came shortly after the Saran liquor tragedy led to a clamour from opposition BJP leaders as well as allies to change the alcohol policy in the state.
With the latest tragedy in Motihari, the opposition is raising questions about the law with renewed vigour.
For instance, on 22 April, the BJP’s Sushil Kumar Modi asked Nitish Kumar 10 questions related to prohibition in a tweet. He said that rich people get off easily while only the poor are being jailed under the prohibition law.
पूर्व उपमुख्यमंत्री ने शराबबंदी से जुड़े पूछे 10 सवाल, आम माफी की अपील
— Sushil Kumar Modi (@SushilModi) April 22, 2023
The prohibition minister, however, says that some dissent is always to be expected.
“If you bring in any law, there is bound to be opposition to it, be it from the social point of view or from the economic point of view. But every party in Bihar has supported it,” he claims.
He adds that the liquor ban is a piece of “social legislation” that could not have been fulfilled without political will. “Our leader (Nitish Kumar) has shown this will.”
Also read: Public taboo, private brew: Hooch to foreign booze, ‘dry’ Gujarat has never had alcohol shortage