Chennai: The death of 22 people in the two Tamil Nadu districts of Viluppuram and Chengalpattu since Saturday, allegedly after consuming spurious liquor, has again turned the focus on the long-existing prohibition debate in the state and the politics around Tamil Nadu’s liquor industry.
A pre-Independence era prohibitionon law in Tamil Nadu was lifted by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam patriarch M. Karunanidhi in 1971 during his tenure as Chief Minister. Then, in 1983, then All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) CM M.G. Ramachandran set up the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation Limited (TASMAC) for sale of liquor in the state. He also set up the Tamil Nadu Spirit Corporation (TASCO) for making liquor. TASCO has since been dissolved.
Since then, successive DMK and AIADMK governments in the state have taken varying positions on prohibition — alternating between voicing support for prohibition or allowing sales — and both blaming the other of allegedly strengthening the liquor trade in Tamil Nadu.
In 2001, former CM J. Jayalalithaa, gave TASMAC the monopoly for alcohol sales in the state. In January 2002, O. Panneerselvam — who was chief minister for six months between September 2001 and March 2002, when Jayalalithaa had to step down owing to a legal case — introduced the India-Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) in the state at an affordable price, reportedly to avoid deaths due to spurious liquor.
In 2002 over 100 people had reportedly died, allegedly by consuming spurious liquor. “As IMFL is beyond the reach of the poor people, they drank spurious liquor and these tragedies took place. So the government has decided to introduce cheap liquor,” OPS had reportedly said, while making IMFL available at cheap rates.
In 2003, Jayalalithaa after resuming power again took complete control of the liquor trade by extending the scope of TASMAC into retail. Before that TASMAC would procure wholesale supply of IMFL from difference distilleries and breweries and then sell the alcohol to private players. But with the entry of TASMAC in retail, private players had to shut shop.
“From private it became ‘arasanga sarayam’ (government liquor),” said former IAS officer and former excise & taxation commissioner of Haryana, M.G. Devasahayam.
At present all alcohol in Tamil Nadu is sold through state-run TASMAC, which buys directly from distilleries. There are no private liquor shops.
On Monday, CM and DMK leader M.K. Stalin visited the government hospital in Mundiyampakkam, Viluppuram, where 40 people were undergoing treatment in the alleged spurious liquor incident. A few others had been admitted to hospitals in Puducherry and Chengalpattu.
Stating that there have been media reports of spurious liquor being sold in the TASMAC bottles, Stalin said “the two incidents [in Viluppuram and Chengalpattu] will be investigated by the CBI-CID”.
Meanwhile, opposition parties have been alleging that efforts to close unauthorised TASMAC outlets, especially those in areas around schools and temples, have been lax. The opposition has also alleged that while on one hand the number of TASMAC outlets is increasing unchecked, on the other hand the DMK government has not been able to crack down on spurious liquor sales.
Two days after the spurious liquor incident in Viluppuram, Opposition party leader and AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS), who also visited the victims in Villupuram Tuesday, demanded the resignation of both CM Stalin and minister for electricity, prohibition and excise V. Senthil Balaji.
EPS alleged that illicit liquor is sold in large numbers in the state and added, “Despite reports on illicit liquor sale, the state government has not taken action because of the income that is generated from it. The DMK government is more focused on money than the problems caused by it [spurious liquor].”
Meanwhile, police in a statement Monday said, “1,558 people were arrested in the state in the past two days for alleged sale of illicit liquor. [While] 1,842 cases were filed, 19,028 litres of distilled arrack [a kind of liquor] were destroyed”.
The statement added: “In the year 2023 alone 55,474 cases with regard to liquor have been filed [till date], and 55,173 people have been arrested and 79 have been booked under the Goondas Act.”
The Goondas Act provides for preventive detention of those accused of murder, chain snatching, bootlegging, breaking of cyber laws, drug cases, immoral trafficking and sexual offences.
From prohibition to state-run liquor shops
The erstwhile Madras Presidency, during the tenure of the Congress’s C Rajagopalachari as premiere, had in 1937 announced prohibition in the district of Salem, and later extended it to the rest of Madras. The prohibition law continued after Independence in Madras state and subsequently in Tamil Nadu, after it was formed in 1969.
In 1971, however, the Karunanidhi-led DMK government lifted the liquor ban in the state. The former CM had reportedly reasoned that availability of liquor in the neighbouring states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala and in the Union Territory of Pondicherry meant easy access to alcohol for the people of Tamil Nadu, with the prohibition only resulting in a revenue loss for the government.
In 1974, however, Karunanidhi once again introduced a ban on the sale and consumption of liquor in the state. But following two reports of spurious liquor tragedies in the state in 1975 and 1976, the M.G. Ramachandran-led AIADMK government, which came to power in the state in 1981, allowed the sale of liquor in Tamil Nadu, reportedly in violation of the party’s poll promise.
Then, in 1983, AIADMK under MGR set up TASMAC. From 1983 onwards, for the next six years, sale of liquor was permitted in the state, before prohibition again being introduced in 1987.
The then DMK government again lifted the ban on the sale of alcohol in 1990, while in 1991 AIADMK, under Jayalalithaa banned the sale of liquor in the state.
But in 2001, Jayalalithaa again reintroduced TASMAC in the state.
According to analysts, the swing between prohibition and sale of alcohol by successive governments in the past 50 years, has been because of governments being “trapped in a cycle for easy revenue”.
“The state has fallen into a trap, they are known for competitive freebies [DMK and AIADMK, to woo voters] and this at one point went beyond welfare, with the government even providing non-essential things like cycle and television,” said Devasahayam.
He added: “This had placed a heavy burden on state exchequer. State finances went topsy-turvy and the normal tax revenue was not sufficient to cater to this and the government fell into the trap and liquor is easy money.”
In 2016, while Jayalalithaa promised phased prohibition in the state she had reportedly said, “In 1991, when I became the Chief Minister, I put an end to cheap liquor since I had made a promise to the mothers.”
In the same year, DMK leader Kanimozhi had reportedly claimed Tamil Nadu had become the place with the most number of young widows in India because of alcoholism. Kanimozhi had also said, “Seventy-five per cent of earnings of families of alcoholic men go to liquor shops.”
According to a statement made by state minister Senthil Balaji in the assembly in April, “In 2022-23, TASMAC revenue touched Rs 44,098.56 crore, 22.3 per cent more than the revenue from last year.”
TASMAC in Tamil Nadu politics
The DMK in its manifesto released ahead of the 2021 assembly election had assured prohibition in phased manner, but opposition parties in the state allege that while the ruling party has claimed it will close 500 TASMAC shops around schools and temples soon, “1000 new TASMAC shops are being opened”.
Opposition leaders have also alleged that “several hundreds of crores is being swindled” by the ruling government in the liquor business.
Speaking to ThePrint, AIADMK spokesperson Kovai Sathyan, alleged, “The floor stock doesn’t tally with the purchase ledger of TASMAC. The purchases are being made from the known distilleries directly and this doesn’t go on the record of TASMAC but is sold through TASMAC outlets. The money goes into their kitty.”
He also alleged that several non-licensed TASMAC outlets have sprouted near the main ones, “and these are not being properly monitored and curbed”.
Calling TASMAC the most corrupt body of the state, Narayanan Thirupathy, state vice-president of the BJP (an ally of the AIADMK in the state), alleged, politicians from the state own most of the distilleries and added that a decade-old complaint has been the poor quality of the alcohol provided.
Devasahayam too called the alcohol provided in TASMAC a slow poison.
“Raw spirit produced from sugarcane molasses is touted as liquor. People don’t find a difference between the quality of TASMAC and hooch liquor. Hooch is cheap and hence people prefer it, while a quarter of TASMAC liquor is around Rs 200-400,” he said.
He added that with to make revenue, the quality of liquor has suffered and with the state controlling the retail, many established brands vanished from the state.
Narayanan and Devasahayam added that “distilleries being owned by state politicians have added to the problem”.
The state government had in a gazette notification in March introduced a special license to allow the serving of liquor in conference halls, convention centres, marriage halls, banquet halls, sports stadiums and household functions, and the installation of liquor vending machines in malls in the city. This too has been criticised by many.
“By saying that they will close shops they find new and innovative ways of selling more. They have tasted money and they are not bothered about people and their health,” said Narayanan.
EPS speaking in Villupuram alleged that the DMK government was not acting against spurious liquor in the state. He also alleged that a person arrested in Chengalpattu for the alleged selling of spurious liquor was related to a DMK leader.
Meanwhile, DMK spokesperson A. Saravanan speaking to ThePrint stated that the menace of spurious liquor “has not sprung up now but has been there for a long period of time,” and added, “There have been deaths due to spurious liquor during EPS’ and Jayalalithaa’s time and have they all resigned? They did not even respond like how CM Stalin has responded now. The CM has taken stringent action and has also said that no one will be spared.”
Stating that illegal liquor is a serious issue, the DMK spokesperson said that the government will crack down on this threat with an iron fist. He also accused the opposition parties of making “baseless remarks that are just politically motivated allegations. The government has promised that irrespective of party lines whoever is guilty will be booked.”
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)