Vishaka George

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

large_03b-DSC_1285-VG.jpg

medium_03b-DSC_1285-VG.jpg

small_03b-DSC_1285-VG.jpg

thumbnail_03b-DSC_1285-VG.jpg

03b-DSC_1285-VG.jpg

“The liquor shops are scattered around like
chai kaddas
[stalls]. Earlier, the shops were far away so it wasn’t easy for people to walk
there. Today, there is one three kilometers from here and if you cannot walk to
it, then auto drivers will deliver it to your home.”

So today, April 18, when 32-year-old
M. V. Shantini, a
Kattunayakan Adivasi, will walk for two kilometres across a desolate mud
road from her house to a government school to cast her vote for the Lok Sabha
elections, it will be with this request: “To whoever the incoming government
is, please bring peace back to homes that have been broken by the bottle.”

Shantini, who lives in Machikolli,
a hamlet of 15-17 houses, says she is unaware of who the candidates are in the
election. Her hamlet, in Devarshola town panchayat in Gudalur block, right next to the
Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, is in the Nilgiris Lok Sabha constituency of Tamil
Nadu.  The total number of electors (registered voters) for
this seat in 2014 was around 12.70 lakhs.

But Shantini is clear
about what the winner can do to make her life better.  Like many other women from low-income families
in the state, Shantini is aggrieved by the mushrooming government-owned liquor stores. These are locally
called TASMACs, after
the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation, which has a monopoly on wholesale
and retail vending of alcohol in the state since 2002.

“Our husbands, most of
them agricultural labourers, drink away their daily wages. The Rs. 250 they
make isn’t enough to buy alcohol and afford food for the family. That’s when
the situation gets violent at home,” says a distressed Shantini, who spends her
time looking after her three kids, the oldest of whom is 10 years old.

“Tribal communities used
to make their own alcohol from paddy, rice and fruits. But after the government
cracked down on illicit liquor, tribal men started to depend on TASMACs. Today,
there are TASMACs in the interiors that are close to tribal areas too,” says A. Narayanan, a Chennai-based development
activist who has worked on alcohol and substance abuse related issues in
Tamil Nadu for 15 years.

The TASMAC site says the 2016-2017
financial year’s total revenue from these shops was Rs. 31,418 crores. “This is a very
substantial amount in the state’s income. I do not think any party which comes
to power will bring in total prohibition. At the maximum, the hours of trade in
the retail shops may be reduced,” says Justice K. Chandru, a retired judge at the Madras High Court. 

In Tamil Nadu,
TASMACs are either stand-alone shops or next to a bar auctioned by the state to
the private owners. “There is lot of
hanky-panky in the matter of granting permission to run a bar and most of the
bars are run by powerful local politicians,” Justice Chandru adds.

“As of now, no preventive steps are being taken to stop the spread of
addiction and abuse,” says Narayanan. “With the revenue generated by TASMACs,
it’s clearly the case of the government holding the tiger by its tail. It
cannot let go even though alcohol abuse is a major development issue.”Tamil Nadu now has 5,198 TASMACs, according to the state budget for 2019-2020. While this is a reduction from 7,896 retail TASMACs selling IFML – Indian-made foreign liquor, and the government claims these closures were aimed at controlling the alcohol problem in the state, Justice Chandru point to other reasons. One of these was the Supreme Court order of 2017 that disallowed a bar within 500 metres of a state or national highway.  &quot;The state, however, found a way to circumvent this by renaming some highways,&quot; the former judge says. &quot;So in reality,  the reduction was just about 10 per cent because many have reopened as a result of the loopholes.&quot; In some instances, TASMACs were in close proximity to schools, colleges and places of worship. &quot;These had to be shut down because it was going against the law,&quot; Narayanan says.

In reality, the
debilitating issue of alcohol abuse for villagers like Shantini is a non-issue for
the candidates in this Lok Sabha election. Former Union telecom minister A. Raja,
accused and then acquitted in the 2G spectrum scam, is the Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam (DMK) party’s nominee from the Nilgiris. M. Thiyagarajan is All India Anna Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam’s (AIADMK) candidate. Ashok Kumar R. is the Bahujan Samaj Party’s
nominee.

The DMK’s
manifesto, say newspaper reports, makes many promises, including these: that Rs. 50,000 will be given to a woman in each family
living below the poverty line to start a business; as many as 50 lakh people
will be given jobs in private companies at Rs. 10,000 per month; and the number
of work days under MGNREGS will be increased to 150 a year.

The AIADMK, news reports say, wants to start a poverty eradication scheme
that will directly transfer Rs. 1,500 per month to people below the poverty
line, destitute women, widows without an income, differently-abled persons,
landless agricultural labourers, rural and urban manual labourers, destitute
senior citizens and others. 

“Neither the candidates
in the fray for the Lok Sabha nor the candidates in the by-elections to the
Assembly [for 22 seats, in other parts of the state, not in the Nilgiris] have
anything to say on prohibition. It is really a non-issue in the election. Maybe
after getting elected some of them will voice these concerns sometimes in
public and occasionally in the House,” says Justice Chandru.

But for those who
face the brunt of alcohol abuse, it is a difficulty that drains them every day.
“Not enough money to buy food has our children falling sick so often, and then
we cannot take them to hospital because who can afford those bills?” says a
helpless Shantini.

Around 15
kilometers from her village, in Gudalur town, the state-aided privately-run Ashwini
Health Programme offers subsidised services to Adivasis. Dr. Shailaja Devi, its
founder, attests to Shantini&#39;s distress: “In the last few years, the number of
patients coming in because of alcohol-related abuse has gone up significantly.”
One in every three women, she says, come in
with various problems related to alcohol abuse in the family, including depression
and stress. The rise in such cases has prompted the hospital to work on a
study about the correlation of paternal alcohol consumption, maternal
depression and child malnutrition among tribal communities. A few women consume alcohol too, Dr. Devi says, but their number is
significantly less.

“TASMACs are
popping up everywhere. There has been some resistance to this, but the enemy is
too strong for us,” she adds.

Back in Machikoli,
Shantini’s aunt Kulli, seated by her side in the porch of their two-room house,
says, “Women cannot walk peacefully on the street where the TASMAC is. Children
cannot either. They get harassed and catcalled.” If there is any way
governments can make Adivasi women’s lives easier, she adds, then stopping the spread of TASMAcs is the shops is the first step. 

When asked how they feel
about the ruling central government, Kulli says,” We live in the forests. There
are no TVs and no newspapers reaching us here. What will we know about them?
Our lives are centered around our survival. We are trying to not to stay hungry.”

This lonely hamlet has
not seen any campaigning from local parties so far (till April 10, when this
story was being reported). “No one has come here yet. They should come here
soon though, and when they do we will get some tea and biscuits. As if that
helps anyone,” says Kulli.

Despite her frugal
hopes in government, today, April 18,  Shantini will vote (Kulli has decided she won&#39;t vote). When asked why,
Shantini pauses and says, “We Adivasis don’t
really know what good voting does for us, but it’s what we have been doing year
after year, so we have got to keep at it.”

Adivasis vote against liquor vends in Nilgiris

ঢালাও মদ বিক্রির বিরুদ্ধে ভোট দিচ্ছেন নীলগিরির আদিবাসীরা

नीलगिरीच्या आदिवासींचं मत दारूविक्रीच्या विरोधात

ନୀଳଗିରିରେ ମଦ ବିରୋଧରେ ଆଦିବାସୀଙ୍କ ଭୋଟ

নীলগিৰিত জনজাতীয় মহিলাই সুৰা বিক্ৰীৰ বিৰুদ্ধে ভোট দিছে

நீலகிரியில் மதுக்கடைகளுக்கு எதிராக வாக்களிக்கும் ஆதிவாசிகள்

नीलगिरी के आदिवासियों का वोट शराब की बिक्री के ख़िलाफ़

نیلگری کے آدیواسی شراب کے خلاف ووٹ کرتے ہیں

Machikolli

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

Adivasis vote against liquor vends in Nilgiris

In Gudalur block, women say alcohol abuse and state-run liquor shops are destroying their homes. No candidate seems concerned, but the women hope this will change after the polls there today

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit