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09-15 Oct, 2012
small world
Sozzled
How a Ban on Alcohol Can Be Injurious to Reason
Shahina KK

KOCHI ~ A suggestion by the Kerala High Court to ban toddy has had a curious fallout. The state’s excise minister K Babu stated that it was not for the court to decide what to drink. The ruling Congress and opposition CPM both share this feeling. CPM leader VS Achuthanandan warned that any move to ban toddy would have a far-reaching impact. Only the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), an ally in government, welcomed the court’s comment and demanded a total ban of all liquor, not just toddy. That’s when the communal drama unfolded.

Extracting toddy is a traditional occupation of the Ezhava community in Kerala, and the IUML’s reaction provoked Vellappilly Nadeshan, president of Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP), an Ezhava community organisation, to say that the IUML is ‘communal’. He added that the party’s secular face, General Secretary ET Mohammed Basheer, is fake. In turn, Basheer said he did not need a certificate from the SNDP to prove his secular credentials.

Another caste organisation, the Nair Service Society (NSS), then got into the act. NSS General Secretary Sukumaran Nair said he supported the SNDP leader’s statement and warned the ruling party that it would collapse if it bowed to ‘communal pressures’. Kerala Pradesh Congress Commitee President Ramesh Chennithala has since made it clear that the Congress will not yield to the IUML on this issue.

Toddy is a sensitive political topic in Kerala. When the state imposed a ban on arrack in 1996, toddy was exempt, being a traditional occupation that provides employment to about 5 million. Its consumption, however, is minuscule when compared to that of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL). The total turnover of toddy in 2011-12 was only Rs 20 crore, which is less than a single day’s profit made by state government sales of IMFL.

But it’s also true that the toddy available in the market is often mixed with spirit and other lethal intoxicants. VS Sunil Kumar, an MLA of the CPI and president of the Toddy Extraction Workers Union in Thrissur, says pure toddy is healthy and it is the government’s job to stop adulteration.

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Take Two
Public Enemies
What you can gather from an IAS officer’s sexual molestation attempt
Madhavankutty Pillai

It is not shocking that an IAS officer should have tried to molest a woman, because the exam, as we all know, does not test a person’s morality. In fact, there is a strong case for the reverse—only those with half a character and high thresholds of humiliation choose to go in for the career. The interesting thing about this episode is the insight into the mind of the IAS man.

This was Shashi Bhusan Lal Susheel’s alleged crime: one early morning, after the Delhi-Lucknow Mail left Ghaziabad, seeing a young woman on the berth above him asleep and alone, he tried to sexually abuse her. She resisted, and when her mother, who had gone to the washroom, returned, revealed her ordeal. They complained to the guard. Bhushan was handed over to the railway police in Lucknow. His defence was that it was an oral tiff after a casteist slur on him. This is a man who has been selected from a billion Indians to be part of the elite managing this country. He is assumed to be enlightened, the spine of this democracy which keeps forces of barbarism at bay. At the first sign of trouble, he goes back to good old moribund caste. It’s an instinctive recourse. What then must have been the prism he saw this country through as he made decisions that affected lives? He’s not the exception. Most of the upper bureaucracy will be exactly like him in approach, if not deed. Marriage brokers in this country have a rate card for IAS officers. It is like broking prime south Mumbai property.

According to a Hindustan Times report, when his peers heard about the arrest, they formed a rescue party and 20 IAS officers landed at the railway station to get him out, and, using skills honed over a lifetime in government, negotiate a deal with the victim. In the end, despite the alleged intellect and education, this is all that matters when it comes to an issue of justice—caste and community. In the middle of all this is a girl and her mother who just wanted to go from one station to another.

They don’t stand a chance. He will get bail and then there will be a whole avalanche upon them till they submit.

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Memorialising
Bhagat Singh in Lahore

Shadman Chowk, a roundabout in Lahore, which marks the place where Bhagat Singh was hanged, will now be renamed Bhagat Singh Chowk. Singh was hanged in March 1931 at the then Lahore Jail, which stood where the chowk now is. Local residents and Indians have hailed the move. District administration chief, Noorul Amin Mengal, recently directed the City District Government of Lahore (CDGL) to make arrangements to rename the roundabout. He publicly admonished a CDGL officer for considering a request to rename the chowk Chaudhry Rehmat Ali Chowk. “You know who Bhagat Singh was? He was martyred at this place (Shadman Chowk) after he fought the British by raising a slogan for revolution in the subcontinent,’’ Mengal was quoted as having said in a PTI report.

 

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09-15 Oct, 2012