One of the top issues worrying leaders across various fields – political, social, religious in Kerala today is that of the state’s alcohol epidemic. Recent articles in the newspapers and media have been drawing attention to this.
The leaders in each field are debating amongst themselves, making public pleas and so on to try and bring about a change in social behaviour. Ban on arrack, tight control and near elimination of toddy and close monitoring on the number and functioning of the IMFL outlets are some of the policies currently in place to try and restrict alcohol consumption. Inspite of these policies, the state has been repeatedly achieving an ignominious feat. Its quantity of alcohol consumption is breaking new records each year. Alcohol related ill health and social degeneration is wide spread. The amount of farming done is rapidly declining due to alcohol related inertia, medical expenditure on treating alcohol related diseases is huge, the sale of fertile land to commercial purposes so as to fuel the seller’s drinking habit is indirectly resulting in the amount of green cover and fresh water rapidly reducing, etc.
Alcohol is consumed across all classes of society – be it the farmer, the skilled labourer, the new corporate yuppie or the old retired NRIs. Geographically barring the Muslim dominated areas of North Kerala most of the other areas are prolific consumers.
What are the causes of this epidemic? There could be a number of them – some of them are as follows:
The abundance of money that Kerala’s gulf returned population brings in. The life of alcohol deprivation and the stress of making as much money as possible in unfriendly conditions ensures that when these people return home they hit the bottle like there is no tomorrow. The fact that they now have lost all connection with their roots and also cannot go back to the gulf fuels the drinking urge further.
Another reason is that Kerala is a state that had implemented prohibition for some years. As with all such experiments aimed at repressing society, the lifting of the prohibition created a wave of alcoholism.
A third reason could be that toddy and arrack used to be the traditional forms of alcohol consumed by the common man. Barring the issues with adulteration, it can be argued that these forms are less addictive and harmful to Kerala’s common man and overall economy. Having cut off these sources may have actually pushed many to the addictiveness of IMFL but then the state gets much more revenue from IMFL than it gets from toddy if we chose to ignore the hidden losses
Then there is the spiritual aspect of the loss of god. Traditionally fear of god used to be an effective deterrent for alcoholism. With the communist wave, god was removed from many minds thus removing the constraint that fear of divine reprisal for sins brings. Among the Christian communities, the early missionaries brought wine along with the religion. The community is notorious for its hypocrisy when it comes to the subject of alcohol consumption. The churches preach severe abstinence which almost mirrors orthodox Islamic views but the flock strive to emulate their white Western brethren’s drinking behaviour.
Possibly the biggest reason could be the vacuum in the minds of Kerala’s people for which its leaders need to be squarely blamed. They have not inculcated a way of life in the common man’s philosophy where a person uses his energies constructively for the betterment of himself, his family and society. Concepts like yoga, the arts, nature, sports and other such areas where man directed his energies and found bliss have been nearly completely eliminated. The leaders approach of blindly aping the economic philosophies of China, the Middle East and the West without acknowledging the evils and terrible drawbacks of these societies has led to generations of people who have now lost contact with their roots and the beautiful way of life which was native to Kerala.
What the state needs is a major moral, social, philosophical and spiritual upheaval to get back on its feet again. When a man understands the bliss of a healthy body, mind and spirit, then he will make his own conscious decision to change his behaviour for the better. But what is going to bring about this change? There first has to be leaders to point the way and whom the people respect and are willing to follow.
But then it could be argued that this is the problem with the whole world today and not just Kerala isn’t it?
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