Kerala alcohol ban: Shashi Tharoor uncorks Kerala’s hypocrisy

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:  Dr Shashi Tharoor, MP, and former Union Minister of State, has said “the somewhat bizarre one up-manship of senior (Kerala) politicians competing with each other to prove they were holier-than-thou would have been amusing had the consequences not been so drastic”.

In a blunt reference to petty grandstanding by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and the “moralistic Gandhian” and PCC president V M Sudheeran, Dr Tharoor flayed the culture of hypocrisy in the state.
Here are reasons why Dr Tharoor calls the prohibition move outlandish:

Conspiracy of silence: No public figure of any consequence in Kerala has stood up to oppose the decision, widely hailed across the state.

The influential Christian churches (all seven denominations of the Biblical faith) have applauded loudly.

The vocal Muslim leadership, including Muslim League, has done so as well. Working-class women have hailed the decision, as have traditionalists, Gandhians and assorted moralists.
 

Big drain: Excise duties on liquor account for 22 percent of Kerala's revenues.

Another 26 percent depends on tourism, both domestic and foreign.

Tourism operators are already being stung by cancellations; one source claimed to me that 50% of the convention bookings in Kerala this winter - a majority of those scheduled for non-five-star hotels - have already been cancelled.

IT companies contemplating moving to the clean, green, tech-friendly environment available in Kerala say the fact that their employees might not easily be able to enjoy a drink after work has given them pause.
 

Pragmatists branded: The pragmatists in Government resisted his call to scrap the licenses altogether, until they found themselves being portrayed, in intra-party arguments, as agents of the "liquor mafia" and worse.

That was more than they could bear: if responsible stewardship of the state's finances meant being tarred with the "liquor mafia" brush, the Chief Minister decided, he would rather let the state go into debt than see his personal reputation sullied.
 

Driven to prohibit: Prohibition was the only choice available to salvage his image.

Mr Chandy would not only not renew the 438 pending licenses, he would withdraw the licenses of every single bar in the state, except those catering to the affluent in five-star hotels.
 

Grim reality: Bar workers and distillery employees, some 20,000 across the state, will be thrown out of work; they and their families will soon be clamouring for relief, in a state with levels of unemployment so high that lakhs of Keralites go outside the state each year looking for work.