R.K. Misra, Veteran journalist from Gujarat
I begin with an example. There was a friend of mine who was a crime reporter in Gujarat. He was a regular drinker. Once he came to Delhi where Bishan and me were working in those days. One afternoon he wanted to have his favourite brand of whisky. We bought it from a shop in the city. To our surprise, he had just one swig of the whisky and said, “Bekaar hai, nakli maal milta hai tumhare yahan” (It’s useless. They are selling fake whisky in your city). Then I replied, “Brother, the problem is with the brand you drink in Gujarat, not with the same brand you are drinking now.” That in a nutshell sums up the prohibition story of Gujarat. Gujarat was born dry but it is as wet as watermelon. It oozes liquor from every nook and cranny of its ample frame. You may have a problem in getting your favourite liquor brand in Delhi but you may never face such a problem in Gujarat.
In Gujarat, there is a three-tier pyramidal drinking structure based on the type of spirits. At the bottom is what is consumed in cities, which is basically hooch. The next tier is of desi (country liquor) which is consumed in rural areas. At the top of the pyramid is IMFL. There was a time in the early 1960s when getting a bottle of army rum used to be an exercise which one would have to undertake once a week. In contrast are the present times when rum is freely available.
It is estimated that Gujarat consumes liquor worth over Rupees 30000 crore per year across the three tiers of its drinking pyramid. Of the state’s 18000 villages, at least 70% have their own local brewer who makes desi out of fruits/ vegetables which is largely meant for captive consumption by the drinkers in the village. The quality of his stuff is by and large better.
In the cities, hooch is freely available at every nook and corner. Hooch begins from 18 rupees a glass which is sold in matkas with added water. You dip a glass in the matka, drink it and move. Premuim brand of hooch is available in pouches at Rs 25 per pouch. This you can take home, add some water to it and then drink it.
The management of liquor trade in dry Gujarat is something that management gurus need to study. The bootlegging trade and the police involvement in terms of management at both the levels is exclusive and highly streamlined. It goes up to every level and it touches every chord. You cannot operate a liquor point without the knowledge of the police. You have to approach them and get their permission. The permission is given for sales worth 8 to 10 lakhs. You can’t sell more than that. And the guys keep looking at you periodically. For every police station there is a point person called vahivatdllar. He could a constable or head constable.
He does all the collection. Then over four police stations there is another level of hierarchy headed by an assistant commissioner of police. The vahivatdaar from the police station level reports to the vahivatdaar at the ACP level. The ACP too gets approval from his superiors and this way the system operates right up to the very top. It also decides postings in which the political say is important. Even for the sub-inspector’s posting the order comes from the home
minister’s office.
In the past when a liquor tragedy happened in Surat, a probe was ordered. The probe found that the constable vahivatdaar of the area had amassed properties worth Rs 300 crore, so you can see how the system works.
During my long stints in the Surashtra region with the Times of India, I happened to visit a place where country liquor used to be manufactured. Out of curiosity, I asked the manufacturer how did he ensure the quality of his stuff. The gentlenman told me that he kept half a dozen dogs and when a batch of country liquor was ready then as a test it was first
fed to his pet dogs. And the dogs were checked for the effect of the liquor for 24 hours. If dogs were found OK, the liquor would be released in the market. Another incident is of the Porbandar town, the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi. A newly posted, young IPS officer had
clamped down hard on bootlegging in the town. However, his marriage made things different. His wife, the daughter of a top railway officer, was not a particularly good cook. She would
be on the telephone for hours, taking cooking instructions from her Delhi-based mother. The resultant telephone bill of over a lakh of rupees came as a shocker for the officer.
However, a bootlegger helped the officer overcome the shock by paying the telephone bill and got ‘permission’ in return to operate one booze joint. The booze joint the bootlegger set up was a classic example of ingenuity. He got an underground tank constructed in a locality. The tank was connected with a pipeline through which the liquor was poured into it. On top a hand-pump was installed with a glass tied to it. To a stranger, the hand-pump would appear as the one bored for extracting water from the ground. A small box was kept near the hand-pump. The drinker would pump the glassful, put the money in the box and walk away. Those trying to shortchange would be caught by the bootlegger’s cronies hovering nearby.