By Ankush Saikia
Aizawl city by night.
The shop (below) is in a building in one of the crowded
market areas of Aizawl with nothing to advertise it to the outside
world. But a steady stream of people are entering it, clutching what
looks like a booklet in their hands. Inside, a policeman keeps an eye as
the merchandise is handed over to customers while four cashiers behind
two counters write down details of the purchases in the booklets or
liquor cards. A customer can buy six bottles of IMFL (750ml) and 10
bottles each of wine and beer every month for their "personal bonafide
consumption". Visitors from outside the state can make purchases by
producing their Inner Line Permit.
Liquor card holders queue up at a wine shop in Aizawl.
The
state assembly passed the Mizoram Liquor Prohibition and Control Act
(MLPCA) in 2014 and it came into force from 15 January 2015, replacing
the earlier Mizoram Liquor Total Prohibition Act (MLTPA). The first wine
shop opened in Aizawl on 16 March 2015 and officials in the Excise
& Narcotics Department (END) say they expect huge profits.
Mizoram shares its border with three states in the North East besides Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Three
state-owned corporations have been chosen to operate retail outlets.
There are private players too, but they face a challenge in finding a
building owner willing to allow them to operate in the face of pressure
from church bodies opposed to the lifting of prohibition. Picketing of
wine shops by church volunteers has forced at least one private operator
to shut shop. There are a total of 16 outlets all over the state, and
the END has issued more than 52,000 liquor cards (at an annual fee of Rs
500).
A liquor card issued by the Excise and Narcotics Department.
Mizoram
attained statehood on 20 February 1987 after the Mizo Accord was signed
between the Mizo National Front (MNF) and the GoI in 1986. Pressure
from civil society groups to control alcoholism led the government to
enforce the MLTPA, 1995, from 20 February 1997, exactly a decade after
Mizoram had become the 23rd state in the Indian Union. Amendments to the
Act in 2007 and 2011 allowed fruits, especially grapes, to be turned
into wine for sale by growers' societies.
All the while, IMFL
and hooch continued to be available if you knew where to look, just like
in Manipur and Nagaland where prohibition was in force as well.
Rangvamual on the outskirts of Aizawl was one such area, with shanty
houses populated by migrants from other parts of Mizoram and even
Myanmar. Some houses sold hooch, as well as IMFL smuggled in from
outside the state, and the trade continues. People still come down from
Aizawl in the evenings to "RV", as it is commonly known, to buy hooch
and IMFL.
Various brands of liquor being sold at a shop in Khawmawi village in Myanmar, just across the border from Zokhawthar in Mizoram.
In
2011, a Study Group on the MLTPA conducted a survey to find out whether
total prohibition was helping the state, considering the easy
availability of hooch and IMFL on the black market and the effect of the
former on the health of drinkers. Hooch was increasingly being made
from ethanol smuggled in from Myanmar. The survey concluded that a
controlled environment for the distribution of liquor would work better.
Hence limited opening hours (10am to 5pm), liquor cards with quotas,
strict supervision from the END, and tighter implementation of laws.
However, local newspapers have quoted ruling Congress party members as
saying that if the lifting of prohibition doesn't work then they would
recall the earlier Act, thus, in effect, hedging their bets.
According
to END, between 1997 and 15 September 2014, 57 people died from the
consumption of spurious liquor; a figure some say should be much higher.
The survey also shows that there was a steep rise in cases of
alcohol-related liver disease and psychiatric referrals for alcoholism
during total prohibition. Opponents of the lifting of prohibition say it
will lead to more money flowing out of Mizoram, while the local hooch
sellers ensured that most of the money was kept in circulation within
the state. So far, there hasn't been a marked decrease in the sale of
hooch, probably because it is still cheaper than most legally-sold IMFL.
Zoramthanga, two-time ex-chief minister and the president of
the MNF, says Mizo society is not yet ready for liquor to be sold
openly. Vanlalruata, general secretary of the Central YMA (CYMA), makes
the same point, adding that the government is not in a position to
enforce strict controls on liquor sales. The enormously influential YMA
or Young Mizo Association is a state-wide organisation of which every
young Mizo is a member and remains one for life.
History
According to Professor Margaret Zama of
Mizoram University, in the pre-Christian times, zu or rice beer was an
integral part of Mizo society and a part of rituals conducted by
chieftains. As conversion picked up pace, adherents of the new faith
marked out prohibition as a way of curtailing consumption of zu and
along with it the aura of the chieftain. |
The
Presbyterian Church, the largest denomination in Mizoram, is strongly
opposed to the lifting of prohibition. Even if individual church members
might support the government's stand, the powerful Church Synod is dead
set against it. There are many though, like the school teachers from
Aizawl, who say that people, especially the youth, need to have the
freedom to make their own choices. "That's why some of our young people
can't handle their freedom when they go outside the state, and end up
making wrong decisions," he says.
Aizawl city.
Everything
in the city of Aizawl revolves around community and the church. The
shared Mizo tribal history also ensures there is a high degree of social
cohesion. People do have their own opinions but see the wisdom in
following a group course of action. However, there are some, especially
among the youth, who feel otherwise and the issue of prohibition can be
seen in terms of a tussle between individual choice and the diktat of
the larger social group.
Porous Border
Nearly
200 km to the east of Aizawl, on a road that winds along the hillsides,
lies the sleepy town of Champhai, headquarters of the district of the
same name. Champhai shares a 404 km long unfenced border with Myanmar,
with the ethnically-related Mizo-Chin people on either side allowed free
access for 16 km into either country (but there are those from the
Myanmar side who come in further, even up to Aizawl). During the
"troubles", the period from 1966 until 1986, many Mizos went across to
the Myanmar or Burma side. Thirty km from Champhai town is the scruffy
border town of Zokhawthar. The END here has to oversee the district and
the porous border with a total staff of about 45 people.
A beer bar on the Myanmar side overlooks the River Tiau that separates that country from India.
Mizoram,
with its low population, hilly terrain, and peaceful conditions is, as
an END official put it, "a smuggler's paradise". Over-the-counter cold
medicines sold in India are smuggled across the border into Myanmar,
where the tablets fetch two to three times their actual price.
Ephedrine/pseudoephedrine (PE) is extracted from these tablets in
makeshift laboratories to manufacture methamphetamine tablets. During
the week I was in Mizoram, there were two seizures in Champhai district
of heroin trafficked in from Myanmar.
There are reports of
traffickers shifting operations to Champhai district from Manipur. An
unfenced border and a similar ethnic composition on either side means
that people smuggling across PE tablets in bulk or bringing in meth and
heroin can be hard to detect. There is talk among people and among the
END officials as well of individuals in Champhai who have overnight
constructed large houses and bought vehicles. Poverty in the loosely
administered Chin State region across the border and a lack of
information sharing with Burmese government agencies compounds the
problem. The Burmese Army is alleged to let drug smugglers operate in
return for a cut. Most bulk seizures take place in Aizawl, where buyers
from outside the state arrive to negotiate. An alternative drug route
passes through Lunglei in southern Mizoram and into Bangladesh.
Champhai is a sleepy town 30km from the unfenced Indo-Myanmar border.
Mizoram
with a population of only about 12 lakh has made the most of its
limited resources. It has a high literacy rate (over 90 per cent), and a
low crime rate. A club from the popular Mizoram Premier League has even
made it to the I-League for the 2015-16 season. But, like Vanlalruata
of the CYMA, there are many in Mizoram who fear that along with the
lifting of prohibition, the trafficking of drugs from across the border
if not checked could lead to new problems for this otherwise peaceful
north eastern state.
Like other states in the north east,
Mizoram is largely dependent on central government funds. This might
lessen to some extent if the current oil exploration is successful; the
60MW Tuirial hydro project is expected to be operational by 2017, thus
saving the power-deficit state more money. However, this might also
weaken the government's argument of lifting prohibition for the sake of
increased revenue. And with assembly elections due in 2018, the state
government could well reverse its current stand on prohibition in order
to win the approval of influential church bodies.
Ankush Saikia is the author of Dead Meat, a crime novel set in Delhi.
