prohibitton go as far as to quote the Bible wherein over 175 warnings have been recorded against drink, drinking and drunkenness. Prophet Mohammed also declared : ‘There is a devil in every berry of grapes”. And he forbade all use of alcoholic beverages to his followers. Pope felt that drink drags down numberless souls to perdition. A litterateur like George Bernard Shaw added his voice to this by saying that alcohol “robs you of that last inch of efficiency that makes the difference between first-rate and second-rate.

It is no wonder, therefore, that Mahatma Gandhi wrote in Young India, “If I were appointed dictator for one hour for all India, the first thing I would do would be to close, without compen¬sation, all the liquor shops, destroy all the toddy palms”. On another occasion, he was of the opinion that drugs and drink are the two arms of the devil with which he strikes his helpless slaves, into stupefaction and intoxication. “Drinks and drugs degrade those who are addicted to them and those who traffic in them. The drunkard forgets the distinction between wife, mother and sister and indulges in crimes of which, in his sober moments, he will be ashamed…! hold drink to be more damnable than thieving, and perhaps even prostitution. Is it not often the parent of both ?” Nehru was conscious, at the same time, of the loss to the exchequer if prohibition was strictly enforced in India. But both Gandhi and ■< Nehru were prepared as Mr. Desai is now, to pay the price for the moral upliftment of the illiterate masses of this country.
In spite of all the moral stances taken by the Congress leaders since 1939 when prohibition was made a Directive Principle of Policy in our Constitution on January 26, 1950 and even before that when at the Karachi session of the Congress total prohibition was a part of the bill of rights—prohibition has had a mixed success in our country. Progress on this front has been slow and halting. Most of the states have shied away from strict dry laws because they hurt them financially. They have demanded from the Centre hundred per cent reimbursement of the loss of revenue from prohibition. The Centre has the agreed to reimburse 50 p.c. ofloss in revenue. Half-hearted attempts at prohibition, however, have, resulted in large-scale boot-legging andi llicit distillation, thus reducing the whole thing to a farce.
Before independence, when Congress Ministries assumed office in seven provinces in 1937, they started implementing the policy of prohibition in selected areas. The dry experiment showed good results for the short period it was tried. However, it received a setback after the Congress Ministeries quit office in 1939. During the decade 1946-56,the prohibition movement made a good progress. Prohibition was introduced in the four states of Andhra Pradesh, Bombay (later split into Gujarat and Maharashtra), Madras and Saurashtra. The nine states of Assam, Madhya Bharat (now part of the Madhya Pradesh), Madhya Pradesh, Mysore, Orissa, Kerala, Panjab, Uttar Pradesh and the Union Territories of Himachal Pradesh went partially dry. Prohibition in the composite state of Madras was introduced in three stages. Eight districts went dry on October 1, 1945, another eight in 1947 and the remaining nine districts on October 2, 1948.
The Constitutional directive on prohibition in Article 47 reads : “The State shall regard the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties and. in particular, the State shall endeavour to bring about prohibition of the consumption, except for medical purposes, of intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health.”
Immediately after independence, enthusiasm for prohibition was great Vinoba Bhave, C. Rajagopalachari and Dheodar urged that prohibition be introduced forthwith. The Prohibition Inquiry Committee, formed under the chairmanship of Mr. Shriman Narayan, recommended April 1, 1958 as the target date for nation¬wide jsrohibiton. It urged the government to declare in clear-cut, unambiguous terms, that prohibition was the national policy. It also recommended that from April 1, 1956, advertisements and all other inducements to drink be prohibited. In the opinion of the committee, prohibition “is not only a sound policy but also a prac¬ticable proposition. The aim should be to promote nationwide pro-hibition and to achieve better and more lasting results through effective implementation.”
It s at the implementation level thai the rosy picture of the law-abidmg’ Indian citizens and the ‘relatively small magnitude of the problem of drink’—as pointed out by the committee—comes into real play. How many of us are unaware of the fact that in Bombay bootlegging and illicit distillation was the most paying busi¬ness during Moraji Desai’s chief ministership? Aren’t we aware of the fact that many people had got false medical certificates stating wrong age, to by-psss the barrier of prohibition ? Anything prohibited has its own tempting value, and this happended in a state where prohibition was total and the experiment, at least on paper, was an unqualified success.
Apart from making a farce of prohibition, the rulers inform us that the annual loss in revenue is at least Rs. 400 crore on account of prohibition. The government awoke to the magni¬tude of the problem. When, in the third five-yutr -plan, it was stated that prohibition is essentially a social welfare movement and its success depends upon a number of factors, a study team was appointed by the Planning Commission in 1963. Headed by Justic Tek Chand, the team suggested an integrated set of practical measures to reduce illicit trafic in- liquor and to combat other malpractices. But the last date for the nationwide implementation of prohibition has been pushed ahead time and again. The last target fixed by the All-India Prohibition Council was the Gandhi
Centenary in 1969. The council expressed “profound distress’ over the ‘unfortunate trend’ in the efforts to ‘pursue the implemen¬tation or our cherished ideal so wisely enshrined in our Constitution as one of the Directive Principles’. It noted ‘with regret’ that the Tek Chand Committee’s recommendations had not been implemented.
On the other hand, from ihe early sixties, a reserve trend in piohibibition became visible. State after state began relaxing and ending ‘dry’ laws. Curiously enough, these steps were first taken in some Congress-rulad States. Uttar Pradesh wds, perhaps, the first to take the lead in this direction. Some states took refuge under the emergency created by the Chines aggression to scrap prohibition, others pleaded lack of funds, and still others found enforcement of ‘dry’ laws very difficult and expensive. Several states, however, decided to adhere to a phased programme of prohibition. At the Chief Ministers’ Conference in 1963, it was decided not to extend prohibition. They were of the view that, despite the Directive Principles of the Constitution and the traditio¬nal stand on prohibition, it was time to re-asess the prohibition policy on a rational basis keeping in view past experience. It is remarkable that not a single state took advantage of the Centre’s offer to make good half the loss of revenue on acount of prohibition and the staunch votaries of prohibition in the States had stuck to the demand for full compensation by the Centre. The Congress Working Committee decided in 1965 to defer a decision on all-India prohibition policy until the Centre had examine all its implications.
With several state governments removing prohibition, the Government of India came to the conclusion that total prohibition was not practicable. The Centre was also unable to give financial assistance to the states to the extent that the latter would expect. Neither the Centre nor the states could afford to lose revenue to, the tune of Rs. 400 crore for a measure which had been found of dubious benefit to the people and has caused more problems than it had solved.
But still, prohibition was sought to be implemented from the tGaudhi Jayanti Day in 1975 when the government announced a Twelve point programme for prohibition through-out the country. Now comes Mr. Morarji Desai’s resolve to introduce total prohibi¬tion within the next rour years. The success, or otherwise of such effort to. however, remains to be seen.