I was in Bodh Gaya in the northern Indian state of Bihar, the birthplace of Buddhism, on the first night of Diwali , the Hindu festival of light. Candles and colored lights radiated a warm glow over the walls of this riverside neighborhood. The twenty-odd men inside were playing a game of cards, surrounded by plastic cups and green bottles filled with a liquid that was hardly lemonade. The local children, at least, were amused.
I was given a stern look and apologized. An hour or two later, more shouts emanated from the house. It's scenes like this that led Bihar to ban booze in With a population of nearly million โ roughly the same as the entire country of Mexico โ this single state in India now has the most people living under dry laws than anywhere else on the planet. Who can stop anybody from eating and drinking what they want to? They forget whatever restrictions there were. Indian drinking culture dates back to earliest recorded history.
Toddy, for instance โ a sweet, refreshing, vinegar-smelling drink made from the sap of palm trees in southern India โ has been known since ancient times. The caste you're born into determines the rest of your life, and lower-castes endure daily discrimination in terms of jobs, education and social standing.
Over a third of lower-caste Indians are illiterate , compared to roughly a fifth on average. According to Hindu customs, warriors and kings may only imbibe on special occasions, while Brahmins must remain teetotal. The lower you climb down the caste ladder, the more people drink, and for Dalits there are few taboos at all. Prohibition is intertwined with the birth of the modern Indian nation itself. Drinking grew more popular under colonial rule, becoming a rallying point for the independence movement, who boycotted the British-owned liquor industry.
Mahatma Gandhi, who was famously teetotal, saw it as another way for the Man to keep the Brown Brother down. In , India won its independence and Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic angry at his outreach to Muslims.
