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Kerala Church pushes for total prohibition

With all Kerala's political parties doing a rethink on the liquor policy in the wake of hooch tragedies claiming over 40 lives, the Catholic Church has pushed the prohibition agenda into the centre-stage of the electoral arena.

A pastoral letter issued by Trivandrum Bishop and chairman of Anti-Liquor Commission of the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council Soosaipakyam has asked the faithful to go by Church instructions while exercising their franchise in the coming assembly election.

The letter, read in Catholic churches all over the state on Sunday, has promised to come out with the names of parties deserving support in the election, scheduled to held before the third week of May.

The council would identify parties and candidates on the basis of their commitment to total prohibition, said a priest spearheading the anti-liquor campaign.

The council would support those parties, which include prohibition in their election manifesto and oppose those who collect contributions from liquor contractors or use liquor to get votes. The pastoral letter was critical of both the Congress-led United Democratic Front, which introduced a ban on country liquor (arrack) in 1996, and the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front for their lack of commitment to total prohibition.

The move is more discomforting for the latter since it has viewed the arrack ban as a big mistake. Chief Minister E K Nayanar has been stressing the need for a more liberalised liquor policy to ensure cheap and unadulterated liquor. He has promised to come out with a revised policy in this regard.

The move also brings back the old practice of bishops influencing the faithful in exercising their franchise. The Catholic Bishops Conference of India had stopped this practice in the early 90s.

The Left Democratic Front won the 1996 assembly election despite an attempt by the Congress to woo the prohibitionists, especially the anti-liquor sections in the church through the arrack ban.

Moreover the church is not convinced about the sincerity of the Congressmen in introducing total prohibition in the state.

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