Plea to rights panel against Gujarat prohibition

A lawyer and social worker from Surat has approached Gujarat Human Rights Commission with a plea that prohibition curbs human rights of over two crore people in the state who love their drink.

He has appealed to the commission to protect what he calls “Constitutional rights” of the people to consume liquor. In his plea, Kushal Kumar Sheldia states that in addition to Gujarat, Bihar, Nagaland and Lakshadweep, no other state has prohibition. Though the prohibition is effective under the Bombay Prohibition Act 1948 in Bombay province, it was being imposed only in Gujarat since May 1, 1960, and not in Maharashtra from which the state was bifurcated.

Citing Mahatma Gandhi, who had campaigned in favour of a ban on alcoholism, fearing that its addiction led to poverty and backwardness in the country, 32-year-old Sheldia questions that why then only two Union territories and Gujarat were implementing prohibition post-independence. “Like 125 crore people across the country, the two crore of the six crore people of Gujarat, who have had tasted liquor, too ought to have freedom to consume alcohol. Gujarat must remove prohibition and not deny people of Gujarat their rights,” he says in the plea.

He also goes on to suggest that if prohibition was to be continued in the name of Gandhi then his birthplace Porbandar be declared as a Union Territory and prohibition implemented there so that others in Gujarat do not “suffer loss”.