The Malayali and his drink
Numerous jokes can be seen circulating about the Malayali
fondness for drink and so many scenes can be seen on television and the movies.
The mimicry circuit is replete with many depictions of the drunken Malayali, while
the somber and orderly queue in front of the beverages shop is testimony to the
seriousness with which the average Malayali sets about the task of purchasing
his liquor of choice in order to get thoroughly sloshed.
The statistics are staggering, for Kerala is right up there near
the top when it comes to alcohol consumption. The World Health Organization
finds that the average Indian drinks 4.3 liters of alcohol a year and in
Kerala, it was 10.2 liters a year and the highest per capita (14.5 per cent)
liquor consumption in the country. Borrowing
the words from an evocative Malayali writer Yohan Chacko we can picture the
drinker… Tying and retying his
lungi/dhoti, each time a notch higher lets you know how many pegs he has downed
by the level of the knot. At the pinnacle of intoxication the knot will be
placed one palm’s width below his armpit almost like a girl wearing a towel on
her way to the river for a bath. And they will sing. And sing and sing. For the
amount of coaxing they would otherwise need to get on a dance floor, the drunk
Malayali will put Shakira to shame.
Many ask the question - It is ok to have a recreational
drink or two or even three, but why do these fellows insist on getting plastered
ever so often? Let me assure you, it was not so easy to find an answer even
after racking my brains a lot and checking out the backgrounds of every serious
Malayali drinker I knew or know. Is it in the genes, the social make-up or is
it the expected norm in Kerala?
In the hoary past, drinking was not very common or popular
in the state. Toddy was tapped and the Thandan (palm tree climber and tapper) supplied
the fresh drink to just a few. We know that the Nair soldier sometimes drank
before setting out for war, this has been so attested. Rare members of the
gentry perhaps did, but drink was largely abhorred by the upper classes. We
also saw in an earlier study that the Romans brought in amphorae of wine, perhaps
for their own consumption. While arrack became popular later, It is interesting
to note that the prevalent form of alcohol distillation producing a more potent
Arrack (itself an Arab term), has an Italio-Arab (the Chakanad Bhatti) Moghul
origin dating back to the 13th and 14th centuries (they
used to have much weaker Gandhara bhattis or stills before that).
Medieval Kerala had Namboothiris on the top of the social
ladder, who drank rarely in those times but the Nairs had the sanction to drink
by virtue of their being soldiers, fighting for various local chieftains. The
lower classes did, but the Moplahs did not drink, whereas the Christians did. Richard
Burton explains an interesting reasoning, in his diary dated 1850 – Although quite opposed to the spirit of
Hindu law, intoxication and debauchery never degrade a Nair from his caste. The
Christians had better relations with the Portuguese and the Dutch and therefore
had access to more exotic drinks from the west, such as wine, brandy. The lonely
Englishmen in India found solace in booze, sometimes drinking himself to a
stupor setting the standard for the observant Malayali. The Malayali always
looking for equality in society, quickly picked up on these aspects to show
that he was no inferior to the Englishman, not realizing that drink is addictive.
Drinking soon got popularized by the film crowd and the arty lot, so not only
did the common man get affected, but also the intellectual, with the excuse
that drink cleared up the mind and allowed thoughts to flow. But let’s take a
deeper look.
In the very early times, Hinduism mentions use of many
alcoholic beverages, starting with the Soma in Rig Veda. Some 13 different
types can be found in early texts and while it was taboo only for Brahmins,
were used by other castes. In almost all areas, the manufacture and
distribution was done by the lowest castes. In early Kerala, we see the local
chieftains in Kerala levying various types of kanams or taxes on liquor
profits. They were Talakanam, enikkanam and kudanazhi. Talakanam was a tax paid
by toddy tappers, enikkanam was the tax on the ladder used by tappers and
kudanazhi was the custom of providing a nazhi (measure) of liquor to the taxing
authority per pot of toddy (you may not believe it, but we also had a women
labor tax called mulavila, manayira house thatching tax, Alkash or talavila,
atimaikasu or slave tax, menippon gold ornament tax, mulaiattikaram etc. in
those times).
1602 – Pyrarad Laval states- Had we not been liable to find our Nairs drunk with arac (which is a
As the moral policies started to change with a change in
governance, drinking became an accepted social pastime. That was obviously so when
the British took over the reins in Malabar circa 1790. You can refer to the
diaries of Wellesley who was campaigning against the Pazhassi raja and see that
he had to have a number of arrack carts lugged by bullocks behind each troop
movement of his. This was a requirement to keep his army motivated in the
malaria infested and rain drenched jungles of North Malabar. That was how the
British first created a quota of booze for the native foot soldier.
Many a family had a person or two serving that Army of the
Raj in those times and later into the world wars 1 and 2. When they came home
on furlough, they would bring the ration bottles, to have a merry vacation. We
have seen this well documented in novels, short stories, dramas and movies.
Very soon drinking became accepted and even popular amongst men, with the
change of the social fabric. Class and caste distinction disintegrated and with
the advent of socialism, people of all classes met more often in public, not
just for important occasions but to discuss politics, the government, other
local issues and their own problems.
In the early 1800’s the EIC implemented the abkari excise
act, which was later imposed by the British government in 1858, and thus the
sale of alcohol became a huge source of revenue to any government. In India.
This was particularly of interest in places where controls never existed, and
where tax collection was a huge issue for the ruling British, for it was a
method of exhorting revenue for governance from the masses, i.e. by taxing the
production and sales outlets.
Thus came about the abkari (excise) or ‘farming out’ system.
In the so called Madras system the license to operate distilleries and open
liquor shops were granted by auctions to the highest bidder. More and more such
licenses were encouraged. Even though land tax was the main source of revenue,
liquor revenue grew rapidly. Starting with 2% in 1874, you can trace a rise to
7% in the 1890’s, 10% in 1905 and 27% by the 1920’s, a whopping increase of
430%.
Kerala state's
dependence on alcohol revenue echoes the British colonial era, says Dilip
Menon, who has studied the issue. In the late 19th century, imperial rulers
sharply raised toddy taxes, encouraging people to switch to more addictive,
higher-octane and also highly taxed arrack, a distilled 34-proof brew made from
fruit or grain, which stuffed state coffers and spurred alcoholism.
It was at this stage that some from the Madras presidency
started to raise their voice against increasing cases of addiction. The Brahma
Samaj started to incorporate it into its caste rules and the CMS took up the
cudgels as well, telling its believers to abstain. But as regulations came
about, we also see that the Madras system was fanned out to other parts of
India and gaining acceptability. Heeding protests, taxes were raised to reduce
consumption, police were authorized to act against illegal distillers etc.,
Gandhi arriving India in 1914 also took up the matter and the INA endorsed his
words.
After independence, several states introduced prohibition as
allowed by the constitution and even though neighboring Tamil Nadu did, the
states of Andhra Pradesh, Mysore and Kerala did not due to their large fiscal
demands and even refused central government compensation for the potential loss
of revenue. Economic development and urbanization escalated the situation and
instilled what we now see as class based drinking as against caste based
drinking. The elite drank western style spirits while the lower working classes
stuck to arrack and toddy, or sometimes lethal bootleg spirits. Soon foreign
liquor and IMFL or Indian made foreign liquor became even more popular as the
habitual drinker needed something stronger.
Just like the British got the masses of China addicted to
opium, many governments in power in Kerala starting with the British, gradually
increased the acceptance levels by integrating booze into state policy. Even
though the statistics reported by the press are a bit skewed, you can still see
the top tipplers list contains the names of the three states above, Andhra,
Mysore and Kerala! Booze became a medium used to exhort the illiterate when
larger body counts were needed by politicians and leaders, be it for meetings,
agitations or processions. A promise of a free drink or a few would get the
required headcount. Sometimes these drinks were spiked ‘for a higher kick ‘with
all kinds of chemicals (varnish, methyl alcohol, battery skins / ammonium
chloride) and many instances of mass deaths have been reported. And as you will
observe, Kerala, an over-politicized and over-extended state has more than a
procession or agitation every day.
But why did an otherwise literate Keralite get drawn into
the negative world of alcoholics? The rapid increase in alcoholism and
addiction in Kerala was thus brought about by easier availability, affordability
and greater social acceptance of alcohol. Some might ask why religious and
familial checks stopped working and how women also joined the fray. Well as
regards gender, Kerala is one of the rare places where the gender border is but
a thin line, though the drunkard’s wife is often the one who gets mistreated.
And as we all know supply of an addictive drink with some
catchy advertising creates demand, and as demand increases, supply quickly
catches up and this exponential growth created the situation we see in Kerala.
Usually brakes are applied early by good governance, but the immense profits of
the business created a very strong liquor (manufacturing & distribution)
lobby which in turn started to establish indirect control on the decision
makers and various arms of the government.
You could look at some depressing statistics culled from
various reports, for some perspective - An ADIC-India study revealed that
Kerala’s revenue from alcohol increased from US$ 6.5 million in FY 1987-88 to
US$ 1.2 billion in FY 2013-14. In Kerala, where 22 per cent of the total
government revenue came from the bottle, the total excise and commercial tax
revenue from alcohol (IMFL and toddy) was close to Rs 8,000 crore. The Kerala
State Beverages Corporation (KSBC) runs 337 liquor shops, all open seven days a
week. Each shop caters on average to an astonishing 80,000 clients.
But blaming only the government is not necessarily right and
the moral fabric of the user (who helped create the democratic government in
the first place) has to be studied, so let’s go about trying to do that. The
drinkers of Kerala are of many types. There is the occasional drinker, there is
the habitual drinker, and there is the arty type. The occasional or
recreational (as they are termed in the USA) drinker is relatively harmless,
except that BEVCO sales are propped up by a large number of these people. The
habitual or serious drinker drinks by choice, he has decided early in life that
he has to drown his sorrows with the glass. Whether it is due to personal
issues, a declining career or impeding bankruptcy, he somehow begs, borrows or
steals to buy his drink as often as he can and is enveloped in a hazy alcoholic
mist all day long. They are by nature dull and self-centered and difficult to
change. He is the mainstay of all statisticians and is often studied by the
academicians.
The interesting sort is the arty type, sometimes sporting a
scraggly beard and generally looking unkempt. He is always rebelling about
something and it could be as trivial as the dog show conducted by the bourgeois
in town. He tries very hard to exhort others to follow his ideal, or his chosen
brand of ‘ism’ (one of the many) or ‘ics’ (such as politics) failing
frequently, thereby forcing him to choose a path of negativity as the day winds
down. He can also be seen in the toddy or arrack shop or in the Bevco line.
Some of them become famous later in the entertainment industry but are still
influenced heavily by drink.
The intention of any of these serious Kerala drinkers is not
to sip his drink, but to get drunk as quickly as possible. If they meet in a
bar, the bottle once opened is never corked, but always finished in situ. In
the old times, the bottle used to be military issue Hercules XXX (the drink of
the proletariat), or the much venerated Old Monk rum - OMR but these days it is
could be any of the many new brands popular in the global market.
In Kerala we see something else which is very interesting.
Advertising is not required, but the booze joints have a rating based on the
quality of low cost food they serve. In a state where there is little time and
resource to cook good non vegetarian food, the lower middle class worker
resorts to a drink and a bite at the ‘shop’. The toddy/arrack shop where the
laborer retires to, after his days’ work (and very tiring bouts of grumbling), would
sport an expert cook well versed in the
art of creating tasty ‘touching’s’ and great curries. Touching’s are usually
very spicy ‘small eats’ chomped while polishing off the bottle. They are made
of meat and sometimes with parts not used in larger hotels, making them very
economical for the cook and the buyer, with the taste finely disguised with an abundance
of spices. See a recent episode of Anthony Bourdain’s visit to Kerala if you
want to get an idea of what I am talking about. If it is a party, it seems that
they can even have (not so legal) mobile supply stations parked in the parking
lot of your party site, replete with top class touching’s, from what I have
heard.
Then there is the strong NRK (nonresident Keralite) influence
- Check any airport arrival lounge in Kerala, almost all non-Muslim Malayali
NRK’s (Close to 50% of NRK’s are Muslim)would be carrying the customary two
bottles with him, mainly to please his parents, friends and in laws. Duty free shops
in the Middle East as well as those in the arrival lounges have great pricing packages
for the liquor being sold (typically - buy one, get one free), pricing them at a
fraction of street prices, thus facilitating the purchase of these one and a
half to two liter bottles of 50% proof alcohol per person. Take a look at some
rough statistics. There are some 2 million NRI’s from Kerala (NRK) and close to
90% of them are in the Middle East. The Kochi and Calicut airports show some
5-7 million arrivals every year (Mumbai has 33 million arrivals). Imagine the
amount of high octane booze which comes in, even after discounting the Moplah returnee!!
We also find that Kerala is a high salary state and so there
is usually money left for recreation in a worker’s life (Only that the Keralite
believes in a lot of recreation). It is also perhaps time to realize that the
state is no longer economically deprived and has started farming out menial
jobs to lower cost migrants from the North Eastern parts of India.
As justice VR Krishna Iyer aptly said - this is a trade where the turnover tempts the customer to take rolling
trips into the realm of the jocose, the lachrymose and then the comatose. The
jocose first sip, the bellicose second sip, the lachrymose third sip… And with
the final gulp you become comatose and lie down somewhere, often not knowing
where. If this happens at home, the wife gets beaten if she protests. With much
of the income spent on the stuff, the family often ends up bankrupt.
He also asked - Who will dare dismiss a government for
violating Article 47 of the Constitution written in 1949? The article for those
who are interested is - ‘Duty of the
State to raise the level of nutrition and the standard of living and to improve
public health The State shall regard the raising of 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 endeavor to bring
about prohibition of the consumption except for medicinal purposes of
intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health’. It made me
remember the story of the cat and the mice, with the question ‘who will bell
the cat’?
So much of statistics is good for the policy maker or policy
optimizer. But there could be another reason and that is the attitude of the
Keralite. Ask yourself if it is an optimistic or pessimistic state. Check out your
friends, your parents or relatives. An average person is always grumbling,
hardly smiling, not happy with this or that, never contended with his life and always
searching for utopia. This is also perhaps the reason why Kerala has a largest
number of mentally ill persons (6% of population), a large rate of divorces (13K
per annum) and a huge number of suicides (24 per lakh in 2014). Is that
progress? Too complex a question I suppose and one that will require the
average Malayali to nurse a stiff drink to come up with his valued opinion.
If I could comment in conclusion, I would say that instead
of focusing on the Beverages Corporation or Chandy or Mani or whoever the CM
is, focus on being happy, and you will soon discover that there are better
routes to lasting happiness than the few pints of alcohol. Don’t get me wrong
though, I am proud to be a Malayali though not at all proud of the above state
of affairs. I am also not preaching nor will I, since I myself like a weekend
drink, but then again, I do not get sloshed.
References
Economic History of Medieval India, 1200-1500 – Pages 55, 56
Goa, and the Blue Mountains, Or Six Months of Sick Leave -
Sir Richard Francis Burton
Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: Volume 1 - Jack S.
Blocker, David M. Fahey, Ian R. Tyrrell
Supplementary Despatches and Memoranda of Field Marshal
Arthur Wellesley, Duke of wellington ..., Volumes 1-12
An interesting question has been debated by Gautam Bhatiahere for those interested
Pics - from the net - thanks to the uploaders,
