Kuolachalie Seyie
Prohibition is one of Nagaland’s many ironies. Alcohol is often openly served at the residences of high officials as early as 8am. Some of our traditional festivals clearly encourage the younger generation, including minor children to drink. Lately it has also been observed that one or two church leaders crusading for clean elections are surprisingly defending alcoholism on other platforms. And we the public are silent spectators or worse, thoughtlessly following those negative examples, owing to a lack of direction and guts to agitate in favour of a social change to secure Naga future.
The wise men of Israel were aware of the dangers of strong drinks, however their so called wine in the ancient world according to the renowned Bible scholar William Barclay composed of only 6% alcohol. Whereas today’s alcoholic drinks are different - beer has a composition of 18% alcohol, brandy, vodka, rum and whisky have 55-60% alcohol apart from dangerous adulterants. Christ turning water into wine or “your vats will brim over with new wine” (Prov. 3:10) as God’s blessing need not confuse any sensible person, as the ancient wine consisted of only 6% alcohol. If that kind of wine is used in celebrations or advised to Timothy on health ground (1 Timothy 5:23) same can be accepted as we believers also do take alcohol- vitamin compounds or use them as medicines in the West to reduce their sleep to only 3 – 5 hours a day to deal with their busy schedule. “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools” (Rom 1:22). I wish we don’t try to be too wise on alcohol justification from the Bible.
Here, then, what I understand under these circumstances is that for the general people abstinence of wine is not an issue, drunkenness is, but to be a great people before the Lord, abstinence of wine is required (Luke 1:15, Num 6:3). As per the understanding of the Hebrew alcohol should be generally avoided as a bad thing (Prov. 20:1). The physical torture of the alcoholic is graphically described in these Bible verses -Drinking brings poverty and disgrace (Prov. 23:20-21). Do not look at the wine when it is red (Prov. 23:31). Drink should be avoided by people in high places who need their mental faculties in times of decision (Prov. 31:4-5). He will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink (Luke 1:15).
Intoxicating liquor may give some momentary pleasure, but it has so many unpleasant consequences, that only folly would make a man persist in its use. Initially it may go down smoothly with a little wine but later it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder (Prov. 23:32). Alcoholism is usually a form of escape from an unpleasant or intolerable situation. When life becomes unduly burdensome, when the individual is crushed by a sense of inferiority or frustration, when circumstances seem to place too heavy a load upon him, he looks for some way of escape, not for lack of education on alcohol as claimed by some people. He hungers for a temporary oblivion. He wants to get away from it all.
An English labourer for whom life had become meaningless said that getting drunk was “the quickest way out of Manchester”. Do you agree with me that many young people today have taken the same stand as the “quickest way out of Nagaland” with present adulterated alcohol and victimising themselves? Alcohol is a mass killer, a destroyer of families and societies. What else? The only incentive for drinking is that as he drinks, he may forget his poverty, misery or responsibility, it is only a method of forgetting things, but bitter is the return to the world of reality.
The problem of alcoholism or an addiction takes on new dimensions in this modern ‘machine age’. Apart from its health hazard, the social consequences of drinking are more serious when the drinker is at the wheel of a fast-moving automobile or when he is a pilot of an aeroplane or an engineer guiding a speeding streamlined train or when he is a surgeon with a sharp instrument in his hand. They might too easily commit a blunder under the slightest influence of liquor.
The evil consequences of alcoholism do not affect the drunken man alone. The very lives of innocent people are jeopardized by those whose minds are darkened and whose reactions are impaired under the influence of alcohol. 70% of all accidents in Nagaland are alcohol related. Nagaland government claim of losing 750 crores of rupees revenue due to prohibition and so wanting to lift the Prohibition Act was opposed by NBCC on the ground that the soul of one person is of more value than 750 crores. To me this reaction makes sense.
The problem of alcoholism is more serious in the states or countries where liquor is sold for private profit. The distiller, the brewer and their agents must sell their products, they must at all cost try to produce consumers for their goods. Their aim is to cleverly lure people to indulge in drinking to be socially accepted, tries to manipulate the persons in the realms of power and as the sell is pushed by them successfully and forcefully. In return the government earns taxes in terms of many crores of rupees. The Bible however says “woe to those who are brave at drinking, champions at mixing drinks” (Isa. 5:22).
The only method of resisting the trend toward alcoholism and its sale is with mutual cooperation of public and the government to make it absolutely impossible for any firm, private individual or bootleggers derive a profit by selling alcoholic beverage. This may be the idea behind prohibition. Prohibition in short is not for abstinence from wine but to completely stop the liquor merchants from our land, who in their pursuit of selfish stratagems of making money are leading to mass destruction of our society. Therefore we, as a people from top to bottom have a common sacred responsibility to strictly check the menace of alcoholism and its rampant sale which is severely endangering our youth and future. It may be a man’s business as to whether or not he wants to drink, but it ought not be somebody’s business to encourage him to drink through unrestricted rampant sale of liquor everywhere within the towns and cities in order to produce a profit for the liquor merchant, because we are under a popular government which must be capable of protecting our people’s interest through peaceful means. No single method of enacting the Prohibition Act in plain paper has been able to solve this problem in Nagaland.
Prohibiting the sale of liquor by law without prompt and proper follow up action is not effective at all, if the enforcing agency prefers to play safe and there is no strong general public disposition to support the law. Only if there is a legal enactment based on people’s interest and sentiment which is sincerely backed by the government with commitment and integrity can law be effective enough in dealing with the relentless and rampant violators, who might as usual continue to fly in the face of the wishes of a large majority of this Christian State of Nagaland just for their illegal profit from alcohol business.
