Now coming to liquor. Maharashtra is possibly the only place in the world where women have the right to shut down liquor stores, if more than half of them so desire. Instead of taking advantage of this law, Hazare would snoop on young boys drinking liquor, tie them to a tree, on occasion even beat them and so humiliate them that they agreed to stay away from liquor. Parents didn’t like this either, particularly if their children had been drinking occasionally and were not addicts but, once again, they had no choice. Anna Hazare is no Gandhian and, as the former bureaucrat had confided, he lacked education and refinement. But he has always been a saffron bigot and found it easy to lend himself to Arvind Kejriwal and the RSS. His threat to protest against the sale of wine was also fuelled by former BJP chief minister Devendra Fadnavis. Unfortunately for both, BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh has taken a similar step with even hard liquor, making Fadnavis look foolish and hypocritical. So Hazare too had to withdraw the agitation under the guise of needing time to study a government officer’s letter explaining the policy. What is there to study? It is a straightforward policy decision but I guess Hazare needed an escape route. Anna Hazare is not what the world believed him to be. The sooner those he fooled realise that, the better for his village, Maharashtra, India and the world at large. (The writer is Consulting Editor, National Herald, Mumbai. The article was first published in National Herald on Sunday)
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