gnopgnip@22: nobody uses kudimagan for drunk. It helps to do some research before shooting off.

I would agree with #22; Kudimagan is used almost exclusively for “citizen”, unless somebody is purposely bifurcating the word in speech or writing to explicitly indicate a humorous use. However, you did not try that. You tried to pass it on as a fact. Epic fail.

Perhaps you can check the Wiktionary The word “kudi” is used contextually to mean two different things.

The status of the village women is up for debate.

But we do know for a fact that the various Al Capoors of the Indian underworld are certainly better off for it.

have you? are you one?

prohibition laws in india are more about grandstanding than social change. education and social ostracism have a better chance of fixing the drunkard problem.

I completely agree that binge drinking away family resources is a scourge on Indian villages. But I see no evidence of prohibition working. People make liquor in jail with nothing but fruit pulp. Indian police, who for the most part don’t even have the will to maintain general law & order, are not going to enforce these rules. In a dry state they just shake down the laborers and arrack shop owners, so either way wages are not spent on family upkeep. It’s going to take social rather than legal sanction to fix this. I’ve seen the most degenerate drunks keep it together during the weeks leading up the Ayappan pilgrimage for example

If Kallu and Saarayam are banned there must be good reason. Like perhaps death due to toxic, unhygenic manufacturing? Or maybe the local village women got them banned because their husbands were becoming drunken, abusive alcoholics who squander away their (the wives’)hard earned money. Believe it or not, there have been indigenous village womens’ movements to make their villages “dry”.

Banning makes it worse, since now illegal moonshine with battery and stuff is brewed and routinely kills or blinds and maims hundreds every year in India. Regulating it would be a better option than a ban, since this would help ensure safety in production as well as give a livelyhood to the toddy tappers. But what use is banning kallu and saarayam, while IMFL (Indian MadeForeign Liquor) which is more expensive is sold. Do you think a determined drunkard who is ruining his family, will abstain instead of spending even more money to buy IMFL? The illogic of these kind of bans is what I am questioning. I don’t have issues with across the board dry states like Gujarat presently is and Tamil Nadu was at one time. Tamil Nadu though realised that potential revenue was going to Kerala and Pondicherry as people were going there to buy liquor. BTW, I am a teetotaler and always have been, but believe that it is a personal decision. What should happen in my opinion is that like smoking is presently totally deglamorised, drinking should be too, in the public discourse. But they should continue to be sold, rather than banned and it should be individual responsibility that should govern people’s drinking levels and addictions.

And it is WORKING in those villages. Maybe it would not work in Mumbai or USA – not everyplace on earth is the same with the exact same dynamics. Poor village women in India need their husbands. Other women, with more money and more social clout and government help may not.

And once again, the reason America banned alcohol was because WOMEN got together to protest, petition, and demand it.

That does NOT, however, mean it was automagically a smart policy to enact.

And if you don’t think impulses towards moralizing rather than real concerns for people’s welfare didn’t have a significant role to play I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. Stuff in the real world rarely follows a linear A -> B path.

If any rich folk want to do the same – so be it.