NEW DELHI — The Church in southern Kerala state is ecstatic after the state government announced drastic steps to usher in prohibition in the largest Christian pocket in India, which also has the nation’s highest alcoholism rates.

“This is a historic victory for the Church and the people of Kerala,” Bishop Remigiose Inchaniyil, chairman of the Temperance Commission of the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC), told the Register.

“It is much more than what we had hoped for,” admitted the bishop, who heads the Thamarassery Diocese in north Kerala.

More than 6 million Christians account for 19% of the population in a state where most Christians trace their faith to St. Thomas the Apostle.

Kerala’s government announced a virtual ban on sales of hard liquor in the state on Aug. 22, through a slew of measures, including closure of the state’s remaining 312 bars and a phased-in shutdown, by 10% every year, of 334 outlets operated by the state-owned Kerala Beverage Corp. that sells hard liquor. However, sales of soft liquors like “toddy” (fermented from juice extracted from coconut bunches), wine and beer will not come under the ban.

The announcement came one day after Major Archbishop Cardinal Baselios mar Cleemis, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India and head of the Catholic Church in Kerala, publicly cautioned the government of “grave consequences if it yielded to the liquor lobby and reopened the closed bars.”

Citing low standards, the state government earlier shut down 418 bars on April 1, responding to pressure from a prohibition movement in which the Church has played a key role.

The previous day, 50 Catholic bishops submitted a memorandum to the government supporting the demand for shutting down all of the state bars — a move staunchly supported by V.M. Sudheeran, a Hindu and state president of the Congress Party that leads the state’s coalition government, despite opposition from a section of his own party.

Due to the new ban on hard liquor, the state will incur a massive revenue loss of 84 billion rupees ($1.4 billion) that it collected in profits and taxes from the liquor trade in 2013.

“The credit for this historic move should go to Congress president Sudheeran,” said Father T.J. Antony, secretary of the KCBC Temperance Commission. “We are thankful to him for standing like a rock supporting the cause.”

 

Alcohol-Related Problems

One of the most developed states in India, Kerala has the highest rate of alcohol consumption — 2.2 gallons of hard liquor annually per head — more than double the national average, according to a national survey.

As a consequence of this over-consumption, according to prohibition proponents, the suicide rate in the state is also almost double the national average, with 30 suicides reported for 100,000 people, compared to the national rate of 17 suicides.

Similarly, the road-accident rate for Kerala stands at more than 18.2 accidents per 1,000 vehicles, whereas the national average is only 8.3 per 1,000.

Such disturbing trends earlier prompted Church leaders in Kerala to decry the sin of drunken driving and encourage the faithful to practice frequent confession.

Noting the link between alcoholism and increasing suicides, divorces and road accidents, the Church has collaborated with secular groups in promoting prohibition of hard-liquor consumption.

Successive governments in the state had followed a liberal liquor policy since 1996 that allocated new bar licenses with the aim of promoting tourism in Kerala — a 400-mile-long strip of land sandwiched between mountains and the Arabian Sea that is touted as “God’s own country” for its natural beauty.

In 2012, a convention of prohibition activists of the Church in Kerala, including diocesan temperance commissions, had recommended that its bishops declare alcoholism a “sin” to curb rampant alcoholism.

Catholic prohibitionists had also demanded that those who consume alcohol even moderately should be kept away from all levels of Church leadership, from teaching catechism to serving on parish committees and any other appointed or elected posts.

They urged the Church to never request nor receive donations from Christians in the state’s thriving alcohol business.

“God has heard our prayers. We are thrilled,” said Joy Kochuparambil, who quit a lucrative liquor business in 1996 after attending a retreat.

“We have been dreaming of this for so long,” said Kochuparambil, who, along with half a dozen other Catholics who similarly quit the liquor trade, has lobbied top political leaders, including Sudheeran, while Kerala debated the bar closures in recent months.

Ouseppachan Puthumana, the first member of the group to surrender his bar license in 1990, after attending a retreat, described the government’s decision as “a victory for the people, especially the women. Alcoholism has ruined thousands of families.”

“Women and children have been facing the brunt of alcoholism of the men,” said Puthumana, who is a retreat leader and a TV presenter with the Catholic channel Shalom TV. “Many men go to work and come back home drunk.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco or medicine. Those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others’ safety on the road, at sea or in the air” (2290).

 

Mass Wine Controversy

Meanwhile, the state government’s unexpected prohibition declaration has been condemned by prominent Hindu leader Vellapilly Natesan, who blamed Christian and Muslim leaders and charged that Hindus in the liquor business will suffer.

Natesan — himself a liquor baron who will have to close down several bars due to the government decision — stirred additional controversy by demanding that the Church stop utilizing wine for Mass if it is serious about prohibition.

Father Paulo Thelakat, a spokesman for the Syro-Malabar Church that traces its roots to St. Thomas the Apostle, dismissed this demand, noting that using wine at Mass is “a global tradition and uses less than an ounce of wine for a Mass.”

On Aug. 29, the Kerala Catholic Bishops Conference issued a statement reiterating that sacramental wine is “different from normal wine” and called for the end of what it said was an unnecessary controversy.

But perhaps the most important defense of the Church in the debate over the use of wine during Mass came from Sudheeran. The Hindu political leader questioned the motive behind such a seemingly frivolous demand for what he described as a “ritual and tradition.”

Anto Akkara writes from Bangalore, India.