Prohibition is the real guarantee Karnataka needs

 Karnataka today stands before a moral and political contradiction it can no longer evade. A government that claims lineage from Rammanohar Lohia’s socialism and invokes Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy continues to depend on liquor sales as a principal source of revenue, even as families across the state are being destroyed by alcohol addiction. This is not merely policy inconsistency; it is ethical incoherence.

The strongest argument for prohibition does not come from moral sermons or religious injunctions. It comes from women. Across Karnataka, women’s groups have repeatedly stated that they would rather forgo the government’s much-publicised “five guarantees” if alcohol were banned outright. Their reasoning is devastatingly simple: money given with one hand is taken away by alcohol with the other. The men who are meant to earn and sustain families often squander wages on drink, plunging households into debt, violence, and chronic insecurity. Welfare schemes then attempt to repair damage the state itself enables.

Bihar’s experience under Nitish Kumar proves that prohibition is not an impossible dream. Despite enforcement challenges, the political verdict has been clear: women rewarded the policy with electoral support because it brought measurable relief to their daily lives. Gujarat and Kerala, too, have sustained varying forms of liquor control. If these states can bear the fiscal and administrative cost, there is no convincing reason why Karnataka cannot—except lack of political will.

Opponents warn of revenue loss and illicit liquor. These concerns are real but overstated. What is rarely calculated is the hidden cost of alcohol: healthcare burdens, road fatalities, crime, domestic violence, lost productivity, and generational poverty. When these are factored in, prohibition is not an expense but a social investment. Moreover, if the state can spend close to one lakh crore rupees annually on cash guarantees, it can certainly restructure its finances around a policy that removes the root cause of household ruin.

Both Lohia and Gandhi were unequivocal: a welfare state cannot fund itself by profiting from addiction. A government that promotes liquor to keep its machinery running compromises its own legitimacy. In a deeply religious society where no faith endorses intoxication, and where women—half the population—demand prohibition, democratic morality clearly tilts in one direction.

If the Karnataka government has the courage to announce  prohibition while rationalising unsustainable guarantees, it may lose excise revenue but gain something far more enduring: social stability, healthier families, and moral authority. Prohibition, not populist doles, could well become the single most credible guarantee of good governance—and political survival.