Ao Baptist Arogo Mungdang (ABAM) has termed the state government’s reported move to revisit the Nagaland Liquor Total Prohibition (NLTP) Act, 1989 with plan for partial relaxation in the state “absurd”, as it intended to encourage the availability of liquor totally or in parts.
ABAM president Rev Dr L Lima Jamir and executive secretary Rev Dr Mar Pongener in a statement said that the decision of the state cabinet on August 23, 2024 to revisit the NLTP during the forthcoming Assembly session from August 27, as announced by the government spokesperson, had prompted all right-thinking citizens to express concern about its implications on the health and well-being of the people, besides safeguarding the state’s social values and cultural fabric.
They pointed out that total lifting or relaxing the Act would only bring meagre revenue to the state, but affect the society. ABAM said the stark realities of liquor availability and liquor consumption, especially among young people and other vulnerable or high-risk groups, could not be denied. In fact, they claimed that one of the greatest leading factors for deaths and disability, diseases, and injuries was the consumption of liquor. Keeping in mind the context of Nagaland, the duo pointed out that the detrimental effects began with annihilation of human lives, increased violence against women, physical abuse, child maltreatment, violent crime, assaults, and homicides.
ABAM contended that partially lifting the prohibition might seem appealing from the revenue standpoint. However, they emphasised that this should not be at the expense of degrading public health, because easy access to alcohol outlets led to higher level of alcohol consumption, mental health morbidity and mortality and societal impairment.
ABAM wondered who benefitted when many lives, public health and community were endangered. Instead of envisioning how to engage globally and locally, and finding a way forward in building a healthy society, they cautioned that relaxing NLTP Act would take back the state to pre-NLTP era.
Declaring that ABAM would hold firm to the ways Christian leaders of Nagaland had sacrificed their lives for the noble cause of NLTP Act, they urged individuals, churches and civil society to focus on intervention and prevention efforts, which included effective policies to curtail the increased use of liquor in the entire state.