The suspected spurious liquor deaths in Nagaland are more than a law-and-order story. They expose a deeper contradiction: alcohol is prohibited by law, yet it remains sufficiently available to sustain an illicit market in which consumers have little protection against adulteration.
Nagaland’s prohibition policy was intended to curb alcohol-related harm. Yet the persistence of alcohol consumption despite prohibition points to a difficult reality. The present framework has not eliminated demand and has left part of the market beyond effective regulation.
The answer should not be based on ideology. Nor should the deaths be used to argue simplistically that prohibition itself caused them. Responsibility for adulterated liquor and the resulting deaths must first be established through proper investigation. But the incidents provide a legitimate reason to reassess the policy that governs the environment in which such a market operates.
There is also a public-health dimension. Alcohol dependence, household hardship and alcohol-related illness cannot be addressed solely through arrests and seizures. If consumption cannot be eliminated, the state must consider how best to reduce the harm associated with it.
The forensic dimension makes the problem still more stark. In the Tuensang investigation, Nagaland’s laboratory detected methanol in samples but could not quantify it because the required instruments were unavailable. Further testing therefore had to be undertaken outside the state. A state that struggles to establish what is in a bottle is at a disadvantage in regulating an illicit market and prosecuting those responsible for poisoning it.
None of this automatically proves that lifting prohibition would produce better outcomes. A regulated market carries its own risks and would require strict controls, taxation, quality standards and substantial investment in public health.
But after decades of prohibition, the question can no longer be avoided. Nagaland needs an evidence-based debate on whether its present alcohol policy is reducing harm, merely displacing it, or doing both. The objective should not be to defend prohibition at all costs, but to protect people.
