Tribal women launch anti-arrack movement

By SN V Sudhir

GK Veedhi (Vizag Agency), Oct 26: The tribal women of the Vizag Agency , upset with the excise sleuths who always gave a deaf ear to their several pleas, trained their guns on the arrack brewers in the Agency. Interestingly the tribal women who brewed and sold the arrack themselves until a few months ago to eke out their living had also joined hands with the anti arrack campaign launched by a small group of women in a tiny village Asarada in this Agency mandal a few months ago. These women formed into small Sanghas and launched a movement to create awareness among the women and also started demolishing the brewery dens. The fire that was first ignited in Asarada fast spread to around 80 surrounding villages. And women belonging to the neighbouring Chintapalli, Koyyuru mandals are also planning to join the movement by forming their own Sanghas and demolish the illicit brewery dens. “It all started one day when we were all vexed up with our husbands who come home daily in a drunken state and beat us up. Our husbands also often used to get into arguments with people in drunken conditions making us feel embarrassed. And one day all the women in our village who are under DWCRA group wanted to discuss this issue seriously. We devised a strategy and launched this movement” said Gullela Parvathamma of Alluri Seetaramaraju Gramaikhya Sangham in Asarada who spearheaded the agitation. The women went door to door in the village having around 150 houses for a month and requested all the women to join them. They also surveyed the key dens of the brewers for 15days. And finally in the last week of February they blew the conch and started demolishing the dens. In a row without giving a chance for the brewers, they demolished around 15 to 20 such dens in the village. After giving a gap for some 15 days they again struck hard on the brewers who slowly tried to resume their operatons.“What else can we do? My husband earns around Rs 50 per day and spends Rs 40 for consuming the arrack daily. How can he feed us? I still remember those days wherein we used to starve due to his filthy habit . Now my husband does not have a chance to consume the arrack as it’s is not available in our village. Not only in our village but in the surrounding villages also. And he cannot afford to go to the other mandal daily to have it. That’s it” said Jurra Vijaya Lakshmi of Asarada. Taking a queue from the Asarada village, the women of the surrounding Pedavalasa also launched the agitation impressed with the success story. “It was a massive movement I have ever seen. Around 250 women including younger and older joined their hands and used to go to every liquor manufacturing place and demolish them. They marched the whole village for around one and half months and knocked down the brewery dens. And after looking to their enthusiasm and concern towards us I got a lesson and gave up drinking” said Srinu of Pedavalasa. An active woman of Pedavalasa, Kannepeti Nirmala said that they have approached the excise sleuths with their pleas to destroy the breweries but they never responded, she added. Now the families in around 80 villages in this mandal are happily living. But the women of Devarapalli had to face some strong resistance from the brewers in their village. Later they were successful in destroying the arrack warrens. It was reported that these brewery dens are working in around 100 villages and the women were successful in 80 such villages. On the other hand the Circle Inspector of the Prohibition and Excise station at Chintapalli covering Chintapalli and GK Veedhi mandala, P Appalachary said that they have been booking cases on such offenders who were brewing the arrack. “What can I do? There are around 250 villages in both mandals. And we are only three which includes me and two other constables. It’s a Herculean task to cover these villages in the Agency which are mostly dominated by the outlawed Maoists Even then we are doing our best” said the CI. Interestingly the excise police station in Chintapalli was not having power supply for the past 10 months. If the excise sleuths nab any offender they have to guard him with a gas light during the night.