The last that the liquor shops in Delhi were open, we were in the month of March, 2020. Today, it’s just another date in a year where nothing’s quite gone right for anyone. Today, it’s just a date looking at which one only feels a bit of disconsolation. That being said, it isn’t that things didn’t change at all.
After having remained closed for nearly a month and a half- which isn’t really a small amount of time, if you were to think of it- the liquor shops in Delhi were reopened again. Well, even if that meant for a small amount of time.
In what can only be described as a ‘blink and you miss’ appearance, the liquor shops in Delhi were shut again, on May 4, 2020 after they were opened for a brief amount of time.
Well, there’s also a reason for it. One cannot say that this was a knee-jerk reaction or a sudden shift in momentum that had to just happen for no rhyme or reason.
What can one do when dozens flock together to get their share of quota of alcohol after having remained far apart from it for several days put together? Obviously, when a breakthrough like reopening of the liquor shops in Delhi is reached, one can only expect huge swarms of people to rush at the spot.
No?
And so that’s exactly what happened shortly after the government’s decision to reopen the liquor shops in Delhi. What followed soon afterward was such a gigantic mass of people that not only was the decision- quite simply- reversed but it actually became a figment of reportage that was represented widely in world media, not just India’s national media.
It also, therefore, puts forth a question. Are the daily supplies- including the medicines and groceries or rations- the only essential supplies or can one also expect other items in it too?
Well, surely no one is denying that the food items and groceries aren’t the essential items. Nothing could be further from this. It’s quite impossible to even imagine one in the absence of it. But to a country that houses hundreds of millions of people who look at articles like alcohol as an item of regular consumption – needing such a thing as a ‘stock’ from time to time- can there be a different way in which one sees government intervention?
That being said, here’s what the BBC had to report about the issue that soon made headlines in the heart of the national capital:
States have been pushing for liquor shops to reopen as excise duty on alcohol is a major source of income.
However, videos of snaking lines and jostling crowds in front of the shops have gone viral.
This is despite strict orders that people buying alcohol would have to stand six feet apart, and that only five people would be allowed inside a shop at any given time.
Delhi was among several states that reopened liquor shops, but similar scenes are being reported from other parts of the country.
In the southern state of Karnataka, queues formed outside alcohol shops from very early morning.
Now, that being said, one doesn’t know when might the entire slate of liquor shops in Delhi open again. For now, if you haven’t stocked some- then remember: good things only come to those who wait!