: Prohibition, A Public Policy Disaster in Manipur: How and Why #IndiaNEWSAll #Northeast While it has been a trend for some time, but particularly consequent upon the Government’s decision to lift

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Prohibition, A Public Policy Disaster in Manipur: How and Why #IndiaNEWSAll #Northeast
While it has been a trend for some time, but particularly consequent upon the Government’s decision to lift Prohibition, Manipur is right now in a situation of public policy disaster. Under this, the government has failed to convince the people about rationale of the decision; in fact, it has utterly failed to articulate one. There is mass resentment, mass protest and mass anguish. On the other hand, the inefficiency of the government and inability to frame a policy by following the principles of policy formulation have been critically exposed. A kind of social pessimism has been generated in a context of rising unemployment and price increases.
First, it has been established beyond doubt that the decision to lift Prohibition is not a product of deliberated and shared discussions within the government. The Draft Liquor Policy is a sure testimony of this lack of shared deliberation and articulation to mature a will of the government.
Second, the decision is not founded on discussions with Experts has been established beyond doubt despite the colossal claims of the government. There is no sign in either the initial announcement of the decision or the Draft Policy document of the government having consulted any “independent, non–interest-based, non-profit organizations that produce and principally rely on expertise and ideas to obtain support and to influence the policymaking process. ” If any such consultation had taken place, there definitely would have been reflections of the values and morality behind the decision at least in the draft policy document coming as it does as a response to the public outcry against the decision and the heightened social pessimism spirit on the government.
Now it is fairly established that the decision to lift prohibition was neither a product of the application of mind by the government as a holistic machinery nor an outcome of consultation with a think-tank. In this background, I recall an interesting book titled Special Interest Politics by two leading contemporary Economists, Grossman and Helpman (MIT, 2001). They define Special Interest Group as:
“An interest group may be considered ‘‘special’’ if its members covet policies that would not be considered desirable by the average citizen. Thus, any minority group of citizens that shares identifiable characteristics and similar concerns on some set of issues might be termed a SIG. . …… We ask, From what features of the political landscape do special interest groups derive their power and influence? What determines the extent to which they are able to affect policy outcomes?” It is a group in society which try “to gain favourable treatment from the government based only on their voting behaviour.

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