There is another matter. All Adibasis do not want to drink: they want prohibition. I am talking of the Bhils in Gujrat, in Maharashtra, in West Khandesh and in the Central Provinces. I am talking of the Gonds also of the Central Provinces. I have asked hundreds and thousands of them whether they want drink or whether they want prohibition. Their decided answer to me has been: “Thakkar, you are talking of prohibition; you are talking of doing away with drinks. You are placing these enticements in our path and you are still asking for our opinion. For God’s sake have the liquor shops closed and then ask us. We are enticed to go to drink; otherwise we will not.” To give you a concrete fact about the Bhils of Panchmahals, amongst whom I have worked for 27 years, even the shops set up by the government of the day had to be closed because of the voluntary abstention of the Bhils from drinking. The shops went dry of their own accord. Nobody would visit the shops, because the Bhils had taken vows not to drink and not to become victims to the liquor shops. The shops had to be auctioned out and nobody would buy them. Therefore, it is too much to say that all Adibasis want this, or want this even as a religious right. Even in the matter of it being a religious right with the Bhils, that was the talk twenty years ago. Now they have stopped talking about it. It is not a religious right with them now.
