Nagaland Remains Dry, Thanks To Baptists

NAGALAND, Sept. 01, 2010, 14:00 Hrs (UCAN):

Opposition from the powerful Baptist Church in Nagaland has forced the state government to suspend plans to lift a total prohibition on alcohol.

The state would convene another consultation with non-governmental agencies and Church bodies soon to garner public opinion for lifting the 1989 ban, M.C. Konyak, state excise minister, told media last week.

The latest round of consultations was held in Kohima in July.

“This time round we couldn’t lift the prohibition owing to the stiff opposition of the [Baptist] Church,” said Konyak.

The Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC), had spearheaded the original ban.

Konyak and other government officials say the prohibition has failed as it has only resulted in an increase in homemade liquor, crime and bootlegging. The state has also been losing an estimated annual excise revenue amounting to millions of dollars.

“We have to see it from all angles,” Konyak said.

NBCC’s Reverend Khari Longchar said his Church “will ask the government to work out a mechanism for the reduction of consumption and smuggling of alcohol.”

If the government is unable to do it, “we will work out our own mechanism,” he said.

Some 90 percent of the state’s nearly 2 million people are Christians, mostly Baptists.