The entire region is slowly sinking into a slough of alcoholism. Districts that have been traditionally dry are being invaded by liquor stores as an underemployed male populace takes to drink. Even in the high Himalaya, where alcoholic beverages are customarily brewed or distilled, people are switching from local liquor and beer to rum, whisky, gin and "medicinal alcohol". The Utturakhand region of Uttar Pradesh is one area where the hill people have been fighting alcoholism effectively. This report is by Shekhar Pathak , who teaches history at Kumaon University and edits the magazine Pahar.
The anti-alcoholism movement in Uttarakhand differs from earlier attempts to impose prohibition here or elsewhere in the Himalaya. Activists in Pithoragarh, Nainital, Chamoli or Pauri, who have watched alcoholism sap the vitality of hill society, do not have faith
in simplistic solutions. They view the problem of alcoholism as a symptom of the deeper malaise of predatory "development", and are confronting it as such.
The major demand of the anti-alcoholism movement has been "nashe nahin rozgar do", or employment instead of liquor. Ranged against the movement are the economic and political interests that buttress the liquor trade.