Women thrash drunkards dry

Central Maharashtra village authorises women to publicly beat up tipplers

AURANGABAD: Women in several central Maharashtra villages have devised a stirring cure for alcoholism that leaves men shaken but chastened: when the boys hit the bottle, the ladies thrash them till they regain sense. The extreme form of encouragement to kick the habit is dispensed in public.

In one such village, Jambhroon Aandh in Sanegaon Tahsil, some 275 km from Aurangabad, women made a strong case at a recently held panchayat that alcoholism was destroying families. 

They said that 50% of village men had a drinking problem, and leveraged that disquieting statistic to seek permission for the thrash therapy. The panchayat agreed that the women’s contention was justifiable and authorised the drastic cure.

The anti-tipple brigade began its campaign by requesting the village’s 10 liquor merchants to stop sales. When the liquor trade ended in the village, its snifters began to import stuff from nearby Pusegaon.

Although the activists scrapped the free trade arrangement, women’s patience was hitting the rocks.     

One day, the wives of six addicts alerted anti-liquor activists and gathered the villagers, the woman sarpanch, and even the police Patil. The first field trial of the thrash therapy has made Jambhroon Aandh a liquor-free village.

The movement has had wider repercussions; it has given women dignity and a sense of power. “Women should not be subjected to men’s atrocities,” said Annapurnabai Zhumbade, who leads the movement.