The Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project (CPA Project) released a report earlier this week on alcohol policing in Madhya Pradesh. It discusses the Madhya Pradesh Excise Act, 1915, and the 2021 amendment to it which punishes the repeat offence of causing death with the death penalty.

The MP Excise Act is colonial-era legislation that regulates the import, export, sale, manufacture and transport of all liquor in the state. The CPA Project study analyses the implications of alcohol policing on the Vimukta communities of MP, who brew mahua as a part of their cultural traditions. While popular discourse espouses the need for stronger alcohol regulation laws and policing to crack down on liquor mafias, in reality, it is Vimukta, SC, ST, and OBC communities that are arrested in the name of alcohol policing on false and exaggerated charges. As a result of the 2021 death penalty amendment, members of these oppressed communities will become even more vulnerable to police abuse.

This video explains the history of the law and how it is not used to crack down on mafias, or big bars and hotels but rather serve to incarcerate oppressed caste groups and religious minorities.

The video is produced and written by the Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project with support from Thakur Foundation Fellows and narrated by Sitamsini Cherukumalli. It was edited by Dishant Batule and Yashraj Wadalkar.

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