Chhindwara: In a unique initiative towards alcohol deaddiction, villagers in Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara honour drunkards in the village by performing 'aarti' as a mark of protest against the alcohol shops.
Alcoholics are getting a royal welcome at Rangari village of Chhindwara. The villagers have devised a new method of protest to close the liquor shops.
Villagers at Rangari village have been agitating through the unique protest for about 15 days to close the composite liquor shop in the village in Sausar tehsil. On Tuesday night, the villagers, who have been demanding the authorities to close the wine shops, performed bhajan kirtan in front of the liquor shop, so that the village liquor shop is opened somewhere else. But when the contractor and administration did not agree, the villagers adopted a unique method of protest by honoring the buyers with aarti by applying 'tilak' on their foreheads so that they feel embarrassed and do not come to the liquor shop to buy liquor.
Local Congress leader Bhagwat Mahajan, who is leading the protest said that Rangari is a “village with spiritual ideology”. He said that the villagers have been running a drug de-addiction campaign here for a long time. “Villagers are angry due to opening of liquor shop in the village. Several applications were made to open it at some other place but the administration did not listen. For this, the villagers are now adopting a unique protest. As soon as the villagers arrived in front of the liquor shop with the puja thali, they started applying tilak to any drunkard who was coming out of the shop after buying a bottle. The drunkards started feeling embarrassed by the welcome of the villagers and many drunkards were even seen running away from the shop,” he said.
There has been a continuous opposition to the opening of two liquor shops in Rangari and Saunsar in recent days. Sausar MLA Vijay Chaure also took to the streets in support of the villagers. Two days ago, the MLA demonstrated with the villagers at the SDM office demanding that the liquor shops be relocated. When the SDM did not come to collect the memorandum, the MLA also warned the SDM that the SDM “who cannot meet the elected representative of 2.5 lakh people should be removed from his post”. GL Marawi, ADO of Saunsar Excise Department, said, "The composite liquor shop in the village has been opened as per the norms set by the department. A watch is being kept to ensure that no incident happens during the villagers' protest”.
