’I don’t want to, but…..’

'Swamiji.....You must save me... I don't want to drink, but I can't help it.... The young man fell at my feet. He was fully drunk. It was at Thodupuzha, the business centre of Idukki district. I was on my recent 'Dharma Rajya Sandesa Yatra' across Kerala to mobilise public support for our Campaign for 'Liquor-free family and Panchayati Raj democracy'. I felt pity on the young man. He was around 30 years of age. From his drunken responses, I could gather that he was married and has two small children. He is a driver and gets hired on a daily wage basis. He makes an average Rs 600/- per day. But he spends more than Rs. 300/ on liquor and Rs. 100/- on lottery tickets. The rest is spent on gambling among the divers during off duty hours. His wife works as a sweeper in a private hospital and supports the family! This is the case with many families all over Kerala today. The husbands spend their wages on liquor, lottery and gambling. They also beat up their wives and abuse their children. Recently a 13-year old girl delivered a baby at Calicut. It was her own drunken father who did it. Mothers in Kerala are afraid to leave their daughters alone at home, even with their own fathers. Kerala is facing a grave moral crisis. The major cause for this crisis is the free flow of liquor and the Govt. policies that encourages people to drink as much as they can. The Kerala Govt. runs on the revenue from liquor. It is worse than a 'banana republic'. The Kerala state Govt. has the distinction of being the only Govt. in the whole world holding monopoly in distribution and sale of alcoholic drinks. Productivity in Kerala is the least in India. The major source of revenue for the state is sale of liquor and lottery tickets. It is sad and shameful for the most literate society in India to fall into such a state of moral decay. The predicaments of the young man and Kerala state also reflect of the predicament faced by many of us in our own lives. We do not want to do the evil we often do. We want to be good and do good, but often we fail miserably in our efforts. There seems to be a force that holds us back from doing good and being good. St. Paul had faced a similar predicament in his life about which he deals with in one of his epistles. How do we rate ourselves from this bondage to evil? This has been a moral dilemma facing humanity from the beginning of history. 'Divine grace' has been the answer given by saints and sages from all religious traditions. A return to 'divine grace' is the crying need of the present world, especially of Kerala today.