Background

Amidst the voting season in India, political parties in India are fighting for the popularity of the public. To accomplish their goal, the factions are  throwing actual parties to gain support in various villages of India.

Problem

Adi Narayan, from the Bloomberg News, tells a story about Rajju Lal, the wife of a husband, who died from the overdose of alcohol from all the political parties he attended. Similar to Lal, many wives are getting widowed because their husbands are dying from too much alcohol.

Although this is not a form of corruption directly within the state, the lobbying done by these factions has been taken to an extreme. Without their husbands, the widows can scarcely bring in the necessary salary to send their children to school, make food, and maintain their households. As Lal mentions, “With my salary I’m barely able to provide food for my children… or a woman to lose her husband is the worst thing possible. And it’s not just about the income — everyone in society looks at you in a very bad way after that.”

In response to the intense bribery, Anita Sharma founded the Belan Brigade, an organization that emboldens women to stop their husbands from accepting alcohol from congressmen. At a city in Punjab, Sharma voiced to a group of woman,  “Don’t let your husbands vote for someone because they gave out liquor or drugs.” Punjab is just one instance of the problem happening in India. Ultimately, political parties handing out alcohol to villagers is immoral and should be stopped.

Solution

The straightforward solution would be to ban the giving of alcohol by these parties; however, everyone knows that this is never going to happen. Another, more pragmatic, solution would be to encourage movements like Anita Sharma’s that encourage women to stand up to their husbands and tell their husbands to stop.