WEBVTT

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[music]

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[music]

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[sil.]

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After suffering in silence
women in India\'s villages

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have begun to speak out. Learning to
read and write for the first time

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in their lives. They have begun to
question why there lives are so difficult?

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There family\'s so poor? And they are blaming
the government\'s policy on alcohol.

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[sil.]

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In rural India, where women go through a
daily struggle to feed their families,

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growing alcohol consumption by their
husbands, fathers, brothers and sons

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is having a devastating effect on the
local economy and people\'s health.

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The money their men spend on alcohol
is eating in to their meager earnings

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and even forcing them to send
their children out to work.

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25% of the hospital beds are occupied
by alcohol related diseases.

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If we spot this type of
drunkenness then lot of benefits

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may be possible, especially in the
spending one health. Actually the

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economics of prohibition
is clear cut profit.

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But they always keep saying that the government
has lost this much of revenue for people\'s sake.

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It is a propaganda against prohibition.

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[sil.]

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[sil.]

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The women\'s anti-liquor campaign

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started in 1991 in Andhra
Pradesh, another southern state.

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[sil.]

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Women from the remote village of
Dobbagunta, were into the first ten days

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of an adult literacy program, their
teacher read out a story about Sitamma.

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Who united the women in her village
to close down the local liquor shop.

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The story had an immediate effect.

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Inspired by Sitamma story,
60 year old Rojamma

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and her friends vowed to stop
liquor getting into there village.

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By 1992 their spontaneous struggle

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spread like wild fire across the state.

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By 1994, the grass roots movement
had setup political agenda,

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the demand for a total ban on
alcohol became an electoral issue.

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In January 1995, the Andhra
Pradesh government was forced

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to prohibit consumption of liquor.
Rather than being silenced, rural women

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had forced change. To date, the fate
of political parties rest largely

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in women\'s hands.