Kanhaiya Kumar raises the bar by linking alcoholic drinks to democracy

This is the fundamental problem with fundamental rights. Things that don’t fall under their wonderful protection can be trashed to make a garbled point.

So, when Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar stated quite rightly that Bihar’s prohibition, in force since April, raised questions about “democratic ethos and freedom of expression and choice”, chief minister Nitish Kumar pulled out the scriptures of the Constitution stating that the other Kumar was wrong to think that the intake of alcohol is a fundamental right.

Nitish-ji, Kanhaiya never said it was. Branded as he is from certain quarters as the poster boy of a ‘den of vice’ that is Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, Kanhaiya would have been a natural ally for Bihar’s liberal chief minister. Alas, sharing an ideological glass doesn’t always mean getting the same high.

The pleasures of drinking alcohol is separate from the ills of alcohol abuse. But Nitish, like many other members from the political glass, have a penchant for playing genie out of the bottle to grant pre-poll wishes.

Even if these manufactured wishes don’t trample on fundamental rights, they do clamp down on individual choice and freedom. Kanhaiya Kumar understands this. Cheers to him. Nitish Kumar doesn’t. Pass him the jug.