“My father ruined our lives. He would start drinking early in the morning and by the evening he would be so drunk that he would beat the hell out of us…before his death, half of his body was paralysed…he would defecate anywhere in the house…my mother would have to clean,” said Heeramma, a resident of Nagarhal village of Karnataka’s Raichur district.
The 23-year-old, whose father died of liver damage in 2019, is among thousands of women across Karnataka who have been demanding a complete ban on alcohol in the states on the lines of Bihar, Gujarat, Mizoram and Nagaland. But “no one is listening to us”, said Heeramma. “I am afraid that my husband or children could be addicted to alcohol in future.”
