Hyderabad, Dec. 18: Andhra Pradesh police have been raiding Christians’ homes and seizing pots and vessels ahead of Christmas following a recent state government ban on winemaking at home.
The move has angered Hyderabad’s Anglo-Indians, who have been brewing red wine at their homes for generations during the festive season. They fear the ban will take the fizz out of their Christmas celebrations this year, because it’s far cheaper to make wine at home than buy it from the shops.
The official reason for the crackdown is that the alcohol content in homemade wine tends to be higher than the permitted level, but the Anglo-Indians accuse the government of acting under pressure from liquor companies.
They say it costs about Rs 150-170 to make a litre of wine at home, but wine of the same quality is priced at Rs 500 per 750ml bottle in the shops.
“Wine is a must in our families during the Christmas season; it’s as important as the avakai mango pickle is to south Indian families,” said Christian Lazarus, the nominated MLA from the Anglo-Indian community.
“For the 4,000 Anglo-Indians in the state, wine has a biblical value too,” she said, accusing the government of taking an “un-Christian decision”.
She recalled: “Why, in 2008, wine was made even at the home of (then chief minister) YSR and given to all friends and families.”
That was before the first crackdown in 2009, by the government of YSR’s successor, K. Rosaiah. At that time, though, the ban was not on brewing wine at home but only on selling homemade wine, which is illegal but is widely practised.
The current police raids have focused mainly on the South Lallaguda colony of Secunderabad, where the policemen have destroyed 3,000 pots and confiscated about 5,000 other winemaking vessels in the past one week.
The area, known as “Little England”, was once home to around 100 Anglo-Indian and 10 Parsi families. Migrations, especially to England and Australia, have left the neighbourhood with hardly 40 Anglo-Indian families now, but it still comes alive with lights and stars in the Yuletide season.
The community is particularly upset because this Christmas, Anglo-Indians from many parts of the world are to converge in South Lallaguda to celebrate 75 years of their settlement in the colony. The families had come here with British troops in 1937 when the Nizam for the first time allowed the Raj to open a cantonment in his kingdom.
Waren La Touche, president of the local Anglo-Indian Association, denied that homemade wine contained too much alcohol.
“It is fruity in flavour and hardly has alcoholic content,” he claimed. “Wine and cake are an integral part of Christmas celebrations. We don’t make wine daily nor do we make it for commercial use. Winemaking is reserved for special occasions like Christmas, weddings or the New Year.”
Many Anglo-Indians, though, confirmed that much of the homemade wine was indeed sold in violation of the laws.
A South Lallaguda resident said the price of a bottle of homemade wine had risen from Rs 100 a bottle a few years ago to Rs 300 a bottle. “Because of the greediness of a few, the whole community is suffering,” he said.
The wine may flow less generously in South Lallaguda this Christmas but the traditional delicacies such as meat ball curry, coconut rice, pork vindaloo, guava cheese and plum cakes will not be in short supply.
The festivities, which start on December 23, will conclude with a ball on Boxing Day, when at least 500 pairs are expected to hit the floor and sway to music played by orchestras from three churches.
