Women selling Hadiya in Ranchi. Picture by Prashant Mitra.

Jamshedpur, March 31: This election, politicians gulping down glasses of hadiya at public meetings and roadshows won’t raise too many eyebrows. That is, if they have pledged their support to a campaign to promote the rice beer as a health drink and a lifestyle choice.

A non-governmental organisation Johar has decided to use the coming Lok Sabha election to promote the drink, an inseparable part of tribal rituals and ceremonies, across the state.

Twenty-three years before, former Union health minister CP Thakur had submitted his thesis on the medicinal value of hadiya. And it is that work that has inspired Johar to take up cudgels for this traditional tribal drink.

The NGO, which has its office in Chaibasa, has plans of roping in tribal leaders, cutting across party lines, for the campaign. The leaders to hit the dusty poll trail will be asked to advocate hadiya as a health drink in the numerous public meetings they will address. Star campaigners from leading political parties will down swigs of the beer to persuade their audience.

Secretary of Johar Bir Singh Sinku while speaking to The Telegraph said the idea of turning hadiya into a popular drink across Jharkhand came from East Singhbhum civil surgeon Shiv Shanker Birua, who had assisted Thakur in his thesis on the beer.

“The research paper on hadiya prepared by Thakur got me thinking on ways to promote this drink that has till now remained confined to the tribal community,” observed Sinku.

Hadiya, besides being an extremely popular drink among tribals living in West Bengal, Orissa, Chhatisgarh and Bihar, is also a part of Jharkhand’s heritage, Sinku said. “As this is the first Lok Sabha election to be held in the state, it offers us a golden opportunity to popularise this traditional drink. ,” he claimed.

The advocates of this drink swear by its immense medicinal value. Birua, who assisted Thakur in his research on rice-beer when the latter was a professor at the Patna Medical College in 1981, said “Hadiya has 35 types of enzymes which are good for liver as well as the intestine. No other drink contains so many enzymes.” Slow fermentation of the rice yields the beer.

Birua explains, “The yeast helps in breaking the carbohydrate into alcohol .” Birua, however, adds a rider. “Like any drink, hadiya needs to be consumed in moderation. Excessive intake may prove harmful,” he said.