Luckier still, only retail shops are closed while the numberless beach shacks remain open, surely because there are not enough cops, thereby proving that rulers are always a MINORITY.
As for tourists elsewhere in India - a German friend of mine landed in Calcutta one hot afternoon and asked the cab driver to take him directly to a decent bar. But it turned out to be their WEEKLY DRY DAY - so he took the same cab back to the airport and flew off to a "competing destination."
Below is the full text of my column of 2006 titled "Gandhian Violence":
Whereas Gandhi advocated non-violence, his followers have always utilised violence in order to promote their leader's ideas of a good society.
For example, in Gujarat, where Gandhi came from, violence is still used by the police to enforce the prohibition of alcohol.
Gandhi's hatred for alcohol has meant that, all over India, the excise officialdom has obtained political sanction to entangle the retail trade in alcoholic beverages in a labyrinth of red tape, all of which is enforced with violence.
Then there are the ideas of khadi and swadeshi. Gandhi's preference for homespun cloth meant that the government used violence and force in order to promote one kind of cloth at the expense of another.
India's blooming textile industry was made into a bonsai using state violence.
As far as swadeshi is concerned, the customs department enforces this idea of autarky.
If any citizen returns from abroad with goodies and gadgets, these armed personnel of the Gandhian government use force and violence in order to deprive the citizen of his rightfully acquired properties, or to charge him a hefty fine if he wants to take them home.
An enormous amount of violence continues to be perpetrated in order to promote Gandhian ideals.
This very Gandhian violence is best exemplified by the currency note, which has Gandhi's photo on it.
Even up to fairly recent times, eminent businessmen became victims of violence on the part of an enforcement directorate empowered to ensure that these notes of the Gandhian government could not be privately converted.
Gandhian violence is a very real phenomenon.
It exists because Gandhians have never understood the purpose for which a government is constituted.
To Gandhians, and this includes all Congressmen, government exists to do 'good things'.
This fatal flaw in their thinking occurs because their master didn't realise that any government is but a monopolist in the use of legitimate force, and that the crucial question political science must answer is to what ends this legitimate violence must be used if it is to remain legitimate.
Since Gandhi and the Gandhians never considered this question, they continue to use violence towards illegitimate ends.
Gandhianism lies at the root of bad government.
Having said that, let us reflect on the added fact that Gandhi was no "solitary thinker" or philosopher.
On the contrary.
Gandhi was "imported" into India in the 1920s by the CONgress leadership - Gokhale, in particular - in order to convert their "nationalist agitation," which was elitist and urban, into a "mass movement." This was his "brief" - and everything he did or said thereafter had the full backing of the CONgress ORGANISATION.
This is how this London-educated lawyer from South Africa cast off his suit-and-tie and suddenly emerged in rural India with this new personality - "the naked fakir of India."
The CONgress organisation was behind it all.
You can find strange photos of CONgress "marches" during the 1920s through city streets bearing aloft giant charkhas - the hand-spinner.
And yet, by the 1920s both Ahmedabad as well as Bombay were buzzing with modern textile mills - and the Indo-British trade statistics of that decade reveal India had become the world's biggest importer of British TEXTILE MACHINERY.
This is what globalisation achieves automatically - because of which factories move to where production is most efficient. We grew cotton, labour was cheap - and textiles mills moved here from Manchester, which imported cotton from America, and where labour costs had risen considerably because of socialist trade unions.
MANCHESTERISM - that is what the doctrines of Richard Cobden were known as, calling for open borders, free trade, and PEACE! It was a city of textile mills.
We killed all our Manchesters for the LUDDISM of the silly charkha!
And Gandhi did "mediate" in an Ahmedabad textile LABOUR STRIKE!
CONgress "organised labour."
Curiouser and curiouser.
So we can now SEE HISTORY - from the "gandhian viewpoint," in particular how the "organisation" that was SEEKING POWER went into "mass action" that ultimately led to the Partition, itself based on "religious majoritarianism" - and not INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES - the consequent deaths of millions, and even to the takeover of 650+ "princely states." some by using VIOLENCE, as in Hyderabad. Goa was later "conquered." Indira, of course, took over Sikkim.
It was Gandhi who SELECTED Jawaharlal Nehru to "lead" the CONgress and as the first prime minister.
This "socialist" then converted the entire nation into a host of "subordinate bureaucratic organisations" with all ranks-and-files bound to "obey" the Führer. First him, then his daughter, grandchild, and so on and so forth.
FÜHRERS, all.
So what was the Gandhian "non-violent freedom struggle" all about, really?
A VAIN DELUSION - that's what I would call it.
There is a gripping scene of this "collective madness" in Attenborough's film Gandhi, in which CONgress "cadres" one-by-one peacefully and non-violently confront a police barricade - and actually "offer" their heads to be cracked open by their lathi-blows!
Of course, today, none "support" the CONgress - or any other Indian "political party" for that matter - out of "conviction" for any "cause."
It's just a NAKED SPOILS SYSTEM - these eternal COALITIONS in Delhi, for some 20 years now.
Liberty is Individual Freedom - to pursue happiness as you think fit.
Liberty is Individual ECONOMIC Freedom - to be the architect of your own fortune.
Liberty is the Inviolability of Private Property.
Liberty is thus nothing if not The Free Market.
Yeah, we lost all our Manchesters because of the silly LUDDITE charkha.
Gandhi hated cities, anyway. His political vision was one of "self-sufficient village republics." Read my "A Bullet to the Head of the Gandhian Vision" in this context.
There has never been a village republic - in History. The republics of Ancient Greece were "City States."
Anything archaeologists dig up and dub to be evidence of "civilisation" is always whatever remains of a CITY - like Mohenjo-Daro, or Pompei.
So I wish you all a "Happy Dry Day" on this annual celebration - and make sure you do not miss how they will use VIOLENCE against you if you refuse to celebrate their way.
I never ever do - for sober-as-a-judge is most definitely NOT MY WAY.
MY HERO is Ludwig "King" Mises - and I did celebrate his 121st birth anniversary just a few days ago, in GRAND STYLE, that too.
So, to my hero, I dedicate these lines from an old song, slightly modified.
And so you see that I have come to dump,
All that I once held as true.
I stand alone without belief.
The only truth I know is you.
