In Balaghat, Madhya Pradesh, a protest is unfolding that looks nothing like the usual scenes of anger against liquor shops elsewhere in the country. There has been no vandalism here, no political muscle-flexing over the phone with officials. Instead, the women of the Boodhi locality have spent the last 73 days quietly sitting outside a liquor shop to register their protest. The striking part is their method: anyone who arrives to buy liquor is greeted with a rose and a garland, and the embarrassment has driven many regular customers to simply stop coming.
When the agitation began, leaders did turn up, delivered fiery speeches and assured residents that the shop would soon be shut. But as the weeks passed, the same public representatives forgot both the women and their struggle. Despite being left on their own, the women have refused to back down and continue to demand that the shop be moved.
A 45-year-old shop and a neighbourhood that changed around it
The liquor shop has been operating in the Boodhi area for nearly 45 years. According to locals, it caused little trouble in the early years. Over time, however, houses came up around it and the population grew. Homes sprang up on all sides of the shop, and the crowd of customers swelled too. Before 2022, the shop also ran an ahata, an arrangement that allowed people to drink on the spot, and that made things far worse. Drunk men would stumble out, shout, create a ruckus and hurl abuses. Urinating in the open and getting into brawls had become routine.
Liquor served in defiance of the rules
It is alleged that this Boodhi shop made people sit and drink in violation of the rules. In 2022, the then chief minister had banned ahatas, yet the shop continued to sell water pouches, water bottles and namkeen alongside liquor. Locals say buyers were seated right there and served drinks. As a result, intoxicated people would create chaos across the locality, behave indecently and use foul language. An administration that prides itself on good governance failed to take any firm action against those drinking and serving liquor in the open.
Women left trapped inside their own homes
This open drinking ruined the atmosphere of the neighbourhood. Surrounded by crowds of drunkards, women were effectively confined to their own homes. Day or night, they could not step out onto the street. Whether it was schoolchildren or any decent person, no one could walk past the shop with ease. Shut indoors, the women felt suffocated, while students in schools and colleges and people running jobs and businesses all faced the same hardship.
The struggle that began on 13 April 2026
Fed up at last, the women suddenly launched their agitation on 13 April 2026. They resolved that the sit-in would continue until the shop was removed. Initially, the liquor contractor's men tried to break the protest through wrongful means, but they had to bow before the women's determination. At first the women would confront the drinkers and chase them away, and then they changed tactics altogether. Now anyone arriving to buy liquor is welcomed with a rose and a garland. To escape this embarrassment, many stopped showing up at all. At one point the women even carried out a symbolic funeral procession for the liquor shop. The entire movement now runs on public support.
The shop stays, but the women have won their peace
The women say it has been 73 days, yet success still eludes them. The public representatives who came at first have now turned their backs. Even so, they say, the shop may not have moved, but the struggle has brought positivity into their lives. For the first time, they say, they have been able to sit calmly outside their own homes. They are clear that if the protest has survived the peak summer heat, it will continue through the rains too, and the sit-in will go on until the shop is gone. For them this is not just calm, it is freedom from rowdiness. Meanwhile, the municipal council president says the matter has also been placed before the minister-in-charge, Rao Uday Pratap Singh, and a positive outcome is expected soon.
