Beyond the Buzz

This panel discussion examines India's relationship with alcohol, from its colonial history to the current state of the industry, and how deeply its marketing is rooted in that history. Panelists will trace how colonial rule promoted distillery-based alcohol production to extract revenue for the empire, and how those same patterns continue to shape how alcohol is sold and consumed today.

What does a drink marketed as celebration, sophistication, even heart health, carry behind the glamour?

Though direct advertising is banned in India, the liquor industry remains worth an estimated sixty-five billion dollars, sustained instead through aspiration, imagery, and social pressure.

Recent research suggests that between twenty-five and forty percent of Indian drinkers qualify as hazardous or dependent drinkers, a gap the panel will contextualise through the lived and professional experience of its speakers, who bring perspectives as mental health practitioners and individuals with firsthand experience of addiction.

Changing the image of alcohol as an essential ingredient of celebration, the panel argues, may be one of the most consequential shifts available to public health today.

In collaboration with:

Venue: Gallery