If you can’t decide on what to gift your married friend, Madhya Pradesh panchayat and rural development minister Gopal Bhargava has a solution for you. Recently, he gifted wooden bats/mogri to nearly 700 brides at a mass marriage ceremony.
Though this wooden plank/mogri is made to wash clothes, but Bhargava advised women to use it wisely if their husbands come home drunk.
“The idea of gifting mogri struck me when a woman asked me whether she should get her husband to stop drinking by beating him with this wooden plank,” the minister said.
“If your husband or any other member of the family comes home drunk, treat him with it,” he said, addressing brides-to-be at a mass-marriage ceremony he hosted Garhakota on Saturday.
The gifted mogri comes with the caption ‘sharabiyon ke sutara hetu bhent, police nahi bolegi‘ (gift for beating drunkards, police will not intervene).
“Whenever I visit any rural or urban area in my constituency, women complain about their husbands’ drinking habit. They inform me that whatever little they earn is snatched away by their husbands for alcohol. They (women) are also subjected to physical violence,” Bhargava said.
The mass wedding ceremony took place on the auspicious occasion of Akshaya Tritiya on Saturday in his hometown Garhakota in Sagar district.
Besides the bat, Bhargava also gifted the couples, some basic household items to set up their homes.
He also urged the women to check brewing of illegitimate alcohol in their areas and asked them to use bats if they failed to get help from officials. In fact, Grooms also swore off liquor and other intoxications.
“I am happy that the minister thinks of empowering women against ill effects of liquor. In many villages, husbands beat up their wives when drunk and ruin their family life,” Hari Bai, one of the brides, said.
Sale of illegal liquor in every state is a major issue. Unless people come forward to deal with it, things won’t improve, Bhargava said.
