Srinagar, May 13 -- Near midnight at Srinagar's Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital, doctors moved quickly between a young crash victim with a fractured skull and two women waiting after a domestic assault complaint. Attendants standing near the emergency ward spoke in low voices and repeated the same word: sharab.

Hospital workers in Kashmir describe a visible rise in alcohol-linked emergencies during recent years. Surgeons speak of road accidents involving young men, psychiatrists report growing addiction cases, social workers describe families selling jewelry and land to absorb mounting debt, and economists point toward another number that now sits at the center of a widening debate in Kashmir: Rs.260 crore.

That figure represents the ...