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The Temperance Movement in India: Politics and Social Reform

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Lucy Carroll
Lucy Carroll
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Extract

The temperance/prohibition agitation represents a fascinating chapter in the social and political history of India which has been largely ignored. If any notice is taken of this movement, it is generally dismissed (or elevated) as an example of the uniquely Indian process of ‘sanskritization’ or as an equally unique component of ‘Gandhianism’—in spite of the fact that the liquor question has not been without political importance in the history either of England or of the United States. And in spite of the fact that the temperance agitation in India in the late nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century was intimately connected with temperance agitation in England. Indeed the temperance movement in India was organized, patronized, and instructed by English temperance agitators.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , July 1976 , pp. 417 - 447
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

This essay is based largely on research conducted in India, 1971–72, under a grant from the American Institute of Indian Studies, whose support is gratefully acknowledged.

1 ‘Prohibition, a Sanskritic value [,] has been written into the Constitution of the Republic of India, and the Congress Governments in all the States have introduced it wholly or partly in their respective areas.’ (Srinivas, M. N., Caste in Modern India (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1970), p. 49.)Google Scholar A similar ‘sanskritic value’ was, of course, written into the Constitution of the United States in 1919. In the same essay Srinivas states: ‘Though the scholarly tradition of the Brahmins placed them in a favourable position for obtaining the new knowledge, in certain other matters they were the most handicapped in the race for Westernization. This was especially so in the South where the large majority of them were vegetarians and abstained from alcoholic liquor.’ (Ibid., p. 51.) This amusing dichotomy highlights the continuing definitional problems associated with the use of the terms ‘sanskritization’ and ‘westernization’: here liquor and meat appear the criteria of ‘westernization’ while teetotalism and vegetarianism appear the criteria of ‘sanskritization.’

2 ‘Temperance’ was the term in current use; however, the meaning attached to it was more in the nature of ‘abstinence’ than of ‘moderation.’

3 ‘[T]he very men who are seeking to arouse public opinion against the inroads of intemperance in India are the men who are in the forefront of the battle in Great Britain. The Committee of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association includes nearly all the members of Parliament and others who are striving to get a sober England as well as a sober India…. [T]he very fact that England has been nearly ruined by drunkenness is sufficient explanation of our anxiety to save India from a similar fate.’ (Frederick Grubb, in Lahore Tribune, 08 23, 1900.)

4 Indian People, March 27, 1903.

5 ‘For over twenty years he has been the president of the Liverpool Temperance Union, he is president of the Baptist Temperance Union, and he is a vice-president of the United Kingdom Alliance, the British Temperance League, and the National Temperance League. Of the Hand-in-Hand Club, which promoted the cocoa-room movement, now in operation so extensively throughout the country, he was the promoter and, for some time, the secretary. At his mines in Cumberland he has built a tempernce hall, and, in connection with it, maintains a missionary for the benefit of his employees.’ (Abkari, July 1890, p. 28.)

6 Caine, W. S., ‘The Temperance Problem in India,’ in Chintamani, C. Y., Indian Social Reform (Madras, 1901), p. 89.Google Scholar

7 Ibid.

8 Lahore Tribune, December 15, 1888.

9 Abkari, July 1890, pp. 29–30.

10 India as Seen by W. S. Caine (Lucknow, 1889), p. 44.Google Scholar ‘[T]here is not a town of 50,000 inhabitants in India where I can not obtain … an audience to hear a Temperance or political address in English, certain that every point and argument will be as keenly taken up as it would be in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester.’ (Abkari, April 1897, p. 38.)

11 Abkari, July 1890, p. 30.

12 Ibid., April 1891, p. 104. Although Evans toured North India on behalf of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association almost annually during the 1890s, Caine did not return to India until his tour of 1896–97.

13 Abkari, January 1899, p. 27. Bipin Chandra Pal was at this time an honorary lecturer of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association; when he returned to India in 1900, after studies in England, he was made a paid lecturer of the Association.

14 India As Seen by W. S. Caine, p. 62; Englishman, January 14, 1889.

15 India As Seen by W. S. Caine, p. 52.

16 The resolution was moved by Wacha, D. E. (Bombay), who congratulated the Congress ‘on this new departure in its programme’ and lauded the work of Samuel SmithGoogle Scholar, Rev. T. Evans, and W. S. Caine Caine, who was present, was honored with ‘continued cheers’ when his name was mentioned. (Report of the Fourth Indian National Congress held at Allahabad, 1888, pp. 60–3.)

17 Abkari, April 1891, p. 120.

18 Ibid., July 1890, pp. 31–2.

19 Englishman, January 15, 1889. The Lahore Tribune said of Caine in 1896: ‘He is very cordially disliked in official and non-officaial circles, which is a great compliment to his power and perseverity.’ (July 22, 1896.)

20 Abkari, July 1890, p. 30.

21 Ibid., July 1890, p. 32. The resolution was moved by Rev. G. M. Cobban, Madars; seconded by Dinsha EduljeeWacha, Bombay; and supported by Rev. R. A.Hume, Deccan, and Rev. T. Evans–i.e., three of the four people who spoke to the resolution were missionaries.

22 Abkari, October 1893, pp. 149–50. The Pioneer said of this suggestion: ‘Here is an Englishman who does not stop to consider what hurt the Empire might suffer, or what loss his countrymen might sustain, were natives substituted for Europeans to the extent he suggests in the civil and military services. He merely wants the Congress vote for a particular purpose, and he offers as a bribe unlimited loot in the shape of a wholesale distribution of Government offices and emoluments.’ (November 8, 1893.)

A few months later Caine called ‘for a return showing all the causes within the last ten years in which Europeans have been charged with killing natives and the result.’Lahore Tribune, February 28, 1894.)

23 Abkari, October 1896, p. 99.

24 Ibid., April 1897, pp. 48, 50.

25 Kayastha Samachar, IV, July 1901, pp. 38–9.

26 Grubb, Frederick, Fifty Years' Work for India: My Temperance Jubilee (London: H. J. Rowley and Sons, Ltd, 1942), p. 16.Google Scholar

27 Englishman, January 14, 15, 1889.

28 Hooper, David (ed.) A Welshman in India. A Record of the Life of Thomas Evans, Missionary (London: James Clark and Co., 1908), p. 184.Google Scholar

29 Abkari, April 1893, p. 87.

30 Ibid., April 1897, p. 46.

31 E.g., ibid., April 1891, pp. 101–4, 119–20; July 1891, p. 158; April 1895, p. 54; April 1897, pp. 45–6; July 1899, p. 88.

32 Ibid., July 1891, p. 132.

33 Ibid., July 1894, p. 113.

34 Abkari, April 1891, pp. 119–20.

35 Ibid., July 1900, p. 83.

36 Ibid., July 1891, p. 132.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid., July 1893, p. 109.

39 Ibid., July 1891, p. 132.

40 Ibid., April 1891, p. 112.

41 Ibid., July 1893, p. 109.

42 In his memoirs Grubb paid ‘a warm tribute to the Indian Press … for the unwavering support which they have always given to the temperance movement generally,’ particularly mentioning the Hindu and the Tribune (Fifty Years' Work for India, p. 18).

43 Abkari, July 1890, pp. 32, 33.

44 Ibid., July 1891, p. 131.

45 Ibid., July 1893, p. 109.

46 Ibid., July 1894, p. 86. Among the names mentioned in this report as examples of such young men are Oudh Behari Lal and Madan Mohan Malaviya.

47 Abkari, April 1897, p. 42. Student activists, however, did not always maintain their temperance activities after leaving school. Rev. Ewing, president of the Punjab Total Abstinence Association, Lahore, in his speech on the occasion of the eighth anniversary of the Association, ‘having expressed his delight at the large audience present, alluded to a curious fact that it was the students generally that largely attended these meetings, but that in their after life they generally lost all interest in such movements, and he asked, where are the Tahsildars, the Munsiffs, and the Head Clerks, &c.?’ (Ibid., July 1892, p. 131.) At least as far as the Tahsildars, the Munsiffs, and the Head Clerks were concerned, part of the reason for their defection must have been that as employees of government they were hesitant to participate in a movement the government regarded as suspiciously political. (See below, pp. 430–3.)

48 Abkari, April 1892, p. 89. Report of the Seventh National Social Conference, 1893(Poona,1894), p. 139.Google Scholar

49 Abkari, Oct. 1898, p. 135.

50 Ibid., October 1894, p. 149.

51 Ibid., July 1894, p. 84.

52 Ibid., April 1891, p. 112.

53 ‘Numbers of young men, reading in schools and colleges, have shaken off their nervousness and come forward not only to preach in the Bazaar, but also to sing Temperance songs for the purpose of inspiring the people to stem the tide of drunkenness. These young men are all respectable, and although in the beginning it appeared a strange sight for them to preach, they have now become familiar to it. At times, a rush of preachers makes it impossible to decide who is to have the honour of addressing the people.’ (Oudh Behari Lal's report of the Allahabad branch society, ibid., July 1892, p. 111.)

54 Abkari, July 1891, p. 157. The paper was presented by R. C.Chaudhuri, M.A.

55 ‘You will be glad to learn that I have been elected General Secretary of the Kayastha Clubs Association existing all over India,’ Narayan Prasad Asthana wrote to Caine, ‘and that I am proposing to issue a Quarterly English magazine conducted on the lines of the ABKARI; a copy of the prospectus is enclosed herewith. I shall always be very glad to devote most of its columns to education and Temperance, thus supplying the want which was already felt by the generality of students and others, who could not read ABKARI.’ (Ibid., October 1895, p. 81.)

56 Oudh Behari Lal largely was the Allahabad branch society. When Kesho Ram Roy (the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association lecturer in Benares) was sent north to stir up the Allahabad branch in 1891, he reported: ‘[P]roperly speaking, there was no Society, and consequently little or no work here. There are some eight members on the roll, a few of whom now and then subscribe a little money for holding one or two meetings when any outside Temperance Reformer visits the station, that is all. He [Oudh Behari Lal] really values the work very much and wishes to place it on a firm footing. But he can not do anything alone; he has lots of school business to attend to besides his own private work.’ (Ibid., January 1892, p. 33.) Oudh Behari Lal was at this time on the staff of the Kayastha Pathshala and studying for his M.A. examination.

57 Pioneer, August 10, 1892. Lahore Tribune, June 14, 25, 28, 1890.

58 Lahore, Tribune, June 14, 1890.

59 Ibid., June 7, 1890.

60 Pioneer, August 10, 1892.

61 Lahore Tribune, July 6, 1892.

62 Pioneer, August 9, 1892.

63 Lahore Tribune, July 6, 1892.

64 Ibid., July 9, 1892.

65 Ibid.

66 Pioneer, August 10, 1892.

67 Lahore Tribune, August 27, 1892. Abkari, October 1892, p. 159; January 1893, p. 3.

68 Quoted in Lahore Tribune, August 17, 1892.

69 Lahore Tribune, June 7, 1893. Abkari, October 1895, p. 80.

70 Abkari, April 1898, p. 52.

71 Abkari, April 1891, p. 120.

72 Ibid., July 1891, pp. 133–4.

73 Ibid., April 1891, pp. 133–4.

74 Ibid., July 1891, p. 133.

75 Ibid., July 1898, p. 57.

76 Ibid., July 1890, p. 52.

77 Ibid., July 1891, p. 133.

78 Ibid.

79 Translation reproduced in ibid., p. 134.

80 Ibid., July 1891, p. 157.

81 Ibid., July 1892, p. 124.

82 Ibid., July 1891, pp. 134.

83 Ibid., October 1894, pp. 132–3.

84 Ibid., October 1896, pp. 107, 108.

85 Ibid., October 1894, p. 131.

86 E.g.,

Don't tamper with the winecup, for with mischief it is full.

Though a man should drink but little, he is sure to play the fool!

Drink will roll him in the gutter, then with every limb unclean,

And dumb with shame, a laughing stock, his folly he would screen.

But should he drink still deeper, home he'll never find the way,

He lies senseless in the roadway, with not a word to say;

Home he has, and wife and children, but in sleep they are forgot,

His only friend, a policeman; do you envy him his lot?

Oh, what did you find in the drink?

What were you thinking about?

Good milk and butter, curds and sweets,

Like fools, you have despised;

Unlawful things, and things allowed,

You ate, and nothing prized.

But what did you find in the drink?

What were you thinking about?

Your solemn vows you cast aside,

Your sacred thread you broke,

Your name you made a laughing stock

to decent, sober folk.

(Translated by Rev. Arthur Parker, ibid., 10 1891, pp. 179–80.)

87 ‘The character of these tracts is such as to secure the attention of the simplest mind. The most popular of them are collections of Temperance songs which the Mahant himself has composed, and which are extremely popular among the unlettered poor.’ (Abkari, July 1893, p. 124.)

88 Ibid., October 1891, pp. 179–80; October 1894, p. 131.

89 Speech in Surat as reported in a ‘Western Indian Journal’ and quoted in ibid., October 1896, p. 107.

90 Mahant Kesho Ram Roy, ibid., April 1892, p. 83.

91 The annual report of the London Association in 1891 announced an intention ‘to send this able and distinguished Temperance reformer [Kesho Ram Roy] on a visit to every one of the Societies now in affiliation, and it is hoped that he may be successful in every instance in inducing them to adopt among their local castes the methods which have been so wonderfully successful in Benares.’ (Ibid., July 1891, p. 132.)

92 Ibid., July 1891, p. 157.

93 See Lucy, Carroll, ‘Origins of the Kayastha Temperance Movement,’ Indian Economic and Social History Review, XI (1974), pp. 432–47.Google Scholar

94 Kesho Ram Roy in ibid., October 1894, p. 133.

95 Quoted in ibid., April 1895, p. 64.

96 Ibid., January 1895, p. 3.

97 Ibid., October 1895, pp. 85–6.

98 Lucy Carroll, ‘Origins of the Kayastha Temperance Movement.’

99 ‘Mobility in the Caste System,’ in Singer, M. and Cohn, B. (eds), Structure and Change in Indian Society (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1968), p. 196.Google Scholar

100 Abkari, April 1893, p. 68.

101 Speech at the 1889 Congress, quoted in ibid., April 1890, p. 17.

102 Abkari, July 1894, pp. 84–5.

103 Ibid., July 1892, p. 131.

104 Ibid., July 1891, pp. 156–7.

105 Ibid., p. 157.

106 E.g., ‘The population of this place [Dehra Dun] is very largely composed of dhobis (washerman), chamars (sweepers), and other people ranked in the lowest scale of society. … These people have gone so far that the father of a bride is liable to be excommunicated by his caste people if he does not offer them liquor on the occasion of marriage.’ (Ibid., October 1899, p. 154.)

107 Ibid., July 1893, p. 115.

108 Report by Ishan Charan Dev, Secretary, Dehra Dun Temperance Society, in Abkari, october 1904, pp. 158–61.

109 Ibid., October 1892, p. 174.

110 Das, Ram Saran and Ram, Sita (trs), The Kayastha Ethnology of Munshi Kali Prasad (Allahabad: The Kayastha Pathshala, 1915), p. 109;Google ScholarJohn, C. Nesfield, A Brief Review of the Caste System of the North-Westerm Provinces and Oudh (Allahabad, 1885), p. 46.Google Scholar

111 E.g.: ‘The Sirin Sabha of the Punjab represents a strong community of the Khatris and notwithstanding the strong resistance of some of the conservative members, the nautch was condemned by the Sirin Conference.’ (Report of the Fourteenth National Social Conference, 1900, Appendix A, p. 74. Italics added.)

112 It is quite impossible to relate the factionalism within the Kayastha movement to a struggle between a ‘sanskritic’ faction and a ‘westernizing’ faction, or to view the Kayastha movement as ‘developing’ from a stage characterized by an emphasis on ‘sanskritic’ values ot one characterized by emphasis of ‘Western’ values—as recent interpretations of the Kayastha movement have attempted to argue. (William, L. Rowe, ‘Movility in the Nineteenth Century Caste System,’ in Singer, M. and Cohn, B. (eds), Structure and Change in Indian Society (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1968), pp. 201–7;Google ScholarCletus, J. Bishop, ‘Sachchidananda Sinha and the Making of Modern Bihar.’ Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of History, University of Virginia, 08 1972.Google Scholar AnnArbor, Michigan: University Microfilms, January 1973, number 72–33, 223. See also Lucy, Carroll, ‘Caste, Social Change, and the Social Scientist: A Note on the A-Historical Approach to Indian Social History,’ Journal of Asian Studies, XXXV (1975), pp. 63–84.)Google Scholar

113 Srinivas, M. N., Social Change in Modern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), pp. 25–6.Google Scholar

114 Shola-i-Tur (Cawnpur), 05 2, 1871, in Selections from the Native Newspapers Published in the North Western Provinces, 1871, pp. 207–8. (Italics added.)Google Scholar

115 Quoted in the Pioneer, January 7, 1901. (Italics added.)

116 See Lucy Carroll, ‘Caste, Social Change, and the Social Scientist.’