A WORLD WITHOUT DRINK: TEMPERANCE IN MODERN INDIA, 1880-1940

by Robert Eric Colvard

An Abstract Of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in History in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa May 2013

Thesis Supervisors: Professor Paul Greenough Professor Jeffrey Cox

ABSTRACT The histories of nationalism and temperance in India were closely intertwined from their very inceptions. While the former is the topic of frequent study, the latter has rarely been examinedin fact, Indian temperance is often taken as an axiom. My dissertation argues that the Indian temperance movement, like the nation, was a timely innovation. It explains the specific history of why and how temperance activism came to be an important facet of the struggle for Indian independence. It will also show how this close relationship played out globally, when Indians exported nationalist sentiments abroad and when the cause of Indian self-rule became an unavoidable question in temperance journals and at temperance meetings in Britain and the United States. Both scholarly and popular works of history assume that alcoholic beverages were introduced into India by the British. I demonstrate that some Indians consumed alcoholic beverages on a large scale well before high colonialism, but that British rulers made drinking an issue for the first time when, in the 19th century, they introduced a new tax policy favoring the use of European-style liquors over those that had traditionally been produced in India. This resulted in a large protest movement in which thousands of drinking Indians refused to purchase Indian-made alcoholic beverages until the taxes on them were reduced. Early nationalists acknowledged that many Indians were drinkers and blamed their turn from milder to stronger forms of liquor on colonial administrators who determined alcohol policy. Yet within 50 years, assumptions had changed radically. Where Indian nationalists and temperance activists, often the very same people, had once championed access to less-costly alcohol for the drinking classes, they now argued that

Indians had always been an abstemious race and fought for the total prohibition of all alcohol sales, making temperance compulsory for all Indians. This dissertation will provide a new and important frame for analysis of the Indian nationalist movement. By focusing on a single, yet important, strand within the larger nationalist movement, this dissertation reveals conflicts among nationalists and among those associated with the colonial state. Finally, this dissertation moves temperance from a mere footnote to its proper place as one of the key mass movements of the period, a discourse that influenced both Indian nationalism and the rhetorical content of global temperance activism. My work is predicated on the assumption that ideas and movements move across cultural and national boundaries. Thus while India remains the focus, this dissertation demonstrates that domestic political issues occur in, and are significantly influenced by, a global context. Abstract Approved: _________________________________________________ Thesis Supervisor _________________________________________________ Title and Department _________________________________________________ Date _________________________________________________ Thesis Supervisor _________________________________________________ Title and Department _________________________________________________ Date

A WORLD WITHOUT DRINK: TEMPERANCE IN MODERN INDIA, 1880-1940

by Robert Eric Colvard

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in History in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa May 2013

Thesis Supervisors: Professor Paul Greenough Professor Jeffrey Cox

Copyright by ROBERT ERIC COLVARD 2013 All Rights Reserved

Graduate College The University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL ______________________ PH.D. THESIS __________ This is to certify that the Ph.D. thesis of Robert Eric Colvard has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in History at the May 2013 graduation. Thesis Committee: ____________________________________________________ Paul Greenough, Thesis Supervisor _____________________________________________________ Jeffrey Cox, Thesis Supervisor _____________________________________________________ Meena Khandelwal _____________________________________________________ James Giblin _____________________________________________________ Jennifer Sessions

To Kelli, Kaitlyn and Connor

ii

ACKNOWLEGMENTS During my time at the University of Iowa I have benefited from the guidance and support of many. I would like to thank Paul Greenough and Philip Lutgendorf for nurturing my interest in India and helping to open doors that made this dissertation possible. Jeffrey Cox and Paul Greenough helped me navigate this project from its inception and their guidance has been indispensable. I want to thank James Giblin, whose encouragement counsel and support regarding the course project that would, in time, evolve to form this dissertation. Thanks to Stephen Vlastos, Meena Khandelwal and Jennifer Sessions for sharing their insights and pointing me in the direction of sources. I also want to thank my Fulbright advisor in Delhi, Tanika Sarkar for her guidance during the research phase of my project. Thanks to the archivists at the National Archives and Nehru Library in Delhi, the Delhi branch of the Womens Christian Temperance Union, the Maharashtra State Archives in Bombay, the British Library, and the staff at the University of Lancasters library for their help. I have benefited from the friendship and guidance of my colleagues in the department of history. Thank you Brian Donovan, Renee Goethe, Matt Reardon, and others for the conversations and debates that informed this work. Last but not least, I want to thank my family. My partner, Kelli Colvard, encouraged me through the writing process and was an invaluable sounding-board and editor. I wrote this dissertation with the sounds of my children, Kaitlyn and Connor, playing in the background. It is hard to imagine this dissertation, or me, for that matter, without them. Thanks to my mother, Jerilyn Colvard, father, Robert W. Colvard, and sister, Kelly Colvard-Walter for their unwavering support.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES...vi LIST OF FIGURES.....vii CHAPTER I TEMPERANCE AND INDIAN NATIONALISM...1 Introduction........1 Theorizing Indian Temperance..7 Temperance and Gender..22 Chapter Overview....27 CHAPTER II FERMENTATION AND FERMENT: THE 1878 ABKARI ACT IN BOMBAY PRESIDENCY....31 Introduction..31 Sources and Methodology36 Drinking in Western India....41 The 1878 Abkari Act50 Responses to the Act52 The Bhandari strike of Western India, 1885-1886...61 Abkari Police69 The Drink Strike...78 CHAPTER III STRANGE BREW: ALLIES AND ADVERSARIES IN INDIAN TEMPERANCE, 1890-1919....90 Introduction...90 Early Stirrings of Indian Temperance...93 AITA Activism in Britain.94 Other British Temperance Organizations in India98 Colonial Government Response to Temperance Activism in Britain..102 Activism in India by the AITA and Others.110 Temperance Halls and the WCTU..124 International Temperance133 The INC and the Politics of Purity in Poona...134

iv

CHAPTER IV

EMPIRE OF DRINK: THE NATIONALIZATION OF TEMPERANCE IN THE 1920S.154 Introduction.154 Chapter Overview...155 Changing of the Guard in Indian Temperance156 The AITA Wager on Dyarchy.....165 Non-Cooperation and the Khilifat Movement169 Non-Cooperation and Anti-Liquor Violence..172 English-Minded and Vernacular-Minded Temperance.183 Battle for Pussyfoot.188 W.E. Pussyfoot Johnson in India198 Indian Nationalism on the Global Temperance Stage212 Conclusion..217

CHAPTER V

DRUNKARDS BEWARE!: TEMPERANCE AND NATIONALIST POLITICS IN THE 1930s...219 Introduction........219 Chapter Overview..220 The Drinking Classes.221 Civil Disobedience and Drink....223 Drinkers Agency...228 Liquor Men.....230 Controlling Picketers..235 Other Methods: Pickets, Plays, and Pressure Tactics....236 Bureaucratization of Nationalist Volunteerism..247 Nationalism, Temperance, and the PLI..251 Temperance Alliances Old and New..254 The Gandhi-Irwin Pact...261 Congress-Led Prohibition, 1938-1939...264 Conclusion......279

CHAPTER VI

DRINK IN INDIA THEN AND NOW..281

BIBLIOGRAPHY..287

LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Sifts in Coalitions Concerned with the Drink Trade 16

vi

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Mowhra Still The Bioscope in Temperance Work, Amritsar Yashwant Javagi Debir Feeding the poor in the Compound of Teynampet Temperance Hall, Madras, 24th January 1903 Untitled Lantern Slide Untitled Lantern Slide Untitled Lantern Slide Untitled Lantern Slide Untitled Lantern Slide Untitled Lantern Slide Untitled Lantern Slide India Beware Arrival at Bankipore Toddy Palms 46 117 121

126 158 159 159 160 160 161 161 193 207 271

Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 Figure 10 Figure 11 Figure 12 Figure 13 Figure 14

vii

CHAPTER I: TEMPERANCE AND INDIAN NATIONALISM Introduction The place of alcohol and drinkers in Indian society is a highly contentious issue. In July of 2012 an article appeared in the widely read Hindu newspaper discussing the sudden enforcement of long-ignored alcohol laws, vestiges of prohibition laws enacted in the days of a newly-minted Independent India. Spurred by the resolute Commissioner of Police, khaki-clad police worked to change Bombay from a bastion of relative social permissiveness to one where the traditional values of India were upheld. Mumbaikar tipplers, long accustomed to drinking in air-conditioned bars, found themselves under arrest for lacking a drinkers permit, a requirement unenforced since prohibition ended in 1973. If Bombays bars were suddenly a risky endeavor, its police ensured that drinkers could not find sanctuary in their own homes. Citizens holding parties with liquor in their homes are shocked that the States remit runs to entering peoples homes and private spaces and booking them for offences.1 According to the editorialist, many in Bombay had expressed outrage at this newfound zeal for the enforcement of long-forgotten law, but were met with considerable resistance. Most of the online responses posted to the editorial argued against the authors claim that the alcohol crackdown represented the effort to impose a moral code on Indian citizens.2 One interlocutor responded,

Sidharth Bhatia, "Maximum City's Morality Play," The Hindu, 7th July 2012, 276. Ibid.

2 One needs to understand that we live in a conservative society and culture and so are the laws and law enforcement of the country reflects the majority of society. One needs to respect the culture of people and their moral standards if one wants to live with them. Everyone is free to exercise their freedom of enjoyment (under law) but not on the expense of others misery. Don't agree? You are free to move to another country.3 At the core of this contemporary debate is an assumption of the irreconcilability of drinking and Indian nationality. The editor insisted that young Indians are angry with what they see as the imposition of conservative values while his respondent makes some bold assertions about the abstemious nature of Indian national character. For the latter, India is fundamentally a conservative society with laws reflective of that national character. Drinkers should thus respect the culture of people and their moral standards. Implicit in this statement is the assumption that Indian culture and moral standards of Indians do not favor alcohol use. Bombays young tipplers are not alone in challenging the national traditions regarding alcohol use. Whether endorsed or proscribed, the use of alcohol is an important marker of caste identity. Members of high-status castes faced social sanction for drinking alcohol, a behavior associated with lower castes.4 Keralas low-caste theyyam dancers challenge Brahmanical conceptions of alcohol through their performances. In the performance, the dancer is possessed with the spirit of Shiva teaches an imperious Brahman a lesson about the dignity of all people. Lord Shiva made himself smell of meat and drink, and swayed around as though drunk with a great pitcher of toddy under his arm and in his righta half coconut shell which he used to
3

Anonymous to Maximum City's Morality Play, 15th July, 2012, Response to editorial.

Although it is generally the case that upper castes frown on the use of alcohol by their fellows, there are numerous exceptions. For instance, Kshatriyas in military service were expected to drink despite their high status due to the association between alcohol and martial prowess. Bhandaris, on the other hand, were a low-status caste associated with the production of liquor were actually prohibited to drink the liquor they produced. See chapter two.

3 drink the spirit.5 The performance deploys the image of the drunken divinity to make a claim for the humanity of drinking populations. These contemporary debates about the place of alcohol in Indian society reveal the continued resistance of drinking Indians to the narrative of abstention from alcohol as a fundamental national trait. The prominence of the liquor question in Indian public discourse has a long been closely related to the nationalist movement. Even before the advent of the nationalist movement, British and American temperance organizations sponsored temperance lecturers, tasked with the mission to introduce the Western conception of temperance to the subcontinent and to found new temperance organizations with Indian leadership and membership.6 Yet, ideas regarding temperance did not cease to evolve in India. Indian temperance workers translated Western conceptions of temperance for the Indian context, one of resistance to imperial rule. Protesting liquor sales was a particularly effective critique of colonial rule because it was culturally-translatable, fitting within British understandings of justifiable resistance as rightful dissent and with the Indian idiom of Dharmic protest.7 The moral rectitude of the campaign against alcohol resonated with many Britons and Indians within both Western and Indian zeitgeists. This dissertation argues that the temperance movement in India helped create and sustain the rhetorical space within which Indian nationalism grew and flourished. Indian temperance was a colonial product, one developed through the efforts of Western
William Dalrymple, Nine lives : in search of the sacred in modern India, 1st U.S. ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf). 39.
6 5

See chapter two.

Ranajit Guha, "Colonialism in South Asia," in Dominance without Hegemony: history and power in Colonial India (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 55.

4 missionaries, Indian nationalists, and temperance activists. It reveals the emergence of the abstemious Indian as an invented tradition constitutive of Indian national identity. It demonstrates how the bodies of Indian drinkers, not just women, became symbols of the Indian nation. Finally, it shows how elites used coercion to enforce this invented tradition among Indian drinkers. Nationalist leaders hailed the work of volunteers picketing liquor shops across India as an expression of unity and Indian-ness. However, the targets of these pickets were not British administrators but other Indians, liquor traders whose livelihood depended on drinkers. Far from being an example of unity and homogeneity, the antiliquor campaign actually reveals the highly-contested nature Indian identity and its relationship to drinking. Because of this, it is unsurprising that nationalists themselves downplayed this suppression of a national fragment.8 Although temperance was a powerful rhetorical tool for nationalists, it required nationalists to invent an abstemious past to ensure a sober and independent future. Drinking Indians had to be shown the error of their ways. This suppression began well before independence. In 1939, Indian National Congress-led provincial governments of India began pilot programs enacting the prohibition of alcohol. C. Rajagopalachari, or Rajaji, a key nationalist leader and advocate of prohibition, boasted of his cause that all shades of public opinion in India (except those actually interested in drink) are agreed to the desirability of Prohibition at

Partha Chatterjee, The nation and its fragments : colonial and postcolonial histories, Princeton studies in culture/power/history (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993).

5 the earliest possible date.9 Rajajis assessment of the near unanimity of opinion in favor of prohibition echoed the sentiments of Christian temperance advocates in the 1880s who saw Indians as natural abstainers due to their caste, customs, and religious precepts.10 This assumption of unified opinion on the subject of alcohol, despite the undeniable evidence to the contrary, has persisted. Looking back on the 1920s and 1930s, one Congress official on the Prohibition Committee Board recalled that the mass movement of nonviolent non-cooperation, spearheaded by the picketing of liquor shops, was eminently successful and had a spontaneous response from the entire country.11 But this assessment begs the question: If the entire country viewed the picketing positively, then why would it be needed at all? Looking back on the precolonial period from 1955, the Government of Indias Prohibition Enquiry Committee still asserted that the masses [had] generally remained free from the evil of drink and drugs;12 It was the British who had supposedly introduced alcohol to an historically

C. Rajagopalachari, "Dr. Ambedkar and Drink Evil," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).
10

J. Gelson Rev. Gregson, "Drinking Habits among the Natives of India," in British and Colonial Temperance Congress, ed. Frederick Temple (London: National Temperance Publication Depot, 1886). Tek Chand, The Liquor Menace in India (New Delhi: Gandhi Peace Foundation, 1972). 15.

11

Government of India, Report of the Prohibition Enquiry Committee 1954-55 (Delhi: Government of India Press, 1955). 4.

12

6 abstemious population.13 Yet the use of numerous types of indigenous alcohol of varying strengths in the pre-colonial period is well-documented.14 The curious implication that an anti-liquor campaign was both needed and all but universally supported persists today. Bipan Chandra notes that the success of the antiliquor campaign was obviously connected with the popular tradition of regarding abstinence as a virtue and as a symbol of respectability.15 The esteem placed on abstinence was a recent tradition, but not one shared evenly across the population. If some groups moved away from alcohol in the phenomenon Srinivas described as Sanskritization, other groups proved more resistant. As I will demonstrate below, many Indians did not conform to this hegemonic notion of abstention from alcohol and continued drinking despite significant pressure to stop. This dissertation argues that the notion of alcohol use as fundamentally anathema to Indian national identity has a specific historical provenance that, far from a timeless truth, emerged only in the early 20th century as an invented tradition.16 Abstinence from alcohol as a supposedly universal value for Indians was born in the crucible of Indian nationalism and of worldwide activism on the part of progressives who campaigned globally against the drink menace.

Abstention from sensuality, whether in the form of sex or in drinking alcohol imparts strength and discipline to the individual. This power, associated with Shakti, is then employed in the service of the nation. See Joseph Alter, "Somatic nationalism: Indian wrestling and militant Hinduism." Modern Asian Studies 28, no. 3 (1994): 557-88.
14

13

Prasun Chatterjee, "The Lives of Alcohol in Pre-colonial India," The Medieval Journal 8, no. 1 (2005). Bipan Chandra, India's struggle for independence, 1857-1947 ([New Delhi, India]: Viking, 1988). 276.

15

16

Eric Hobsbawm, "Introduction: Inventing Tradition," in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawn & Terrence Ranger (London: Cambridge, 1983).

7 Theorizing Indian Temperance Historians are champions of the particular and are understandably hesitant to the make generalizations of groups. But any history extending past the biographical depends on these very generalizations for analysis. Colonialism, and other forms of exploitation do not introduce dominance and subordination within and among groups as much as they radically reconfigure it. As Ranajit Guha wrote in Colonialism in South Asia, domination and subordination are constant social phenomena but the manifestation of this structural relationship varies dramatically.17 To begin mapping out patterns of domination and subordination, some level of essentialization of the groups involved in these patters becomes necessary. Categories of peoplecolonizer and colonized, men and women, Indians and Britonsare useful analytical devices but their use threatens objective fact with teleological necessities; colonial institutions and Indian nationalism must be unmasked while the resistance of subject populations must be found and celebrated. In colonial history, the use of identity categories is inescapable but it comes at a high cost. The first histories of colonial India written during British rule tended to place all peoples into a single continuum of progress with one end marked by stagnation and decline in and the other marked by the epitome of liberal civil society, Great Britain. This view of Indias history, championed by such luminaries as James Mill justified colonial rule, even if criticizing its precise form, as a means to reverse the decline of

17

Guha, "Colonialism in South Asia," 20-21.

8 India. 18 The dichotomous category of colonizer and colonized was fundamental to this line of analysis. Nationalist scholars of the mid-20th century largely adopted this dichotomy of colonizer and the colonized from their predecessors.19 These nationalists told the history of modern India through the lens of Marxism; India could move towards the universal ideal only after shedding the yoke of colonialism and, ironically, emulating the West. Despite its oversimplification of categories, Nationalist histories were an important corrective to the previous historiographical errors. Gone was the narrative of Britons on a civilizing mission to improve the world.20 This was replaced by one in which elite nationalists threw off the shackles of colonial oppression through all but universal collective action on the part of Indians, led by elites.21 The handful of Indians that did not fit well within that narrativeprincely states, or drink-sellers, for instancewere written off as reactionary elements and tools of British oppression.22 However, explanations for other deviations from the narrative were far more difficult to explain

18

James Mill, The history of British India, 3 vols. (London,: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1817).

Although nationalist historians complicated the picture of colonialism, the political exigencies of nationalism had their influence. As Gyan Prakash writes, nationalist historians like H. C. Raychaudhuri, K. P. Jayaswal, Beni Prasad, R. C. Majumdar, and R. K. Mookerjee traced the origin of the nation-state to ancient India and that everything good in Indiahad completely indigenous origins. See Gyan Prakash, "Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historiography " Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, no. 2 (1990): 388-89.
20

19

Although the civilizing mission was largely discredited, Marxist historians of the 1960s measured the results of colonialism against the ideal of Western political economy. This resulted in the balance-sheet histories of the Cambridge school. See Howard Spodek, "Pluralist Politics in British India: The Cambridge Cluster of Historians of Modern India," American Historical Review 84, no. 3 (1979).

See Rajeev Bhargava, "History, Nation and Community: Reflections on Nationalist Historiography of India and Pakistan," Economic and Political Weekly 35, no. 4 (2000). David Hardiman demonstrated the deficiencies of this approach. See David Hardiman, "Baroda: The Structure of a 'Progressive' State," in People, Princes, and Paramount Power: Society and Politics in the Indian Princely States, ed. Robin Jeffrey (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978).
22

21

9 ongoing communal violence, violence against women, and the excesses of modern nation-state helmed by luminaries of the nationalist movement and their heirs.23 Marxist historians began telling Indias history through the lens of class, leading to a much more nuanced view of Indian society before and after independence. Colonial networks of complicity and resistance cut across the simple category of the colonized but the category of colonizer remained under-differentiated.24 Indian historians of the 1960s made pointed criticisms of colonial rule but these criticisms were couched in Eurocentric theoretical frameworks, like Marxism itself. Finding the universalizing claims of Marxism irreconcilable with its European provenance, the subaltern school of the late 1970s emerged among leftist historians like Sumit Sarkar and Ranajit Guha. The subaltern school moved away from Marxist preoccupation with capital, or colonialism, its highest stage, in competition with the working classes. This move

represented a reconfiguration of both the type, and scale of work that historians could perform. Looking at different patterns of dominance and subordination often resulted in looking at smaller patterns of dominance and subordination. Class-based, Eurocentric divisions were inadequate to explain colonial history. Gender, caste, religion, and social status had to be seen as equally important categories of analysis, giving birth to subaltern studies. Since the late 1970s, but more prominently in the late 1980s, subaltern studies emerged to question the assumptions of nationalist and Marxist histories. The subalternists correctly noted that dichotomous categories of colonizer and colonized did

23

See Ashis Nandy, "Culture, State and the Rediscovery of Indian Politics," Economic and Polical Weekly 19, no. 49 (1984). R. Palme Dutt, India to-day (London,: V. Gollancz, ltd., 1940).

24

10 not adequately reflect the much more complicated historical past, and that other categories such as class, gender, and caste did not lose their salience during, or after, British rule. Colonialism, for all its countless ill effects, did not introduce domination and subordination to the subcontinent; it did, however, dramatically reconfigure social conflict among Indians. Nationalists, thus, did not represent a complete break with colonial domination. Ironically, their very success in winning independence was based on a mimetic response to empire, resulting in a violent, modern Indian state doomed to repeat its sins as a derivative of colonialism.25 Subaltern studies has also moved towards a more philosophical than sourcedriven approach to colonialism.26 Late subaltern studies has been largely preoccupied with unmasking the Indian state and much of Indian political thought to reveal their provenance in the West. Partha Chatterjee, for instance, notes that nationalism was entirely a product of the political history of Europe; yet what could be more derivative of nationalism than assigning nationality to an idea?27 Chatterjee goes on to state that although the East has succumbed to the economics and state-supremacy of the West, the internal, spiritual life of the East continues to bear the essential marks of cultural identity.28 With The East as a bastion of internal life and spirituality,

Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse (Tokyo: United Nations University, 1986). See also Nandy, "Culture, State and the Rediscovery of Indian Politics." Sumit Sarkar distinguishes between early and late subaltern studies. The early essays of Ranajit Guha in Subaltern Studies endeavored to rectify the elite bias, often accompanied by economistic assumptions common toconventional-Marxist readings of modern Indian history. He contrasts this with late subaltern studies, marked by, the counterposing of reified notions of community or fragment, alternatively or sometimes in unison, against [the] generalized category of modern nation-state as the embodiment of Western cultural domination. See Sumit Sarkar, Writing social history (Delhi ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). 85, 93.
27 26

25

Chatterjee, The nation and its fragments : colonial and postcolonial histories: 4. Ibid., 6.

28

11 Chatterjees line of analysis essentializing the West and East shares much with the orientalist scholarship the Edward Said so famously critiqued.29 This dissertation is inspired by the work of subaltern studies, particularly in the oeuvre of the 1980s, when the subaltern school set about deconstructing the hagiographical excesses of nationalist historians. The meanings associated with the use of alcohol in the nationalist period, particularly by low-status Indians, cannot be explained through Western frameworks alone. These meanings should not be reduced to the logic of economics nor to presentist notions that drunkenness itself is undesirable. That is to say, this dissertation takes drinking, or abstaining, as fact and avoids making implied judgments that echo the value that elite Europeans and Indians place on sobriety. Early subalternists of the 1980s noted that patterns of domination and subordination had long been aspects of the nationalist movement. Ironically, it was in this observation that the subalternists echoed a key element of the Cambridge schools take on Indian historiography, that nationalist leaders were, themselves, elites whose selfinterest contributed to the form and rhetorical content of nationalist resistance to colonial rule.30 The strength of the early subaltern school was its recognition that the category of the colonized elides equally important relations of domination and subordination based on gender, caste-affiliation, class, and religion within that category.

For Said, a key aspect of orientalism, the construction of the East in the Western mind, was the notion that the East was its primitivity and spirituality. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979). 150. Both the Subaltern and Cambridge schools critique the motives of nationalists, but the latters Marxist framework still looks to Eurocentric models to evaluate aspects of colonialism as good or bad. It was precisely so that Indian history could be judged within Indian frames that the Subaltern School was formed.
30

29

12 One objection to positioning my dissertation as belonging within the subaltern school is that the latter is anti-national in methodology; for many subalternists, good history is typified by an attempt to lift the veil of nation obscuring the truth of the local.31 That is to say, just examining the category of nation leads to the omission of microhistories of countless fragments that more accurately represent the historical past. This dissertation is a history of the nation, but one that recognizes its unevenness and the forms of coercion fundamental to its construction. The nation itself may be an abstraction, but one that has a significant impact on culture and meaning. Microhistories ease the epistemological anxieties of researchers through sleight of hand. Indeed, they avoid the pitfall of generalizing events in a given locality to a larger region. Yet the only way microhistories hold relevance in academia is due to their applicabilitystated or impliedto larger, more diverse populations. That is to say, the authors of microhistories leave it to the individual reader to generalize their conclusions. Indeed, the only way microhistories can hold more than antiquarian interest is if their conclusions are more widely applicable. In this sense, leaving it to the reader to generalize findings does more to hide epistemological problems than it does to solve them. This dissertation examines the broad theme of alcohol in during the very period when the Indian nation was defined. As such, it intentionally moves away from the specific to the general, echoing the very historical process it seeks to examine.

31

See Chatterjee, The nation and its fragments : colonial and postcolonial histories.

13 A second problem with the more recent work of the subaltern school lies in its quest to locate examples of resistance among subordinated groups.32 Ranajit Guhas Chandras Death is among the most blatant of these examples in which the main subject of the piece, a low-caste woman, is given the choice to either abort her child or kill herself. Chandra chooses the second of the two options provided by the cruel, highcaste biological father of the child. Guha describes Chandras suicide as an act of resistance against patriarchal authority.33 Yet how can Chandras suicide be considered resistance if it was one of the two options given by her oppressor? Lionizing resistance among subordinated groups in some ways represents another form of epistemological violence. It implies that resistance is heroic and obedience mundane. Yet obedience to oppressors can be heroic in its own right. The hard-scrabble struggle to survive and, in many cases, maintain families, while operating within grossly unjust economic and social systems is no small achievement. This dissertation endeavors to neither lionize resistance nor praise passivity but to explain how the act of drinking alcohol fit within larger dynamics of dominance and subordination. This dissertation stakes out a middle ground between large-scale analyses of the Cambridge School and the micro-histories of the Subaltern School. Both approaches are theoretically robust and academically useful; however, any attempt to delineate a movement as complex and heterogenous as Temperance must necessarily draw on both approaches (and many others) to have any chance of success. It is crucial to let the

For examples of this, see Ashis Nandy, The romance of the state and the fate of dissent in the tropics (New Delhi ; Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). See also Chatterjee, The nation and its fragments : colonial and postcolonial histories. Ranajit Guha, "Chandra's Death," in Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian History and Society, ed. Ranajit Guha (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 162.
33

32

14 conflicts we study determine the scope of our analytic categories. Since the conflict regarding alcohol existed on a national scale, an examination of temperance in India must approximate that scale The chapters that follow include several examples of resistance by the drinking classes to temperance and nationalist workers. However, I want to avoid the implied assumption that resistance is any more important to understanding the past than is compliance. To argue otherwise is to negate the efforts of low-status peoples who engaged in the struggle to survive amid grinding poverty and social injustice. Although people of all classes drank alcohol, it was the poor who were singled out for intervention, first through moral suasion and later through direct coercion. Drinkers occasionally engaged in open resistance against those seeking to alter their drinking habits, most notably in response to the 1878 Abkari Act.34 Doubtless, there were myriad acts of resistance against temperance reformers and nationalists that are not recorded in the archive since the safest way to continue drinking was surreptitiously. Nevertheless, I take it as a given that both resistance and acquiescence are fundamental to the subaltern experience and that the former is not necessarily more noble than the latter. I also want to avoid the pitfalls of the Cambridge school, the most important of which is the implication that Indian nationalism was defined by elites with motives little better than those of the colonizers themselves. This conclusion, one shared by both the Cambridge school and the Subaltern school, goes some way to explaining the vitriol of the latters attack on the former. Yet it also does a disservice to nationalists themselves,

34

See chapter two.

15 who managed the impressive feat of wresting the jewel of the crown from Britain. The Indian nationalist movement should not and cannot be reduced to a legacy of failure with regard to the elimination of internal social hierarchies. That is to say, independence did not mean social revolutionit rarely does. Although this dissertation depends on rough categorization for analysis, it also recognizes that the constituency of categories of people and the meanings ascribed to them is in constant flux. Social conflict leads to numerous cleavages within a given population which themselves are hierarchal and change over time.35 The nation is an imagined community, constructed aroundemotionally charged norms and valuesthat serve as boundary markers [for] the collectivity.36 Issues related to morality tend to be particularly polarizing.37 Controversy regarding alcohol was both a moral and political problem, creating cross-cutting allegiances that changed significantly over the 60 year period this dissertation examines. The chart below reveals some of these changes:

Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan, "Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignments," in Oxford readings in politics and government, ed. Peter Mair (Oxford England ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 92-93. Jose & Matthias vom Hau Itzigsohn, "Unfinished Imagined Communities: States, Social Movements, and Nationalism in Latin America," Theory and Society 35, no. 2 (2006): 196. See also Benedict Anderson, Imagined communities : reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (London: Verso, 1983).
37 36

35

Rokkan, "Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignments."

16 Table 1: Sifts in Coalitions Concerned with the Drink Trade 1890S Groups and Organizations in Favor of increased access to alcohol: Elite Indian Nationalists, e.g. D.E. Waccha Drink sellers, toddy-tree owners, drinkers, Parsis Some castes, e.g. Bhandaris, Kolis, Kunbis, Kayasthas The Anglo-Indian Temperance Association Groups and Organizations in Favor of reduced access to alcohol: British Government of India39 British Parliament Some missionaries British and American temperance workers abroad and living in India High-caste Hindu organizations such as the Indian National Social Conference Groups and Organizations in Favor of Decreased Access to Alcohol: Indian-controlled elements of the Government of India Indian Nationalists of all stripes Indian women Indian Temperance Organizations International Temperance Organizations Some missionaries Caste organizations Hindu/Muslim Social Orgs Indian National Congress Social Service Organizations 1930S Groups and Organizations in Favor of Increased Access to Alcohol: Low-caste drinkers Drink-sellers British Government of India38

38

In 1937, the Indian National Congress decided to contest local and provincial elections, resulting in an influx of nationalist Indians to government posts. However, most key elements of government remained under the control of British administrators and their allies. See chapter four for more information. As I explain in chapter two, the Government of India expressed its desire to raise the maximum revenue possible from drink sales while minimizing illicit alcohol production. In the 1890s, even those administrators who favored temperance more broadly accepted the inevitability of alcohol use in India and thus endorsed access to alcohol.

39

17 As the table above shows, a broad coalition of Indians and Britons in the late 19th century believed that increased access to alcohol, particularly for the poor, was ideal. Some early nationalists even criticized the Government of India for curtailing access to drink for the poor.40 But by the 1930s the only people who publically favored the sale of alcohol were drinkers, drink-sellers, and the British Government of India. Indian nationalism created a cleavage in opinion regarding drink, one that forced a bipolarity on the question, echoing that of independence itself. Conflict largely determines the relevance of identity markers for the individual and the group. This dynamism results in slippery terminology. Many non-Indian temperance activists working in India could be justifiably placed in the simple category of colonizer. Many of them benefited in some way from colonial rule, even as the vocally criticized it. Yet this criticism placed them in close alliance with Indian nationalists. In this case, the conflict between temperance workers and colonial administrators renders the dichotomy of colonizer/colonized inadequate.41 Similarly, there were numerous Indians working for the colonial state who expressed anxiety about moves towards independence and anti-alcohol agitation in general. In these cases, neither the category of colonizer nor colonized seems to fit neatly. This dissertation assumes the existence of categories such as those above but insists on their fluidity and heterogeneity. For instance, the social meaning category of drink sellers in the 1890s (chapter two) bears little resemblance to that same category
40

See chapter two.

41

Historians examining the work of missionaries in India have done much to show the inadequacy of simple, dichotomous categories. See Brian Stanley, The Bible and the flag : Protestant missions and British imperialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Leicester, England: Apollos, 1990)., A. N. Porter, Religion versus empire? : British Protestant missionaries and overseas expansion, 1700-1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004). and Jeffrey Cox, Imperial fault lines : Christianity and colonial power in India, 1818-1940 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002).

18 in the 1920s and 1930s by which time nationalism had inscribed a very different meaning on the occupation. These changes in the meaning and constituencies of categories are fundamental to analysis of drink in the period between 1880 and 1940. That sixty years began with an India that many could scarcely imagine under its own flag and ended with a sophisticated and massively supported nationalist movement on the cusp of independence; it is unsurprising that analytical categories used in history changed during that time. Conflict itself is what gives both internal identity markers and external analytical categorization its relevance. As a result, a term like colonial administrators should not necessarily be presumed to exclude Indians. Some Indian colonial administrators, like Manekshah Taleyarkhan, very much supported liquor sales while some British colonial administrators seemed to favor policies endorsed by temperance activists.42 Similarly, although low-status caste-groups were more likely to drink, many of them also formed temperance and abstention societies of their own. There is always an exception to the rule, but analysis requires some degree of categorization, and categorization itself sacrifices some measure of truth on the altar of understanding. Another issue, closely related to that of categorization, relates to the choice of alcohol, the discourse surrounding it as an historical subject. In other words, why study alcohol but not other intoxicating drugs? The use of drugs like charas (cannabis) and afeem (opium) was widespread, legal, and taxed by the colonial government. Indeed, most of the temperance organizations operating in India crusaded against the use of these and other substances, including ether. But unlike other intoxicating substances, alcohol remained the top priority of temperance activists. The official journals and magazines of
42

See chapter five.

19 temperance organizations may have mentioned other intoxicating substances but they were suffused with articles arguing for the prevention of alcohol use. Alcohol had other properties making it unique among the intoxicating substances in use in India that drew the attention of temperance reformers and nationalists. The scale of alcohol production was unmatched by that of other intoxicating substances. Also, as I will demonstrate in chapter two, alcohol itself became all but synonymous with British national character in colonial India. As one Indian critic noted, water is about the last thing the average Britisher thinks of for a beverage. Ale and beer and stout are the A B C of his alphabet of bibacity.43 Gandhi agreed, stating that European nations have a weakness for intoxicating drinks but among them the British had a particularly tremendous problem.44 Secondly, as I will argue in chapter two, British administrators dramatically reconfigured the drink-scape of India, increasing the potency of liquor in India and contributing to growing association between alcohol use and British rule. Although alcohol use had long been used by numerous communities in the Early Modern India, the drinking habits of Indians changed under British rule. British policies favored some types of alcohol over others and some types of drinkers over others. Tax policy favored the consumption of foreign liquor and Indian-made foreign liquor over more traditional Indian alcoholic beverages like toddy, mowhra, and arrack or country

B.M. Malabari, "On British Drinking Customs," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 26 (1896). Frederick Grubb, "M.K. Gandhi on Indian Temperance," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the AngloIndian Temperance Association I, no. 108 (1917).
44

43

20 liquor.45 As a result, poor populations habituated to the use of alcohol were encouraged by tax policy to drink foreign liquors containing much higher alcohol concentration than traditional Indian drinks. Liquor became stronger by volume and sellers adopted the aesthetic look of European liquor for their bottles and labels. Just as Indian nationalism began to emerge, drinking became increasingly associated with British rule and British culture. The form of alcohol had changed in a way that mirrored European styles and the taxes placed upon its use and sale provided large revenues to the colonial state. Colonial rule dramatically changed Indias drink-scape, leading to a growing association between alcohol use and British rule. The profligate drinking habits of Europeans cemented this association between alcohol and foreign-ness. Although low-status populations drank publically, high-status Indians drank liquor in private. British colonial officials were another matter altogether. While Britons in India shied away from other intoxicating substances, the public consumption of alcohol remained fundamental to Anglo-Indian life. The drinking proclivities of high-status British officials shocked their Indian subordinates. Low status Europeans did little to improve the reputation of whites with regard to drinking. FischerTine has shown that arrests for European drunkards were far out of proportion to their share of the population and that many Indians were disgusted by the sight of drunken and riotous Europeans.46

Foreign liquor referred to types of alcohol with European provenance like brandy and whiskey. Indian made foreign liquor referred to any European style alcohol made in India. See chapter two for a more detailed discussion of alcohol varieties.
46

45

Harald Fischer-Tine, Low and Licentious Europeans: Race, Class and 'White Subalternity' in Colonial India, ed. Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Peter Cain, Mark Harrison and Michael Worboys, New Perspectives in South Asian History (New Delhi: Black Swan, 2010). 154.

21 British people of all stripes living in India were closely associated with the use of alcohol in a variety of social settings, many of which did not have clear correlations with Indian drinking customs. Moreover, Indian drinking habits did appear to be moving closer to the style of Europeans, drinking the same kinds of beverages. In Europe and the United States temperance organizations fought against many types of intoxicating substances but alcohol received the most attention. When those organizations branched out to India, the prominence given alcohol in their crusade remained unchanged. Indian temperance organizations affiliated with their European and American counterparts inherited this preoccupation with alcohol over other addictive substances. Moreover, the close association between the British, their rule, and the use of alcohol in India made it particularly germane to the nationalist movement. Anti-alcohol agitation was a key aspect of each of the three great social movements of Indias freedom strugglethe Swadeshi movement, Non-cooperation, and Civil Disobedience. Yet despite the extremely close relationship between Indian nationalism and anti-alcohol agitation, they were not entirely congruent. That is to say, temperance agitation and nationalism were not the same movement even if they shared large numbers of volunteers, methods for agitation, and complaints against the colonial state. Maintaining a distinction between the two movements was as important for some activists as blurring the lines between the two was for others. During the Indian freedom struggle, anti-alcohol activism was a liminal rhetorical space, allowing for the expression of Western moral progressivism in the idiom of Indian anti-colonial politics and vice versa. For some operating within this space, the distinction did not exist, for others, that

22 distinction meant everything. Furthermore, temperance reform provided a small degree of security for increasingly radical nationalists who found allies among the European and American moralists who might otherwise have had much less in common with Indian nationalists. Temperance and Gender My original conception of this project included a significant focus on the involvement of Indian women with regard to the liquor question. I suspected that I might find a great deal of precedent for Larssons treatment of the contemporary women-led movement against alcohol in Andhra Pradesh.47 Low caste women led this successful movement beginning in 1992, culminating with the total prohibition of potable alcohol in the state. I expected to find more data regarding the participation of Indian women in temperance struggles but found little. The surviving documentation of temperance organizations and the nationalist organizations share in common the suppression of womens voices. Expanding my source base to discover more detail regarding the nature of participation in temperance activities of the early 20th century by Indian women, particularly non-elites, is a key goal I hope to accomplish when I am able to return to India. It is clear from archival evidence that women participated in nationalist politics, particularly liquor picketing from the 1920s through 1930s with uneven and intermittent approval from male nationalist leaders. The chapters below will demonstrate that the temperance movement of the 1920s and 1930s was a fundamentally nationalist
47

Marie-Louise Larsson, 'When Women Unite!': The Making of the Anti-Liquor Movement in Andhra Pradesh, India (Stockholm: Stockholm Universitet, 2006).

23 endeavor. As Larsson writes, the nationalist context of the Indian temperance movement diverted criticism, from the Hindu male to the Western colonizer, providing a space for women in the nationalist struggle.48 This new public platform for female activism came at a cost. The gravitas of Indian nationalism in the early 20th century meant that temperance rhetoric was preoccupied with the question of Indian independence. Nationalism informed the rhetoric and cross-cutting allegiances of the temperance movement. Indian women, as representatives of the domestic sphere could fight colonialism publically on its behalf, but this endorsement resulted in the subsumption of temperance within nationalism.49 This is very different from contemporary Indian temperance activism which grew out of a cooperative effort between educated feminists and peasant women.50 One result of this association between temperance and nationalism is that highly gendered motivations for female temperance activism in the early 20th century are obscured by overarching questions of national sovereignty. Although evidence regarding the participation of low-status women in contemporary temperance movements is well-documented, little evidence survives documenting their activities during nationalist period. A handful of works exist on elite female nationalists, often the close relations of nationalist leaders. The problem, however, is that the biographies of elite women shed little light on how large masses of women of intermediate and lower social status related to nationalism and how that
48

Ibid., 37. Ibid., 39. Ibid.

49

50

24 relationship was mediated by patriarchy and resistance.51 Large numbers of women from the peasantry and the working class, including prostitutestook part in the various [nationalist] struggles directly.52 Male nationalists, however, did not envision an independent India that revolutionized extant gender dynamics. That is to say, the independent India they fought for was one that would be administered by men for the good of Indian women. As a result, records kept by nationalists of their efforts during the freedom movement elide gendered differences precisely because Indian males placed themselves as representatives for Indian women. The goals of female Indian temperance activists in the nationalist period were not the same as those of male Indian temperance activists, but the nature of these differences is difficult to discern due to the patriarchal bias of the archives themselves. This dissertation recognizes the subjectivity of women and their ability to create alternative spaces and modes of expressions that have been ignored or misrepresented.53 Indian women participated in anti-alcohol agitation associated with the nationalist movement both as symbols and as actors. Protesting alcohol fit well with the national ideal for women as defenders of the home, untainted by the profane activities of the material world.54 Alcohol, by the 1910s was increasingly linked with British rule.55

Radha Kumar, The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women's Rights and Feminism in India, 1800-1990 (Delhi: Kali for Women, 1993). 1.
52

51

Leela Kasturi and Vina Mazumdar, Women and Indian nationalism (Vikas Publishing House, 1994). 2.

53

Barbara Ramusack, "From Symbol to Diversity: The Historical Literature on Women in India," South Asia Research 10, no. 2 (1990): 151-52.

54

Partha Chatterjee, "Colonialism, Nationalism, and Colonialized Women: The Contest in India," American Ethnologist 16, no. 4 (1989): 624. See chapter three.

55

25 Unlike other profane activities associated with the bazaar, alcohol could enter the home. It represented malevolent force from outside the home or, bahir, that Indian women wished to remove from the homes like the dirt of outside contaminants.56 Yet the patriarchal bias of the archives yields little evidence for how, precisely, women precipitated and participated in the struggle against alcohol. Archival evidence refracts history itself, bending narratives of the past to conform to normative patterns of domination and subordination typifying its original context. Archives reflect the needs and desires of its creators.57 Colonial administrators, elite Indian nationalists, and conservative social reform organizations were not known for their progressive ideas regarding the role women in the public sphere. As a result, archival evidence from the colonial government, nationalist groups, and temperance organizations provides few hints regarding the precise role that Indian women played in the temperance movement. In contrast, British and American women involved with the Indian temperance movement are very well-documented. Western women found in colonial India a place where they could participate in this competition, acting in ways that might have been above their sex in their home countries.58 British and American activists spoke for

For Chakrabarty, the bazaar is a metaphor for the outside, or bahir more generally. Alcohol applies here as a product of the bazaar as much as the feces and prostitution that Chakrabarty associates with it. See Dipesh Chakrabarty, "Of Garbage, Modernity and the Citizen's Gaze," Economic and Political Weekly 27, no. 10/11 (1992): 543.
57

56

Joan M. and Terry Cook Schwartz, "Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory," Archival Science 2(2002): 2.

58

Aelfrida Tillyard, Agnes E. Slack: Two Hundred Thousand Miles Travel for Temperance in Four Continents (Cambridge, England: W. Heffer & Sons Ltd, 1926), Biography. 95.

26 Indian women, viewing this role as a logical white womans burden.59 Middle class American and British women found in concern for the colonized a natural expansion of social reform movements already in place at home, of which, temperance was among the most popular.60 By virtue of Indias colonial context British and American female temperance activists could, and did, act as vocal leaders. Anxious approval on the part of Indian nationalists and colonial administrators of western women working for the moral uplift of Indians created a public space for white women in India that did not exist on the same scale for Indian women. A fundamental aspect of colonialism in India was the competition between Indian men and British men to justify their poweror aspirations toward iton the basis of their ability to protect Indian women.61 White women could participate in that competition while Indian women, as subjects in need of protection, could not.

Antoinette M. Burton, Burdens of history : British feminists, Indian women, and imperial culture, 18651915 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1994). 211.
60

59

Kumari Jayawardena, The white woman's other burden : Western women and South Asia during British colonial rule (New York: Routledge, 1995). 66. Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial masculinity : the 'manly Englishman' and the 'effeminate Bengali' in the late nineteenth century (Manchester: Manchester University Press; Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press, 1995). 159, 43.

61

27 Chapter Overview The second chapter corrects the notion that Indians have always abstained from the use of alcoholic beverages. I focus on public responses to the Bombay Presidencys controversial 1878 Abkari Act, which dramatically reconfigured extant laws regulating the production and sale of alcohol. So contentious was this act that it provoked two large-scale movements. The first of these was a labor strike in which an entire caste that was organized around the production of toddy, an alcoholic beverage produced from palm juice, refused to carry on its hereditary trade unless taxes were reduced to restore their occupation to profitability. The second was a large scale drink strike from 18861890 in which entire villages and castes long associated with the use of alcohol collectively refused to purchase drink until such time that it was made more affordable and accessible. This period, which corresponds to the earliest stages of politically organized nationalism, is marked by the relative silence of Indian nationalists on the subject of alcohol. This chapter ultimately suggests that the Indian nation, one constituted of both elites and the subaltern drinking populations, had not yet come into being. Sources for this chapter include vernacular newspapers, private government correspondence, petitions, and government reports collected from the Maharashtra State Archive, the British Librarys Oriental Office, and Indias National Archives. The third chapter examines the personal relationships between British temperance activists and early Nationalists from the 1890s through 1920, a period that saw the formation of hundreds of temperance organizations across India. Temperance organizations founded by crusaders such as W.S. Caine and Thomas Evans of the AngloIndian Temperance Association (AITA) would, by the 1920s, become hotbeds of

28 nationalist agitation. The moral imperative espoused by these groups to halt drinking in India became indistinguishable from the political imperative to separate India from Britain. This chapter argues that the diffuse network of AITA-affiliated temperance organizations provided widespread and fairly comprehensive institutional support for the burgeoning nationalist movement, arguably more so than did the nascent Indian National Congress. Primary sources for this chapter are drawn from correspondence among British and Indian temperance activists along with government reports and sources published by both Indian and British temperance organizations found at the British Library, Delhis National Archives, the Maharashtra State Archives in Mumbai and the Livesay Collection at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN), Preston, UK. Chapter four addresses a shift in the leadership of Indian temperance activism from British reformers to Indian nationalists. The Indian publics association of British rule and drunkenness was so marked by the 1920s that British temperance activists, no matter how well-intended, could no longer take the lead in criticizing Government of India alcohol policies. British, and increasingly American, temperance activists found their own movement dwarfed within the larger nationalist movement being led by Indians. From the 1920s temperance activism was predicated on the assumption that the colonial Government of India would not, or possibly could not, fight drunkenness. With the advent of the non-cooperation movement, nationalists focused on winning the support of Indians of all classes rather than relying constitutional reform by recalcitrant colonial administrators. Britain, they reasoned, was itself too poisoned with drink to practice moral governance in India. Sources for this chapter are drawn from government

29 correspondence, the records and publications of temperance organizations, press reports and private papers found at collections in New Delhi, London, and at UCLAN. Chapter five addresses two key historical moments in the history of Indian temperance agitationthe Civil Disobedience movement of 1930-1931 and the brief period of responsible Congress Governments of 1938-39. The INC developed a comprehensive plan to drive drinking Indians (primarily the poor) into the fold of the broader nationalist movement. To that end, moral suasion, surveillance, and (unofficially) outright harassment of drinkers and drink sellers were key aspects of Civil Disobedience. Congress leaders increasingly viewed drinkers as standing outside the nationalist movement. The only way to unite the Indian nation in the fight for freedom was to eliminate the pollution of drink from the body politic. The 1930s witnessed a shift in tactics from one of suasion to one of fighting criminality, with some unfortunate consequences for drinkers. Sources for this section are drawn from Delhis National Archives, a private temperance archive held by the Delhi branch of the Womens Christian Temperance Union, Londons Wellcome Library and private papers held by the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library in Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh State Archive in Lucknow. In the concluding chapter I will explore the implications of the above chapters, suggesting that the putative immorality of the colonial state was the central issue throughout the nationalist movement; having cast colonial rule as a source of moral pollution, Indian nationalists positioned independence as a point of departure rather than an end itself. The end of the freedom movement was to ensure the moral purity of a race, now typified by its temperance. Nationalists were obliged to a higher moral

30 authority, one that necessarily discounted the right of individuals (particularly the poor) to make their own choices. The only task remaining for nationalists on the cusp of freedom was to make real the largely invented Abstemious Indian.

31 CHAPTER II: FERMENTATION AND FERMENT: THE 1878 ABKARI ACT IN BOMBAY PRESIDENCY Introduction Temperance movements across the globe have waned from the early 19th century from the United States to Japan. In some countries like the United States and Norway, the anti-alcohol agitation that successfully witnessed the prohibition of alcohol (albeit for a short time) has seen temperance rhetoric all but vanish from the public consciousness. Yet in India this is not the case. Access to alcohol has remained controversial. Each gender, class, and locality is a site of an active, turbulent discussion of who, if anyone, should be allowed to drink and under what conditions. When the subject of alcohol is taken up in national histories of India, there is a tendency to acknowledge its centrality in the context of the freedom struggle. Among these, Indias Struggle for Independence, 1857-1947, is among the most popular in India.62 With over a million copies sold since its initial publication in 1999, the authors suggest a natural confluence of ideology and political activism in the case of nationalism and temperance agitation. Bipan Chandra and his co-authors merely continue a trend in the historiography of colonial India that assumes Indian nationalism was the natural ideological home for temperance agitation. The historical peculiarities leading to this wedding of the nationalist and temperance movements go largely unexamined. This dissertation argues that identifying the target audience for late 19th century anti-alcohol agitation is a necessary precondition for understanding the intentions and

62

Chandra, India's struggle for independence, 1857-1947.

32 ramifications of the temperance movement. That is to say, who was drinking in India from the late 19th century through independence and why was it important? These questions are more difficult to answer than one might suspect. The assumption posited by activists, that Indians historically eschewed drink, depended as much on defining Indians as much as it did on defining alcohol habits. Indian, European and American temperance activists all agreed that the subcontinent had a historically abstemious population. They correctly noted that the use of alcohol by Brahmins was frowned upon in the Sastras63 and even more strictly forbidden in the Quran.64 As will become abundantly clear in subsequent chapters, temperance advocates as diverse as American evangelical missionaries and Arya Samajists found in these religious proscriptions a powerful rhetorical tool that established prohibition as a return to an imagined period of temperance and moral rectitude rather than a radical departure. While these religious appeals by heartfelt temperance advocates contain an element of scriptural truth, they are far from a comprehensive estimation of alcohol use in India more generally. However noble their efforts may have been, temperance advocates were far from accurate in their assumption that the habits of a given community are
63

The Rg Veda (Rg VII 86.6) distinguishes the use of alcohol from that of soma, an intoxicant that may have been hallucinogenic. Although Brahmans could use soma, alcohol was forbidden. These proscriptions applied only to Brahmans. There was some debate with regard to whether these proscriptions applied to Brahman women in the Vedic Era (Manu XI 95). One exception to preoccupation with Brahman drinking habits alone is a mention of Kingly alcohol use (Manu VII 47-52). See Kane, P.V., History of the Dharmasasthra (Ancient and Medieval Religious and Civil Law). Government Oriental Series. 1974, Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 792-799.

64

The Qurans proscriptions against alcohol use are more universal. Alcohol is referred to as an abomination and the work of Satan (2:219, 5:90). Alcohol is placed in the same category as the use of idols. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a minority of Muslims, particularly millworkers and other laborers, drank despite this universal proscription. But since this proscription was universal, alcohol use by Muslims was less common than for non-Brahman Hindus.

33 determined by the proscriptions of religious texts. Although some important Hindu texts forbid alcohol use, their meaning for the faithful varied according to social status, gender, and region.65 Hinduism, like all religions, is a living tradition that evolves in dialogue with its historical context. Orthodoxy continually negotiates with the forces of change which can just as easily be conservative in nature as they are radical. All this is to say that the emphasis often placed upon the Vedas as the authoritative text in terms of its injunctions against alcohol use must be kept in perspective. Most avowed temperance and prohibition activists were either members of, or significantly influenced by the work of Christian missionaries and the indigenous reformist responses to them. Similarly, orientalist researchers like Max Mueller and others found in India analogues to the Christian Bible- the Vedas and the Quran. The work of these orientalists led to western conceptions of Indian religions overdetermined by religious texts. The great significance assigned to Indian religious scriptures reverberated in Western temperance activism, a discourse firmly embedded in the feminist progressivism of the 19th century.66 But the living traditions of the vast majority of Indias population cannot be derived exclusively from a reading of key religious texts, regardless of their scriptural importance. Until the late 19th century, temperance or abstention from alcohol was never a primary concern, even for the vast majority of
O'Hanlon, R., Caste, conflict, and ideology : Mahatma Jotirao Phule and low caste protest in nineteenthcentury western India. 1985, Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] ; New York: Cambridge University Press. xiii, 326 p. Three great causes of feminists from the early 19th century to the mid-20th century were the abolition of slavery, suffrage and temperance. Christine Stansell, The feminist promise : 1792 to the present, 1st ed. (New York: Modern Library). Ian R. Tyrrell, Woman's world/Woman's empire : the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in international perspective, 1800-1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Caronina Press, 1991). And Mariana Valverde, ""Racial Poison": Drink, Male Vice, and Degeneration in First Wave Feminism," in Women's Suffrage in the British Empire, ed. Ian Christopher Fletcher, Laura E. Nym Mayhall & Philippa Levine (New York: Routledge, 2000).
66 65

34 Indians practicing that old time religion.67 Furthermore, Brahmins long viewed injunctions in the Vedas against the use of alcohol as applying solely to their caste and not others. The other varnas were not held to the same standard of purity that the Brahmans (publicly) imposed upon themselves. Abstention from alcohol for Brahmins was more preserve than proscription--evidence of purity and high social status. The fact that abstention from alcohol was a defining characteristic of the twiceborn castes made communal drink habits important social markers. The noted anthropologist, Srinivas, observed abstention from alcohol as one of the key shifts among non-Brahmin castes, identifying their move towards the standards of purity associated with higher social groups as sanskritization.68 Interestingly, upward communal mobility associated with sanskritization does not feature prominently in late 19th century Western India.69 As I will show below, those communities that proscribed drink were far more

Lutgendorf describes the practice of Hinduism from the late 19th century as old time religion. He writes,, It was a necessarily vague label, as it had to be applied to vast numbers of people whose beliefs and practices displayed great variation; what was important about it was that it excluded others. See Lutgendorf, Philip. The Life of a Text: Performing the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991, 363. Srinivas argued that castes of the sudra varna and tribal groups preceded claims to higher positions in caste hierarchy by changes in social behavior. These changes most typically included an emulation of some public behavior of the local dominant casteoften Brahmans but not always so. The most visible of these changes included moves towards vegetarianism and abstention from alcohol. Although Srinivas cited examples of sankritization dating back to the 12th century, his work focused on contemporary groups in the 1950s and 1960s. He suggests that sanskritization was not new but that it had accelerated since the colonial era. See: Srinivas, Mysore Narasimhachar. Caste in Modern India, and Other Essays. Bombay, New York,: Asia Pub. House, 1962; Srinivas, M. N. The Oxford India Srinivas. New Delhi ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.M. N. Srinivas, The Oxford India Srinivas (New Delhi ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). This had changed so much that by 1931 C. Rajagopalachria would write that, In India the vegetarian and the man who does not drink intoxicating liquor are automatically high caste. While this sentiment was rather hyperbolic (even today, caste is a key status marker), it demonstrates that abstinence had a social currency associated with high status. See Rajagopalachari, C. "Those Pictures." In C. Rajagopalachari, 3. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931.
69 68

67

35 interested in preserving their historical access to alcohol than in attempts to improve the social status of their jati.70 Hinduism in its modern form dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. In response to vociferous criticism from evangelical missionaries, Hindu reformist organizations like Brahmo Samaj and Arya Samaj began to spring up. While there were differences among them, the tendency of these organizations was to include people under the umbrella of Hinduism who might not have been considered as such before the 19th century. Reformers also attempted to change Hinduism as they expanded its purview. These reforms included the expansion of education and, most importantly for our purposes, the elevation of abstention from alcohol as a cardinal virtue. Similarly, the divergences between the practice of every day or lived Islam and the more scriptural tenets of religious authorities remain as pervasive today as they were in the 19th century.71 Some Muslims drink, and alcohol use, in particular, varies greatly among populations within the Muslim world. Despite rather strong textual injunctions against drink, it is medieval Muslim chemists who are credited with developing

70

The Kayastha temperance movement, dating from 1888 across Western India and an exception to this trend, will be discussed in a subsequent chapter. Although the Kayasthas made a caste-wide attempt to proscribe alcohol with great success, the rationale for their movement was singularly barren of sanskritic elements or emphasis. See Carroll, Lucy. "Origins of the Kayastha Temperance Movement." Indian Economic and Social History Review 11, no. 4 (1974): 15 447. Alam, Anwar. "'Scholarly Islam' and 'Everyday Islam': Reflections on the Debate over Integration of the Muslim Minority in India and Western Europe." Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 27, no. 2 (2007): 19.

71

36 distillation practices that would later be imported into from Islamic Spain.72 Indeed, the very word, alcohol originates from the Arabic term, al-khul.73 Sources and Methodology

It is the fundamental position of this chapter and of the larger dissertation that totalizing, Said-inspired distinctions between colonizer and colonized, though of great analytical value in many cases, are not equally suitable towards all situations, even within the colonial context.74 Subaltern scholars have long observed that a single category for all colonized people belies a level of simplicity, obscuring a host of complicated, unequal power relationships among colonized peoples.75 It can be similarly misleading to place all white British subjects living in India into the broad category of colonizer.76

Michalic, Laurence. "Alcohol and Islam: An Overview." Contemporary Drug Problems 33, no. 4 (2006): 40.
73

72

Chatterjee, Prasun. "The Lives of Alcohol in Pre-Colonial India." The Medieval Journal 8, no. 1 (2005): 36. One example of the perils of bipolar analysis can be seen in the works of Bernard Cohn and Christopher Bayly, both of whom examine the creating of imperial knowledge. Cohn assumes a neat division of actorscolonizers and the colonized. This distinction works reasonably well for analytical purposes but does not fit neatly with the underlying complexity of the interpersonal relationships between Indians and British administrators that Bayly describes. See Bernard S. Cohn, Colonialism and its forms of knowledge : the British in India, Princeton studies in culture/power/history (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996). And C. A. Bayly, Empire and information : intelligence gathering and social communication in India, 1780-1870, Cambridge studies in Indian history and society ; (Cambridge, [England] ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

74

Guha, Ranajit. "On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India." In Subaltern Studies I, edited by Ranajit Guha, 1-8. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982. Jeffrey Cox has demonstrated that the divergent interests of British missionaries often placed them at loggerheads with colonial authorities. See Cox, Jeffrey. Imperial Fault Lines : Christianity and Colonial Power in India, 1818-1940. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002. Harald Fischer-Tine has looked closely at the white population of colonial India, finding that approximately half of them at any given time were decidedly lower-class or, low and licentious. This population represented yet another other with which Government struggled to contain and control. See Fischer-Tine, Harald. Low and Licentious Europeans: Race, Class and 'White Subalternity' in Colonial India. Edited by Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Peter Cain, Mark Harrison and Michael Worboys, New Perspectives in South Asian History. New Delhi: Black Swan, 2010.
76

75

37 Similarly, with regard to alcohol policy in the Bombay Presidency in the late 19th century, the opinions and motives of British and Indian bureaucrats defy neat categorization. This is particularly problematic with regard to one of the sources frequently used in this chapter. Administrators began Native Newspaper Reports (NNR) in 1863 to increase awareness of the Indian public mood. NNR editors scanned newspapers in English and in Indian languages, reporting (and translating, when necessary) native criticism of government. Many of the original newspapers on which NNR reported have vanished, leaving NNR as the sole, remaining evidence they were ever published. More frequently than not, those who edited NNR were Indians with the requisite language skills to find sentiments in Indian languages critical of government policies and translate them into English. Unfortunately, little more is known regarding the institutional machine responsible for the production of NNR.77 Even less has been written regarding the individual Indian editors of NNR who are virtually invisible in NNR texts at the superficial level. Here lies the most problematic aspect of the NNRs. The personal motivations of NNR editors are all but impossible to ascertain in light of the very little information known about them. Given this lack of information it is, perhaps, more feasible to discuss what the NNR is not. Firstly, it cannot by described in the dichotomous sense as a solely imperial document. They were, after all, mostly constructed by IndiansIndians with some level of investment in extant colonial power-structures, to be sure, but whose position as Indian

Despite the centrality of NNR as a source for the history of Colonial India, historians have been slow to investigate how they were compiled and how they should be interpreted. Sanjay Joshi presented a paper at the Western Conference of the Association for Asian Studies in 2002 entitled, Making of Native Newspaper Reports in Colonial India. Dr. Joshi has requested that I do not quote or cite the paper as he plans to publish an article on the matter.

77

38 colonial bureaucrats obscures their perspectives. Indeed at the most basic level, NNR is a colonial document, fundamentally predicated on the need to defend and extend uneven power structures. On the other hand, the motives and intent of Indians within the colonial bureaucracy, the editors of NNRs, were not necessarily congruent with the aims of the administrators ordering their production. Still, NNR were, at bottom, a technology of control, and as such they relied upon the types of specific information that were not particularly susceptible to distortion. British administrators relied on NNR for information regarding public opinion. Especially in the case of abkari policy, the devil is in the details.78 Complaints against abkari policy as present in NNRs and surviving petitions are uniquely specific. The location of a liquor shop, hours of operation and state-regulated prices for alcohol leave little room for interpretation. The frequent iteration of public complaints against abkari policy lends credibility to NNRs of the 1880s and 1890s used in this chapter. Abkari policy was so controversial that it provoked a long string of responses from numerous Bombay Presidency newspapers. Criticism was sufficiently common that certain themes emerge from many sources. NNRs refract the objective reality of Indian public opinion through the lens of the handful of Indian bureaucrats responsible for editing them. Although the individual perspectives of editors (only three in number over the course of 20 years) undoubtedly influenced NNRs, their biases were fairly static. That is to say, the effect of the lens is predictable. The tone of the translations, for instance, tends to cast as unreasonable criticism of government. It is reasonable then to argue that the tone of the
78

Abkari refers to excise taxes applicable to the production and sale of alcohol.

39 translations appearing in NNR are more likely a reflection of the editor/translators biases than of the original (often no longer extant) texts. Another factor bolstering the credibility of NNR as used here stems from a congruence between NNR content and that of unmediated texts written by critics of government. These include Indian critics such as P.B. Dantra, D.E. Wacha, G.A. Dorabji, P.M. Mehta, and M.J. Taleyarkhan.79 As will become clear below, there is a great deal of similarity in the substance of complaints, including the verbiage used to express them, between Indian critics of abkari policy and the text of NNR. Complaints about specific abkari policies appear to have been sufficiently widespread in Western India that little misinterpretation, accidental or intentional, was probable. Internal Government documents were informed by prejudices of their colonial context, but they were also informed by facts on the ground. That is to say, colonial forms of knowledge had to correspond to varying degrees of objective reality to have any utility.80 This is particularly applicable in the case of observations on drinking practices. Without an across the board income tax, excise generally and abkari in particular constituted a large percentage of the total revenue of the Presidencies. For example, of the 7,56,994 rupees in total revenue in 1882 for the islands of Bombay and Kolaba,

79

These men will be introduced in greater detail as the texts they created are cited below.

80

Political scientist James Scott notes that the ability of a bureaucracy to finely tune administration is predicated upon what he calls legibility. This legibility functions like an abridged map, representing, not reality, but only those activities that, interested the observer. As taxation interested colonial administrators quite a bit, a higher degree of veracity than that more commonly associated with the colonial archive can reasonably be assumed. See Scott, James C. Seeing Like a State : How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, The Yale Isps Series. New Haven [Conn.] ; London: Yale University Press, 1998.

40 5,33,931 rupees were from abkari alone.81 Constituting such a large majority of total revenue, abkari was a matter of grave importance for administrators.82 Finally, I mention here the problems inherent with using archival materials to piece together the opinions of subaltern populationsin this case, drinkers and smallscale liquor producers. Perhaps even more so than on most topics, discourse on alcohol is suffused with paternalism. Virtually all parties for whom a written record exists explicitly claimed to speak on behalf of the poor. British administrators cited their desire to decrease intemperance among the poor as a key rationale for their policies. Parsis and well-to-do Bhandaris petitioned government with carefully-constructed memorials with the avowed goal of mitigating the suffering of small-scale producers caused by the 1878 Abkari Act. Just as government had its interests that shaped their understanding of abkari policy, so too did the elite Indians protesting government policy. Several Indian critics of the policy had a significant financial stake in alcohol production. Wealthy Parsis, the community from which most of the written criticism emerged, were often involved in the alcohol trade, whether that be in actually producing alcohol or in renting out toddy palms to Bhandaris for tapping. With such a vested interest, why then assign credibility to their writings on the matter? The clearest case for doing so lies in the two strikes described in this chapter, the Bhandari Strike and the Liquor Strike. In both cases, internal

81

Douglas, James. Bombay and Western India: A Series of Stray Papers. Vol. I. London: Sampson, Low, Marston & Co., 1893, 97. Kolaba is an island in the city of Bombay.

Receipts from abkari revenue only increased until the introduction of prohibition under the Congress provincial governments formed in 1938. For example, in 1932, abkari receipts accounted for 23.5% of British Indias revenue. See C. Rajagopalachari, "On Prohibition," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1932 C. nd).

82

41 government correspondence, NNR, elite Indian critics, and later temperance activists consistently referred to the strikes as spontaneous, emerging among the poor themselves. In a context where social control over poor Indians was hotly contested, all concerned parties bemusedly lamented their lack of control over the collective action of the drinking classes. Similarly, all interested parties seemed to agree on the motivations behind the strikes, even when at odds with their own, lending more credence to the goals as described in petitions, public criticism, and government documents. Drinking in Western India, 1790-1879 Determining precisely which classes, castes, genders, and confessional groups engaged in drinking before the temperance movement arrived in India in the late 1880s is a challenge due to the kind of information preserved in state archives. Government records for these purposes are necessarily patchy in that the administrators who collected them were more concerned with revenue extraction rather than the sociology of drinkers. Yet revenue extraction required some knowledge of the sociology of drinking in Western India. The earliest records to this effect are from British excise administrators who were motivated to keenly observe local drinking practices in order to maximize tax revenue on fermentable vegetable products, on distillation units, and on distilled or brewed spirits. From 1790, British administrators in Bombay began assessing a special excise tax on distilled country spirit along with similar taxes on opium, and ganja.83 The overarching goal of efficient (from the perspective of the Government) revenue extraction mitigates,

India, Government of. Report of the Prohibition Enquiry Committee 1954-55. Delhi: Government of India Press, 1955.

83

42 to some extent, the inherent problems of colonial recordsbias and misrepresentation, both intentional and not. Tax farming was the preferred method for generating excise revenue. Under this system, country liquor and toddy production were highly decentralized. The Raj sold licenses on receipt of a fee, to manufacture and sell liquor. It was in the interest of the tax farmer to sell as much liquor as possible since the excise tax was assessed independently of the volume of liquor sold.84 No quantitative measure of alcohol consumption was possible under such a system. Before the implementation of the 1878 Abkari Act the manner for collecting tax on alcohol varied greatly in the Bombay Presidency.85 In Thana, British administrators continued the practices established before the district came under their rule. Alcohol itself was untaxed but palm trees used for brewing toddy were levied and collected under land revenue.86 More commonly, administrators collected the bulk of abkari revenue from auctioning licenses to tax farmers for the right to manufacture and sell alcohol, which they could do without further interference from the Government. These auctions allowed the Government to take all its profits in a lump sum annually. From an enforcement perspective, this system required nothing more than ensuring that sellers had purchased the requisite licenses to ply their trade. Licensed vendors held monopolies

84

India, Report of the Prohibition Enquiry Committee 1954-55.

85

It should be added here that alcohol policy continued to vary greatly by locality even after the 1878 Abkari Act. Despite the relatively large variation persisting after implementation, the act was an attempt to standardize, to the degree possible, alcohol policy. This goal was frustrated by the myriad circumstances leading to British dominion or stewardship of a given locality.

86

Saldanha, Indra Munshi. "On Drinking and 'Drunkenness': History of Liquor in Colonial India." Economic and Polical Weekly 30, no. 37 (1995): 9, 2323.

43 over several villages. Policing was a simple matter since vendors, with an incentive to ensure that their competitors also held licenses, could be counted on to detect illicit distillation and vending. There were numerous administrative and political problems with this system. Sellers had an incentive to sell more alcohol because, after the license fee was recouped, the remaining sales over a given year brought in much greater profit.87 Farmers had free reign to sell adulterated or weakened spirits for whatever price the market would bear; under the monopoly system, the market could bear quite a bit. A single license-holding tax farmer could operate as many distilleries as he wished, contributing to a dramatic increase in the number of stills. Government found its take at auctions damaged by combinations of bidders, determined to keep down the price of the licenses.88 It also impaired the states ability to surveil drinking habits. Since no figures were kept regarding the volume of sales, administrators lacked the requisite information for setting auction prices to maximize revenue. Administrators were faced with, from their perspective, an inefficient excise system an increase in the volume of liquor produced, and an increase in drunkenness that alarmed even the ordinarily staid collectors professed alarm.89 While official records are somewhat sketchy, some additional evidence suggesting the extent of alcohol use in the Bombay area presents itself in the form of a
87

Hunter, William Wilson. Bombay 1885 to 1890: A Study on Indian Administration. Bombay: B.M. Malabari, Indian Spectator Office, 1900. Saldanha, Indra Munshi. "On Drinking and 'Drunkenness': History of Liquor in Colonial India." Economic and Polical Weekly 30, no. 37 (1995): 9.

88

"Report of the Excise Committee Appointed by the Government of Bombay 1922-23." edited by Revenue. Bombay: Government Central Press, 1924.

89

44 widespread abstention movement. The 1878 Abkari Act proved to be extremely controversial, particularly among the lower classes of society. Alcohol seems to have been sufficiently embedded among some groups that they responded to the 1878 Act by swearing off alcohol en masse. The reason for this, the first sweeping prohibition movement in North India, differs dramatically from those that would come later. This first agitation regarding drink in the Bombay state was neither aimed at decreasing drunkenness nor increasing temperance. Rather, its goal was to realize a reduction in the sharply increased duty on country liquor and toddy and to reduce the government regulation that was steadily forcing small-scale producers and sellers of alcohol out of the market. The very geography of the environs of Bombay city was conducive to the production of alcoholic drinks. Much as today, the low lying areas near the coast are dotted with palm trees which can be tapped for a fermentable juice known as toddy.90 This toddy can easily be distilled into more powerful country liquor.91 The hilly terrain

Toddy is the fermented juice of the toddy palm. The term, toddy, was often used loosely and could also refer to beverages made from date and brab palms. Toddy is produced by cutting a flower-stalk at the top of the tree. The cut stalk oozes sweet sap in the form of unfermented toddy juice, or nira, collected in the pot. Full pots of sap were then placed in the sun to maximize heat and speed up the fermentation process, usually about 24 hours. Toddy is approximately 3-4% alcohol by volume. Finished toddy can then be distilled to yield alcohol levels commensurate with other distilled alcohols such as corn whiskey or rum. Distilled toddy is most commonly called country liquor. The Bhandari still was described as consisting of two earthen pots, connected together by a hollow piece of wood; the larger pot is the boiler, and contains the toddy, the steam of which passes through the tube into the other pot or condenser which is partly buried under ground and is every now and then sprinkled with water. See Whitworth, George Clifford. An AngloIndian Dictionary: A Glossary of Indian Terms Used in English, and of Such English or Other Non-Indian Terms as Have Obtain Special Meanings in India. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1885.
91

90

C.B. Pritchard, Collector for Bombay in the 1880s described the process as follows: A pot of fermented toddy can be converted into a ready-charged still, and distillation can be set going anywhere in less than five minutes. All the apparatus necessary, beside the pot of toddy, is an earthen saucer (and a little wet earth) with which to close tightly the mouth of the pot; also a small bowl to be placed floating on the surface of the toddy in the pot. If a pot of fermented thus made is set up to boil, and the saucer which closes its mouth is kept cool by pouring water on it, the spirit given off from the toddy in the shape of steam is condensed on the under side of the saucer, and drips from the saucer into the bowl floating on the

45 around the city provided fertile ground for the indigenous Mhowra or Mahua tree (Bassia Latifolia), whose flowers, blooming for a few weeks each year, can be crushed and brewed. Castes of relatively low status, such as the Bhandaris and Kolis, as well as Bhils in the Bombay area collected these 92flowers for fermentation and distillation into fairly potent country liquor for both sale and domestic use. Although toddy pots could be spotted easily among groves and in population centers and thus broken or knocked to the ground, rural areas and isolated toddy trees proved trying for excise police. Even more challenging from a regulatory standpoint, the Mhowra trees flowers could be picked for fermentation and distillation virtually anywhere. Isolated gullies and streams leading from the Western Ghats to the sea were dotted with tiny distilleries like the one below.

toddy to receive it. Two or three bottles of strong spirit can be made by this simple process in a couple of hours from an ordinary-sized pot of toddy. The distillation can be carried on anywhere, in the houses, in the fields, or in the jungles; wood and water are plentiful in the coast talukas. See Hunter, William Wilson. Bombay 1885 to 1890: A Study on Indian Administration. Bombay: B.M. Malabari, Indian Spectator Office, 1900. Image from Vikramfind info for proper citation. The above photo, taken in 2009, is of a small still operated by a group of Bhils in the Narmada valley. The fermented flower-based solution is heated in the pot which sits atop hot coals. A bamboo collector funnels the gaseous alcohol into a pot, partly immersed in a stream. The stream causes the alcohol to condense into finished Mowhra liquor.
92

46

Figure 1. Mowhra Still Source: Vikramaditya Thakur, Yale University

While the paucity of sources make it challenging to know exactly how lower class people in the Bombay area thought about drink, it remains important not to project contemporary conceptions of alcohol use as a category onto them. One of the arguments frequently made by petitioners and journalists against the 1878 Abkari Act was that it was treating toddy, and to a lesser extent, mowhra liquor, as a luxury when it was seen by its consumers as a food. 1879, the year during which colonial administrators made it more difficult for people to make and drink toddy, followed one of the most disastrous

47 periods for Western India in terms of food production. The late 19th century witnessed a series of some of the worst famines it had seen in modern history.93 Indigenous alcohol production was highly decentralized and was fundamentally entangled with local economies. The scale of this production was sufficiently large that an entire caste numbering 79,259 in Bombay Presidency organized itself around its production.94 Although alcohol was doubtlessly fermented by individuals within numerous different castes, the Bhandaris of Western India of the low-ranking Sudra jati were most closely associated with it. The precise contractual arrangements for tapping the palm species that produced toddy juice varied a great deal from locality to locality. Extremely small scale production occurred in rural areas where the necessary palm, or palmyra, trees grew. More commonly, toddy groves were overseen by large landowners who sold the right to tap the trees to families of Bhandaris.95 The toddy then could be sold either at the foot of the tree or in toddy stands located in the poorer, out of the way sections of urban areas.96

93

See McAlpin, Michelle Burge. Subject to Famine : Food Crises and Economic Change in Western India, 1860-1920. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. And Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts : El Nio Famines and the Making of the Third World. London ; New York: Verso, 2001.

94

Government of India, The Indian Empire: Census of 1881, Statistics of Population, vol. II (Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Printing, India, 1883).

Over 1000 Landed Proprietors, Owners of Toddy Trees and ryots of the District of Thana. "Petition to His Excellency the Right Honourable Lord Reay." In Revenue, Bombay, 10. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1886.
96

95

Tree foot stands were not favored by administrators who complained that they were too diffuse and difficult to monitor, thus opening the door to illicit distillation and sale. In most districts they were eliminated by the 1878 Abkari Act in favor of toddy shops, located away from the groves. See Moore, J.G. , Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Abkari. "Confidential Letter to J. Nugent, Secretary to Government, Revenue Department, Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1885.

48 Generally speaking, Bhandaris did not drink the products of their labor, particularly in its fermented state.97 Drinking fermented toddy was considered a serious offence, one that could be answered by expulsion from the caste.98 Although the Bhandari caste was occupationally associated with the production of toddy, their abstention from its use afforded them the claim to a higher level of purity. Toddy production was quite labor intensive. The nature of their work required that Bhandaris climb the very high toddy palm to obtain juice expressed from cut flowers at the top of tree, collected in a clay pot. Bhandaris also had to care for the trees, watering when necessary, fertilizing with manure or night-soil, and checking daily for the goliath beetle, a common pest that had to be removed manually before it killed the tree.99 Precisely how these tasks were performed and by whom--that is, men or women, does not appear in period sources. Drinking among non-Brahmans appears to have been common.100 In a cash-poor society, many groups made, sold and drank toddy, using it as barter for the commonest

Bhandaris themselves claimed to the Kshatriyas, stemming from their assertion that they had historically acted as treasury guards for the Peshwars of the 18th century. See Reginald Edward Enthoven, The tribes and castes of Bombay, Native races of India. (Delhi: Cosmo Publications, 1975). Bhattacharya, Jogendra Nath. Hindu Castes and Sects: An Exposition of the Origin of the Hindu Caste System and the Bearing of Sects Towards Each Other and Towards Other Religious Systems. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co., 1896, 260. Barlow, Edward. Indian Museum Notes, Issued by the Trustees. Vol. V. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1900, 38.
100 99 98

97

Castes comprising the drinking classes include Dharallas, Rajputs (Girassias), Kolis,Khastris, Adivasis, Dheds and other poorer classes. See John Lorimer, Superintendent, Opium Preventive Services, "Letter to Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Abkari," in Revenue, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1905).

49 of human needs instead of coins.101 It was a significant part of village economies and conferred some social power on toddy sellers who could then sell alcohol on credit. These sellers would complain vociferously when, in 1882, the Government of Bombay forbade the recovery of money for credit extended to alcohol buyers.102 Families of meager means could also use it as a household industry to help finance their needs. Populations most likely to engage in frequent drinking were largely below the radar of those who wrote documents that would eventually make their way into extant archives. The best records we have to make sense of exactly who was drinking and in what quantities comes from different groups who alternatively had a vested interested in either their continued drinking or who agitated for temperance. British administrators, particularly tax collectors and assessors, provide some of the most comprehensive data on the drinking classes because their relationship was much more dynamic. Some collectors seemed to have had a legitimate concern regarding the amount of drinking among the poor and sympathized openly with the aims of temperance reformers both native and Euro-American. Others, possibly solely from the perspective of revenue collection, professed concern for the rights of drinkers to choose to imbibe.103 At no point was the ambiguity of the colonial states position related to alcohol consumption made more manifest than during the public reaction to the implementation

101

See Quarterly Journal of the Hindu Sabha 20, no. 40 (1892): 40. See also India, Report of the Prohibition Enquiry Committee 1954-55. Members of the Agri and Koli castes in Bombay, though not traditionally associated with toddy tapping to the degree of Bhandaris, were known to supplement their income with illicit alcohol production. Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 1. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1882.

102

Anti-temperance activists deployed the same rationale in the United States and in Britain. See Craig Heron, Booze : a distilled history (Toronto, Ont.: Between the Lines, 2003).

103

50 of the 1878 Abkari Act from 1879 through the early 1890s. Administrators had professed two reasons for enacting the new excise policy. First there was a need to respond to growing criticism over a perceived increase in alcohol production from both European temperance activists and Indian nationalists arguing for constitutional reform; second, there was a frank need to increase state revenue. The controversial act went into force in 1879. The 1878 Abkari Act Bombays administrators came to believe that abkari reform was urgently required for a number of reasons. The problems administrators saw with the pre-reform system included the costs of selling great numbers of licenses increased government expenditure. Also, only capitalists could afford to purchase [tax] farms, and their tendency was to keep down the prices offered [at auctions]. From a moral point of view it was impolitic, because farmers naturally tried to push their sales, and neither endeavoured nor desired to put a check on consumption.104 Most important for Bombays government, from the revenue point of view, it was unprofitable.105 As one government apologist explained, the new system was introduced to check these evils.106 Passed on 19th September, 1878, the Abkari Act was ambitious in scope. The entire Bombay Presidency fell under its purview. Its authors, primarily C.B. Pritchard,

William Wilson Hunter, Bombay 1885 to 1890: A Study on Indian Administration (Bombay: B.M. Malabari, Indian Spectator Office, 1900).
105

104

Ibid. Ibid.

106

51 Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium, and abkari for Bombay, sought to dramatically alter this arrangement. The act placed alcoholic beverages under three categories toddy, liquor (imported), and country-liquor (liquor produced in India).107 Many of the complaints against the law stem from the aforementioned distinctions between different kinds of alcohol. Prior to the act, liquor in all its forms could be sold by anyone on payment of a license fee. This was the only mode of revenue extraction for toddy prior to enforcement of the new act in 1879 which brought the tax farming or farming system into force. Would-be alcohol sellers could only obtain the right to do so by purchasing a monopoly at a government-operated tender or auction. The winner of the monopoly had the sole right to manufacture or sell liquor within the boundaries of his district. Some producers managed to hold monopolies in multiple districts. At the same time, the new law also increased the tax payable on the toddy trees themselves. All toddy-producing trees were subject to a duty that increased from as little Rs 1 to Rs 16 with almost annual additional increases. P.B. Dantra, a Parsi in possession of many toddy trees, described the situation facing Bhandaris in the district of Salsette: the tree tax is Ra. 16, rent Rs. 4, and the selling price is 8 pies or say 4 annas per gallon; the average yield according to the Government Resolution is 80 gallons, 80 by 4 as. = Rs. 20. These Rs. 20 is the income of a Bhandary [sic] and the same amount he has to pay only in tax and rent, and then what can he live upon? There is no fixed price in Bombay city now, but by the ill advice of the Abkari Department, the Government is going to fix selling price in Bombay at 9 pies or 4 annas per gallon, and in Thana and Colaba district at 6 pies per bottle, or 3 annas per gallon; the income of a dealer in Mahim on 80 gallons at 4 annas is Rs. 22 per tree, and the net profit Rs. 3 per tree, after
107

India, Government of. "Bombay Act No. V of 1878." In The Bombay Code in Four Volumes: The Unrepealed Acts of the Governor of Bombay in Council in Force in Bombay, from 1862-1887, Inclusive: And a Chronological Table of Enactments Reproduced in the Volume, 583-607. Calcutta: Government of India, 1907.

52 deducting Rs. 19 as alluded to above. In Girgaum on 50 gallons at 4 annas, the income will be Ra. 14 that is a loss of Rs. 5.108 Government fixed the price of toddy so low that considering the heavy tree tax and other expensesthat the licensees could not carry on their trade with honesty.109 This resulted in great pecuniary loss to the wealthy landowners, primarily Parsis, who formed the Bombay liquor lobby. More tragically, it placed thousands of Bandharis whose hardscrabble lives were predicated on the tapping of toddy in a pitiable condition. Responses to the Act Popular responses to this act reveal Western Indian drinking practices strikingly at odds with the rhetoric of abstemious India described by temperance advocates of all stripes. In fact, popular responses to the Abkari Act represent the first large-scale, organized public opposition to public drinking- but to an intriguing end; the reasons behind this public opposition were antithetical to the rationale for later temperance movement, indeed, even to the stated goals of the nascent contemporary temperance movement. Large swaths of the drinking classes refrained from drink in protest of

higher prices and greater difficulties in procuring it. Activists were protesting to lower the price of alcohol and roll back certain regulations in the 1878 Act that proved troublesome for small producers and vendors. The terms of licenses granted demanded that vendors keep detailed records keeping an up to date register in a bound book, paged and sealed with the Collector's seal, plain and
108

Dantra, Pestanjee Byramjee. "Appendices: The Bombay Abkari Administration." In Indian Abkari Administration, Being Notes on the Despatch of the Government of India, Relating to the System of Licenses for the Distillation and Sale of Spiritous Liquors in Force in the Various Provinces of India, Presented to the House of Commons, edited by Dinshaw E. Wacha, 57-106. Bombay: Bombay Gazette Steam Press, 1888, 74 Ibid, 73.

109

53 correct accounts showing the quantities of toddy received into and sold at his shop.110 Collectors, or their surrogates, had the right to demand at any moment that vendors produce those records. Failure to so could result in the immediate revocation of their licenses and, inevitably, livelihoods. The resulting tensions arising from the new regulations for alcohol use pitted two coalitions against each other, both claiming to act on behalf of the poor and downtrodden. Activists, mostly western in the 19th century with a handful of conservative Indians, championed the cause of temperance, hoping to rescue the wretched of the earth from the sin or pollution of alcohol.111 For this reason, they strongly opposed the 1878 Act which had the effect of rationalizing the consumption of alcohol, rendering it more respectable through the imprimatur of the state. Others, based on both their own commercial interests and stated concern for the economic wellbeing and personal rights of the drinking poor, sought to mitigate or reverse the damage caused by the 1878 Abkari Act. Long before temperance agitation would reach its acme in India, it featured prominently in British politics. The record-keeping of the colonial state created a metric for alcohol consumption in India; these showed a striking increase after 1879. The annual average revenue from fixed alcohol taxes for 1878 and the five years before it was Rs. 11,99,688; by 1880 this had increased to Rs. 25,93,792. By 1881 this revenue had again increased to 38,32,858. During this same period, taxes on toddy plummeted from
Bombay, Government of. "License for the Retail Sale of Palm Toddy." edited by Revenue. Bombay, 1884. These activists will be discussed in much greater detail in the following chapter. They included liberal, temperance-crusading M.P.s W.S. Caine and Samuel Smith. A small collection of missionaries like Thomas Evans also worked in India. Virtually all western temperance workers operating in India in the 19th century were associated with the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association (AITA). Members of the Womens Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) did not begin their work in India in earnest until the 1910s.
111 110

54 19,63,668 in 1878 to 11,24,809 in 1883, this despite much higher taxes on the drink. Toddy has less than 50% the alcohol of ale while country liquor alcohol level was on par with distilled grain alcohols.112 The revenue data certainly suggested that Indians were drinking more alcohol, and stronger alcohol.113 Whether the rise in abkari receipts provided unimpeachable data in terms of volumes consumption patterns is open to debate. As colonial officials would later argue, some of the increased revenue may well have been due to higher rates of regulation and record keeping rather to an actual increase in drinking. Nevertheless, annual increases in abkari revenue quickly raised the eyebrows of temperance advocates in Britain. In response, the 1886 Temperance Congress of Britain sent a petition to the Earl of Dufferin, then Viceroy of India, expressing alarm at, the habits of intemperance greatly on the increase, evidenced by the fact that excise revenue from spirits had more than doubled in the previous ten years. The President of the 1886 Temperance Congress, F. London, then made reference to a trope that would become increasingly popular over the decades, the notion that the historical drinking habits of all Indians was reducible to, the

Wacha, Dinshaw E. "Indian Abkari Administration, Being Notes on the Despatch of the Government of India, Relating to the System of Licenses for the Distillation and Sale of Spiritous Liquors in Force in the Various Provinces of India, Presented to the House of Commons on 4th August 1887." Bombay: Bombay Gazette Steam Press, 1888. The law dramatically reconfigured the production and sale of alcohol. It also changed the drinking habits of Indians who continued to imbibe through this period. While it remains hyperbolic to suggest that Indians, as a whole, were traditionally abstemious, it is nonetheless true that patterns of drinking changed dramatically during the period of British administration. This state of affairs is not unlike the destruction of the Indian textile industry in favor of the looms of Lancashire. In the case of Indian alcohol, a household industry that had once been extremely large, if diffuse, was suddenly replaced by a system encouraging large-scale, capital-intensive production of European-style liquors rather than beverages with a much longer Indian pedigree, toddy and Mowhra Liquor.
113

112

55 well-known fact that the religious and social customs of India ruling many centuries have frowned upon the use of intoxicating drink.114 Temperance Activism on the Eve of the Drink Strike Although European and American temperance advocates would eventually play an important role within the Indian temperance movement, they did not feature prominently in the first alcohol-related agitation in Western India from 1885-1890. Their role was primarily post facto, celebrating movements that they saw as similar enough to their own in impetus to disregard the significantly different meanings and goals behind them. A handful of petitions from abroad to the Governments of Bombay and India drifted in during the 1880s, most of these in protest of Governments crackdown on the liquor strike. Contra Lucy Carroll, the involvement of European and American temperance advocates in the earliest alcohol-related popular movement was more reactive than active.115 Seeing the abkari liquor strikes of the 1880s through temperance colored glasses, they all but ignored the underlying motivations of strikers and began the long process of reinventing the liquor strike as a genuine, if slightly misguided, temperance movement. Their tendency to essentialize Indians, with their heartfelt goal of reducing temperance, blinded British activists to the more complex realities that had provoked early Indian temperance advocacy and the fierce response to it. European and American temperance advocates will be discussed in much greater detail in chapter two.

London, F. "Letter to the Earl of Dufferin, Governor-General and Viceroy of India." In Revenue, Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1886. See Carroll, Lucy. "The Temperance Movement in India: Politics and Social Reform." Modern Asian Studies 10, no. 3 (1976): 30.
115

114

56 Temperance advocacy among Indians changed a great deal in the last two decades of the 19th century. Poona, a traditional capital of Hindu political regimes in Western India long known for its social conservatism, emerged as an early center for indigenous temperance activities from the 1882.116 The proliferation of alcohol shops in that area drew the ire of many. Poonas Anglo-Marathi newspaper, Dnyan Prakash, complained of the growing vice, expressing alarm at the growing number of liquor shops in the city. The paper expressed particular concern regarding the increase in drinking among the higher classes of Hindus, appealing to government to remove the liquor shops from main thoroughfares to an out-of-the-way locality.117 The authors wish to see shops moved to these, out-of-the-way localities is a departure from more generalized themes regarding concern for the poor. Clearly the author is most concerned with an alleged increase in intemperance among the well-to-do rather than among the urban population more generally. One can only assume that the localities to which he would like to see the shops removed were areas where the vice of alcohol belongedamong the poor, rather than around places of respectability.118 This effort was aimed at purifying only those Indians who could be purified, not the drinking classes at large.

This was when complaints about increasing drunkenness began appearing in the Government of Bombays Native Newspaper Reports. Prior to 1882, the only criticism to draw the attention of government was the frequent complaint that abkari laws were too severe and taxes to heavy. See Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Report, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1882.
117

116

Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 8. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886.

Writing in 1931, C. Rajagopalacharia, a key member of the Indian National Congress and Gandhis stalwart advocate in Tamil country, implied that the drinking classes were difficult to enumerate. He wrote that the movement of Total Abstinence is especially strong among those hitherto relegated to an inferior social status. Apart from the age long superstitions of caste gradation, and doubtful theories of race origins, their inferiority has been maintained by their hopeless poverty and indebtedness. See Rajagopalachari, C. "The War against Drink." In C. Rajagopalachari, 4. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931.C. Rajagopalachari, "The War Against Drink," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).

118

57 Poonas upper classes could take comfort from similar movements against alcohol in other Bombay Presidency cities like Ahmedabad. Having received a petition from the leading representatives of the people, warning of evil increasing daily as a result of the liquor trade, the district collector redirected their complaints to the Government of India.119 Thus two forces were at work, pushing alcohol-related concerns to a national level. The pleas of local, upper class Indians eventually arrived at the level of the Presidencies and the Government of India in Calcutta. Despite the protestations of local administrators to the contrary, they did have something of a free hand when it came to their decisions of local alcohol policy, as events would later show. On the one hand they were resistant to petitions threatening abkari receipts; on the other hand, they had a tendency to refer petitioners to higher levels of government. The success or failure of these petitions (more often the latter) were duly reported in the press further and further afield. Disputes regarding alcohol policy in Bombay appeared in the newspapers of Madras and Calcutta. In this way, criticism of a liquor shop on a given intersection in Poona was imbued with greater importance, not only by the passion stirred up by activists, but by institutional habits of administrators who referred their complaints to higher levels where they might die quiet deaths in the sea of paperwork in Bombay and Calcutta. In reporting on events across India, temperance journals played a role in the construction of the nation. This national attention directed at drinking included new concerns extending beyond the low-status people of the drinking class.

Pavgi, Raoji Bhavanrao. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 7-8. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1883.

119

58 The danger of the corruption of high-class Indians became a national issue. The newspapers of Poona expressed concerns regarding alcohol that were unique and that would eventually wane in the 20th century. The conservative Indian temperance activists of the 1880s saw Alcohol as toxic, not just to the drinker, but to the very social fabric. This was particularly true in cases where people outside the drinking classes chose to imbibe. A writer in the Marathi weekly, Poona Vaibhav warned that the vice of drinking was making, rapid strides in the city of Poona The lower classes have always been in the habit of drinking intoxicating liquors, but fortunately this vice was up to the present time confined to men.120 He describes the scenes of drunken women as revolting. What is more, the author laments, is that, even the well-to-do and educated natives are not free from this vicious habit. The conduct of these upper-class men was difficult for respectable persons to tolerate. Alcohol is seen as turning respectable society on its head. The challenge of alcohol is not so much the damage it inflicts on those who, have always been in the habit of drinking but, rather to the collapse of previously fundamental divisions between men and women, upper class and the poor. Not all localities featuring agitation against increased drunkenness had historically abstemious populations. Bombays Gujarati-language, Kaside Mumbai, reported in 1880 that during the last century not a single liquor shop was ever kept open all night on the Bhendi Bazaar thoroughfare[but that] they were now kept open all night.121 Given the descriptions of heavy drinking among Bombays population, the implication that liquor was not previously available at all hours strikes one as rather
120

Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Report, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1882. Kurkaray, G.W. "Report on Native Newspapers, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1880.

121

59 dubious. Notwithstanding, it may well be the case that alcohol was not available after hours in a Bazaar that included respectable Indians among its patrons. Curiously, in 1880 a newspaper in Thana, a city near Bombay which would later become a center of the liquor strike in protest of high drink prices and regulation, shared the fears of their conservative brethren elsewhere. The Marathi language Arunodaya warned that the use of intoxicating liquors would soon become a national vice in India on par with the use of opium in China.122 Two years later in 1882, when the liquor strike was in full swing in Thana, the editor/translator of the Government of Bombays Report on Native Newspapers did not cite any further criticism of Government on the basis that it promoted drink. One of the perceived threats to morality was the notion that upper class Indians were drinking to emulate the behavior of Europeans. Bombays Indu Prakash warned in 1882 that the vice of drinking intoxicating liquors is making rapid strides among the higher classes of natives. Even more alarming, the author noted that, natives, considering that everything which Europeans do is right, began to imitate them in drinking intoxicating liquors. He went on to suggest that native officers in the service of Government should be called upon to sign a pledge of complete abstinence.123 It appears that at least some high-status Indians consciously emulated the drinking proclivities of Europeans so they might enjoy higher levels of success. As some level, this may well have been obligatory. For example, reports of Government-employed

122

Tarkhadkar, D.R. "Native Newspaper Report, Bombay." 20. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1880. Ibid.

123

60 Indians being pressed to share a drink with their Europeans supervisors were common.124 Yet conservative social commentators saw the behavior of those Indians who chose to imbibe as damaging much more than themselves. The drink-saturated bodies of higher class Indians polluted Indian culture and undermined native society.125 Indeed, those in the habit of drinking alcohol were beginning to exceed the ignorant men who once chose to do so.126 Increased drinking among the upper class was clearly a point of concern among various interest groups in Poona. A Parsi liquor contractor, G.A. Dorabji, hoping to open a factory for the production of rum saw his efforts stymied by a fellow Parsi, country liquor contractor of Poona, Mr. Dadabhoy Hormusjee and others, actuated by motives of self-interest.127 In an appeal to have his plans reconsidered by the Revenue Secretary of Bombay, he averred that, the consumption of my rum will not be among the high classes, but, entirely consumed amongst the middle classes.128 Dorabjis hope to see his plans come to fruition were based on a careful navigation of the alcohol market that

A writer for the Poona Vaibhav complained of late-night drunken carousing by Indian Government Servants. Similarly, a writer for Bombays Indu Prakash complained in 1882 that upper class Indians considered everything Europeans did as right and thus drank with impunity. R. Pringle, Surgeon Major for the Bengal Army, complained of educated Bengalis to whose existence brandy was thought to be necessary. See Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Report, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1882; Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 9. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1882; and Pringle, British and Colonial Temperance Congress. Edited by Frederick Temple. London: National Temperance Publication Depot, 1886.
125

124

Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 9. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1882.

Kohiyar, Jehangirshah E. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 18. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1881.
127

126

Dorabji, Ghasvala Adarji. "Letter to John Nugent, Secretary to Government, Revenue Department, Bombay." In Revenue, Maharashtra State Archives, 9. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1885. Italics added.

128

61 took into account the delicate question of exactly which Indians would be drinking his product. The Bhandari Strike of Western India, 1885-1886 Implementation of the 1878 abkari law triggered a number of responses in Western India and proved to have unintended consequences. Government found itself under attack by both upper-class, conservative elements and by those who sold and consumed alcohol. Drinking patterns among Indians changed, both in terms of who constituted the drinking population and what kind of drinks were consumed. The Acts implementation also significantly influenced the small-scale village economies within which the majority of Indians operated. Entire castes of people who produced or drank alcohol found themselves pitted against both the Government and its temperance critics. A great deal of anger smoldered among poorer populations, eventually resulting in a large-scale social movementa drink strikewhich European Temperance advocates and the nascent nationalist movement would both desperately try to co-opt. Under the licensed outstill system prevalent in the Bombay Presidency before 1879, individuals paid a flat fee for the right to produce and vend toddy. 129 Restrictions were few and, by all accounts, Bhandaris to carried on a brisk trade. From 1879, contracts offered by Government represented a significant departure from this precedent. The stipulations of the new license warrant quoting at length,

129

India, Government of. Report of the Prohibition Enquiry Committee 1954-55. Delhi: Government of India Press, 1955, 2-3.

62 At the time of the issue of his license, he shall have received and agreed to the conditions of a separate license for tapping not less than 25 trees.130 He shall not have in his shop above described or sell any spirituous or fermented liquor or any toddy drawn from trees other than the date palms duly licensed to be tapped. The licensee shall not sell or keep or store toddy in any place except in his shop above described. He shall keep and sell toddy unadulterated and undiluted as drawn from the tree without any admixture of any liquid whatsoever. The licensee shall not keep his shop open or sell toddy after 9 oclock p.m., nor shall he open his shop or sell date toddy before 6 oclock a.m., nor shall he sell or give at any time any toddy to, or the use of, any non-commissioned officer or private European or Native army or to any Police Officer. The licensee shall keep in his said shop and write up daily in a bound book, paged and sealed with the Collectors seal, plain and correct accounts showing the quantities of toddy received into and sold at his shop. Such accounts and the whole stock of toddy in the licensees shop, shall always be open to inspection by the Collector, the Commissioner of Police or any officer deputed by the Collector or Commissioner of police to inspect the same. The licensee shall not allow any person to drink to intoxication in his shop, nor shall he permit disorderly persons to remain in his shop, or allow gambling there. He shall give immediate information to the nearest police officer of any suspected person who may resort to his shop, and of any irregularity tending to disturb the public peace. The police shall at all times have free access to every part of his shop for police purposes. He shall not receive any wearing apparel, or ornament, or any consideration except coin, for any toddy that he may sell. He shall not sell more than four gallons of toddy to any one person in a given day.131 As can be seen, only those Bhandaris able to tap a sizable grove could obtain a license for tapping toddy trees could obtain a license for vending the toddy. No less than 25 trees could be tapped by a single licensee, a threshold preventing many small-scale producers from supplementing their income by tapping a small number of trees. Writing against the Abkari Act, D.E. Wacha, early nationalist and Parsi from Bombay, averred that a
This minimum number of trees to tap for a license varied district by district, ranging from as little as 25 to as many as 100. Bombay, Government of. "License for the Retail Sale of Palm Toddy." edited by Revenue. Bombay, 1884. The Parsi landowner, P.B. Dantra noted that the four gallon limit did not apply to other forms of alcohol such as country and foreign liquor. He argued that the four gallon limit was yet more proof that the true aim of the 1878 Abkari act was to phase out the use of toddy. See Dantra, Pestanjee Byramjee. "Appendices: The Bombay Abkari Administration." In Indian Abkari Administration, Being Notes on the Despatch of the Government of India, Relating to the System of Licenses for the Distillation and Sale of Spiritous Liquors in Force in the Various Provinces of India, Presented to the House of Commons, edited by Dinshaw E. Wacha, 57-106. Bombay: Bombay Gazette Steam Press, 1888.
131 130

63 Bhandari can hardly tap 15 trees in a day.132 This meant that Bhandaris who continued their trade would be as underworked as they were underpaid. Most burdensome for licensees was the detailed record keeping requirement. Surats Anglo-Gujarati language newspaper, Gujarati Mitra, observed the harshness of the license requirements, noting that, the vendors of liquors are not educated and good accountants and that they, often commit mistakesand are fined for such faults.133 P.M. Mehta, early nationalist, barrister, and member of the 1886 Abkari commission tasked with investigating the alleged severity of alcohol policy, noted that the class of people going into these shops is hardly able to read or write, thus, record keeping, involved a considerable amount of time and trouble.134 Bhandari petitioners complained explicitly of, the stringent rules for the sale of toddy.135 The new scale of toddy enterprises and the extensive documentation required drove out small producers in favor of wealthier, large-scale producers. After 1897 it was the Parsis, with had greater capital reserves and literacy rates than Bhandaris, who filled the void created by Governments regulation of the liquor trade. Even if this did result in some pecuniary benefit for some within the Parsi community, it created resistance among individual Parsis. Bombays noted Parsi nationalist and temperance activist, Dinshaw

Wacha, Dinshaw E. "Indian Abkari Administration, Being Notes on the Despatch of the Government of India, Relating to the System of Licenses for the Distillation and Sale of Spiritous Liquors in Force in the Various Provinces of India, Presented to the House of Commons on 4th August 1887." Bombay: Bombay Gazette Steam Press, 1888, 74.
133

132

Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1884.

Mehta, P.M. "Address of P.M. Mehta before the Abkari Commission Consisting of Mr. J.H. Grant (President), Sir Frank Souter and Mr. Sorabjee Shapoorjee Bengalee." In Revenue, Bombay, 11. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1886.
135

134

Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 13. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1884.

64 Edulji Waccha, went so far as to sign a petition in favor of the Bhandaris, warning that new liquor monopolists had incentive to adulterate their drinks.136 Other Parsis were less sympathetic to the plight of the Bhandaris. Bombays Gujerati-language, Parsi Punch, featured an editorial cartoon described by the editor/translator of Native Newspaper reports as, representing a Bhandari in the act of adulterating liquor with the following letter-press below it:--A Bombay Liquorvalla Well, I can't help it. When Sirkar takes such exhorbitant fees, no course is left to a poor devil like myself but to adulterate and use chillies and tobacco-leaves and all sorts of things to keep my trade up! Another Gujarati-language Bombay newspaper, Jame Jamshed, printed a letter observing that, the number of Parsi liquor shops has increased in proportion to the decrease of the Bhandari liquor shops, and that the liquor sellers are thriving. The authors of the letter credited the relative success of the Paris vis--vis the Bhandaris to their intelligence in achieving success in business, and their ability to work on a larger scale. As Wacchas petition shows, opinion among the Parsi community varied considerably with regard to the impact of the 1878 law on Bhandaris. Yet accusations regarding the adulteration of liquor did not hit the Bhandaris alone. Many petitioners argued that adulteration was occurring across the board as a direct response to the new abkari law. D.E. Waccha argued that, limiting the number of toddy shops [was] a direct incentiveto adulterate the drink.137 With monopolies, there was no competition and thus no pressure to earn the patronage of customers. If drinkers

Association, Bombay Presidency. "Petition to the Secretary to the Government, Revenue Department, Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 35. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1887.
137

136

Ibid.

65 disliked the products of their district liquor dealer, their only choice was to stop drinking it. A writer for Bombays Gujarati-language Kaiser i Hind warned, In the sharp competition to secure the contract the price of the monopoly has considerably risen and the abkari revenue has largely increased; but the liquors and toddy have become very dear. These articles being dear fraudulent admixtures are made in them, and the poor people, though paying a high price which they cannot conveniently afford, get mixtures which injure their health. 138 Administrators had been warned; as early as 1879, Bombay Samachar warned that, although adulteration was nothing new, it was certain to, increase by putting up licenses to public auction.139 Thus the new law consolidated the liquor trade into the hands of, a few rich persons, who will try to make as much profit as possible, and to increase that profit by, selling adulterated drinks.140 These early critics of the abkari law noted that it, at once, increased the revenue of the colonial state, profited only the rich who could trade in liquor on the scale required by Government, and poisoned the drinking classes with, mixtures which injure their health.141 Invited to speak before the abkari Commission to discuss the ill effects of the law, P.M. Mehtas warnings about the increase in adulteration fell on deaf ears.142 State revenues were higher and the bureaucrats duly resolute.

138

Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1884, 32.

139

Kurkaray, G.W. "Report on Native Newspapers, Bombay." 8. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1879, 11. Ibid. Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1884, 41.

140

141

142

Little documentation remains regarding the abkari commission held on October 5th, 1886, save the statements of P.M. Mehta. No substantive policy changes after the commission are evident.

66 Adulteration was not the sole threat to those Indians who consumed toddy with regularity. Wachas petition to the Government of Bombay averred that, from time immemorial [toddy] had been used by certain classes as a portion of their food. In times of famine the poorest in certain localities have been known to have subsisted on a small quantity of coarse grain, supplemented by toddy. From virtually the moment the law was enacted, memorialists and petitioners, rich and poor, noted the dependence of many upon toddy, calling it both a food of the poor, and a beverage of the poor. The always pithy P.B. Dantra differentiated between beer as the drink of the classes and toddy as the drink of the masses.143 Land-owning propagandists like the Parsi, Manekshah J. Taleyarkhan, joined the fray, noting that nothing was more common than to find the poorer classes, such as Kolis, Bhils, Warlis, Kunbis, and Parsis in certain tracts of the Mofussil, eating their rice with curry made of Toddy, which served to season the rice, and at the same time, afford considerable nourishment to the body.144 Even articles generally lamenting the increase in drunkenness in India left room for the use of toddy as a nutriment. Jame Jamshed noted that many survived the Gujarat famine of 1878 by mixing their meager fare with toddy and using as part of their food to pass over the crisis.145 A petition to Government from 1000 Landed Proprietors in 1886 also warned that the new law amounted to depriving the poor of, a portion of their
143

Dantra, Pestanjee Byramjee. "Appendices: The Bombay Abkari Administration." In Indian Abkari Administration, Being Notes on the Despatch of the Government of India, Relating to the System of Licenses for the Distillation and Sale of Spiritous Liquors in Force in the Various Provinces of India, Presented to the House of Commons, edited by Dinshaw E. Wacha, 57-106. Bombay: Bombay Gazette Steam Press, 1888, 92.

144

Taleyarkhan, Manekshah J. "Notes on the Taxation of Toddy in Bombay." Bombay: Industrial Press, 1885, 2.

Over 1000 Landed Proprietors, Owners of Toddy Trees and ryots of the District of Thana. "Petition to His Excellency the Right Honourable Lord Reay." In Revenue, Bombay, 10. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1886.

145

67 daily food.146 Although self-interest is likely at play in the case of landowners, many of them toddy tree owners, their criticisms were shared by many others. Virtually every native newspaper regularly inspected by the translators and editors of Native Newspaper Reports decried the harsh and barbarous rules, regulating, the food and drink of the people.147 In 1879, a mere two years after some of the most devastating famines in the history of modern India, the British government placed significant restrictions on the sale of a major food source. By 1885, the petitions and dissatisfaction expressed in the press had been of no avail. From 1879 the change in abkari laws placed toddy, the drink of the people, beyond the means of toddy drinkers. Much to the disappointment of concerned observers, these drinkers simply moved to more affordable alternatives such as illicit toddy and other intoxicants. Changes in drinking patterns generally involved recourse to more potent forms of alcohol such as European liquors and distilled country liquor. In fact, the new tax structure rendered the price of toddy, nearly equal to that of the cheaper kinds of European spirits.148 As a result, the people were driven to drink spirituous liquor, to their detriment.149 Some critics went so far as to accuse Government of willfully tempting our lower classes who are now content with country-made drinks, to stronger and more ardent spirits.150 In this sense, it is arguable that even if the numbers

146

Ibid. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 10-11. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1885. Kurkaray, G.W. "Report on Native Newspapers, Bombay." 7. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1879. Ibid.

147

148

149

Pavgi, Raoji Bhavanrao. "Native Newspapers Reports, Bombay." 5-6. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1883.

150

68 of drinkers had remained static, the potency of the drinks imbibed generally increased in the late 19th century. The consequent increase in European-style spirits increased drunkenness and, as Kaiser i Hinds correspondent put it, tended to destroy Native industry.151 While the Bombay Samachar may have been exaggerating with the claim that natives generally prefer English articles to native ones, it is fair to assume that the high duties associated with toddy pushed drinkers toward large-scale country liquor producers and English spirits.152 Thus critics like Thanas Marathi-language Suryodaya accused Government encouraging the use of European liquors at the sacrifice of the interests of country drinks, a charge that Government never bothered to explicitly deny.153 In the critics view, drinks were becoming more alcoholic and less Indian. Bombays Gujarati-language newspaper, Kaiser I Hind, was most explicit in its condemnation, reporting that some country liquor sellers were encouraged to instead take out licenses for the sale of European liquor. The situation led Kaiser i Hind to make an easy comparison with the destruction of much of Indias textile industry in favor of the merchants of Manchester.154 The new abkari law represented an obstacle in the way of indigenous industry.155 Pushed away from more traditional forms of alcohol such as toddy, those Indians who drank were moved toward the consumption of European
151

Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1884.

Patker, Atmaram V. "Report on the Native Newspapers, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1878. Pavgi, Raoji Bhavanrao. "Native Newspapers Report, Bombay." 6. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1883.
154 153

152

Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 16. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1884. Ibid.

155

69 liquors or, more commonly, country liquors produced in vast quantities that resembled European spirits in potency. Toddy production had historically been a decentralized affair, firmly embedded in the communities within which it was imbibed. Alcohol policy from the 1879 removed the means of alcohol production from the community to the factory while the labeled glass bottle replaced its unregulated hand-made ceramic predecessors. Increasingly, the material culture and economic relationships associated with the use of alcohol was externalized to the community. Along with the clanking bottles of brandy entered another force external to communities of drinkersthe abkari police. Abkari Police Implementation of the 1878 abkari law was the responsibility of the district collector. Each collector had at his disposal a local abkari force composed of inspectors, sub-inspectors and abkari police. The salaries of abkari police were paid by licensees entitled to produce or sell alcohol. Abkari police had the same powers as ordinary police but reported to the collector rather than to the inspector of police of a given district.156 Complaints against abkari police citing excessive force and venality were common. The onerous bookkeeping required by the law created a situation in which liquor vendors could scarcely conduct business without running afoul of the law. Dantra claimed that minor bookkeeping infractions were more often dealt with through payments of hushmoney to corrupt abkari inspectors.157 Surats Gujarati Mitra complained that when
156

Mackenzie, T.D. "Letter to Thana Collector's Office." edited by Revenue, 15. Thana: unpublished, 1884.

157

Dantra, Pestanjee Byramjee. "Appendices: The Bombay Abkari Administration." In Indian Abkari Administration, Being Notes on the Despatch of the Government of India, Relating to the System of Licenses for the Distillation and Sale of Spiritous Liquors in Force in the Various Provinces of India, Presented to the House of Commons, edited by Dinshaw E. Wacha, 57-106. Bombay: Bombay Gazette Steam Press, 1888, 93.

70 vendors were prosecuted for supposed infractions the unfortunate vendors faced punishment for evidence given solely by the Inspector and his peon.158 A license may have enabled one to sell alcohol, but it also placed the seller at the mercy of the abkari police. Abkari police had the right to investigate any conveyance or home. Private domestic spaces were routinely violated. Surats Gujarati Mitra lamented that abkari inspectors, without sufficient and reasonable cause, searched houses for contraband liquors, spreading consternation and awe among the people.159 Property could be confiscated for minor infractions. Yajdan Parast warned that, a cartman could be deprived of his cart and bullocksif he be employed by a smuggler for the surreptitious conveyance of toddy or spirits, a devastating blow to ones livelihood.160 With the power to dramatically alter the lives of those they surveilled, abkari police were feared members of the bureaucracy. Individual collectors had a great deal of latitude with regard to the enforcement of law, both in terms of vending law violations and contract payment from license holders. Occasionally local newspapers praised local collectors for their magnanimity but, more often, condemned them for high-handed enforcement or graft. When contracts were oversold and license holders found they could not pay agreed-upon rates, the collector could allow for delayed or deferred payment. Collectors did occasionally show leniency, but more often their enforcement of the statutes was characterized by severity and the

158

Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1884. Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Reports." 11-12. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1884. Kurkaray, G.W. "Report on Native Newspapers, Bombay." 10. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1879.

159

160

71 strictest letter of the law. In 1883, Surats Aglo-Gujarati language, Lok Mitra, accused individual collectors of, never listening to the complaints of the poor, and, never allowing any claim against Government to be valid.161 In the pages of the Presidencys newspapers, Indian critics frequently accused abkari police of specifically targeting the poor. The unreasonable severity, of revenue law enforcement had, given rise to the greatest distress and disaffection among the large and poor class of people.162 Several other newspapers answered the 1885 plea of Bombays English newspaper, The Indian Spectator, for the native press of Bombay [to take] combined action against the irregularities of the Abkari Department.163 Abkari rules had never before been so oppressive, the result of which The Indian Spectator described as slow starvation and legalized plunder.164 By 1888 little had changed; the

same newspaper would repeat its criticism of revenue policy, remarking that, mysterious are the ways of the abkari witches, and this mystery of iniquity is such as to make the angels weep.165 As early as 1879, the first year of the 1878 Abkari Acts implementation, the situation for Bhandaris became desperate. Owners of toddy palms, particularly the poor who could not engage in the trade on a large scale, were forced to cut down their trees to avoid incurring the wrath of the abkari police. By 1883, 1,10,000 toddy trees in Thana

161

Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 10. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1880.

Pavgi, Raoji Bhavanrao. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 3. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1883.
163

162

Sathe, G.M. "Natvie Newspaper Reports, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1885. Ibid. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 7. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1888.

164

165

72 district were left untapped owing to the to a tax rate ranging from Rs. 3 to Rs. 14 that could be assessed for each tree. Since the law required that licensees hold a minimum number of toddy trees, thousands of toddy tappers found themselves excluded from the only occupation they had ever known.166 The inability to tap toddy trees represented not only a loss of future profit, but also of investment capital.167 Complaining in 1882 of the iniquity of the law, a critic in the Indian Spectator reminded his readers that toddy trees were the product of years of care and financial investment, with Bhandaris having, nursed them and spent money on them for years.168 Ratnagiris Maratha-language Satya Shodhad argued that the almost annual increases in tax rates for toddy trees kept, the public mind in a state of ferment.169 In 1885, the collector of Bombay informed the Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium, and abkari of an interview he had granted with principal Bhandaris and toddyshop keepers who informed him that it had become, quite impossible to draw and manufacture toddy and spirit under existing conditions.170 The Bhandaris of Bombay

166

Munshi, Indra. "On Drinking and 'Drunkenness': History of Liquor in Colonial India." In State Intervention and Popular Response: Western India in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Mariam & Ruby Maloni Dossal, 127-46. Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1999, 130.

Toddy trees require a great deal of care. Seedlings were covered with white ash to repel ants and are watered every 2-3 days. By the fifth year, watering is then generally stopped. During the rains from its fifth to tenth year, a ditch is dug around the palm and its roots cut, and little sandbanks are raised round the tree to keep the rainwater from running off. In the ditch round the tree, 22 pounds of powdered dry fish manure is sprinkled and covered with earth and watered if there is no rain at the time. Toddy trees are also susceptible to pests for which detailed interventions are necessary. A well-watered and manured tree, in good soil, begins to yield when it is five years old. See Ferguson, J. Alll About the Cocoanut Palm Including Practical Instructions for Planting and Cultivation with Estimates Prepared for Expenditure and Receipts, a Special Chapter on Desiccating Cocoanut and Other Suitable Information from a Variety of Sources. Bombay: Thacker Spink & Co., 1904, 138-153.
168

167

Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 1. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1882. Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1884.

169

170

Grant, J.H. "Letter to J.G. Morley, Esq., Commisioner of Custom, Salt, Opium, and Abkari, Bombay Collector's Office." In Revenue, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1885.

73 who submitted a petition to change the policy saw their hopes dashed just as they had been for so many other petitioners. The Government of Bombay replied that they, declined to interfere with the orders of the local government on the subject of taxes on the sale of toddy spirit in Bombay.171 Thusly, government disregarded the pleas of Bhandaris and others involved in the liquor trade, both as producers and consumers. With few exceptions, outside of those associated with the Parsi liquor lobby, few nationalists answered the urgent call of Bombay Samachar in 1886 that native political associations take up the matter of alcohol policy.172 After five years of frustrated efforts, the Bhandaris had few avenues remaining for fighting against the new alcohol regulations. In July of 1885, Abkari Commissioner, J.H. Grant acknowledged receipt of an, urgent telegram from the collector of Bombay. The telegram announced the news that, no bids have been offered for toddy spirit shop licenses for the following year.173 In a remarkable show of solidarity, of the approximately 80,000 Bhandari males in Bombay Presidency, not a single one put in a bid to tap toddy in the City of Bombay.174 In response, R.J. Moore, Collector for Bombay, enthusiastically drew up plans to break the strike by, making some permanent arrangement for the manufacture and sale of toddy spirit in Bombay independent of

Moore, J.G., Under Secretary to the Government of Bombay. "Letter to Secretary to the Government of Bombay, Revenue Department." In Revenue Department, Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1884.
172

171

Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 8. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886.

Moore, J.G. , Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Abkari. "Letter from Bombay Collector, Morley (or Moore) to Commisioner of Abkari, J.H. Grant." In Revenue Department, Bombay, 15. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1885. Enthoven, Reginald Edward. The Tribes and Castes of Bombay, Native Races of India. Delhi: Cosmo Publications, 1975, 96.
174

173

74 [Bhandaris].175 The new plan would threaten their, trade and profit altogether and perhaps forever.176 He then encouraged Abkari Commissioner, J.G. Moore to allow the Bhandaris to, come to their senses, with the knowledge that Government would not change the existing regulations.177 To decide whether or not to give up their traditional family occupations or to submit to the regulatory whims of the Revenue department, the Bhandaris were given three days to, consider and bring their reply. If the former was their decision, exclusive privilege of producing toddy would be given to a monopoly farmer for a long period of time.178 Faced with the certainty that continuing the strike would force them to join many of their fellows who had already, obtained work in the mills or as Hawals or labourers, some Bhandaris relented.179 In other areas such as Surat, where too few Bhandaris were willing to tap trees at current rates, district monopolies over all toddy production and sale were awarded to individuals for as long as three years.180 Simply put, Government held all the cards and could easily ignore the Bhandari strike.181 Toddy could just as easily be produced under a monopoly system and if
175

Moore, J.G., Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Abkari. "Letter from Bombay Collector, Morley (or Moore) to Commisioner of Abkari, J.H. Grant." In Revenue Department, Bombay, 15. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1885.
176

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

177

178

Moore, J.G., Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Abkari. "Confidential Letter to J. Nugent, Secretary to Government, Revenue Department, Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1885.
180

179

Sathe, G.M. "Native Press Reports, Bombay." 10-11. Government of Bombay, 1886.

It is debatable whether or not strike is the appropriate term for the decision of Bhandaris to temporarily boycott license tenders. Although there are numerous petitions from Bhandaris asking for a relaxation of abkari regulations, no documentation referring to collective action is extant in the archives.

181

75 consumers moved from toddy to another form of taxed alcohol, it hardly affected revenue.182 Even during the brief strike period, the Bombay Abkari Commissioner could report to the Secretary of Revenue for the Government of India, J. Nugent, that, the present strike among the Bhandaris has not influenced the supply of raw toddy for sale or its selling price. He reassured his supervisor that equilibrium would be restored if Government held fast; otherwise, hesitation would render Government unable to make any changes in the future. Accordingly, the increasingly desperate Bhandari petitioners were notified that, the taxation and the sale of toddy spirit in Bombay was fully considered by the Government of India and that the case cannot be re-opened.183 Over a series of letters and memorials with, J.G. Moore, in 1885 Bhandaris of the Bombay presidency made it clear that they were, quite determined to hold back on tree tapping and toddy distillation.184 Moore himself was dismissive of the strike threat, reporting that it was, impossible to convince these men by figures or reasoning that [present regulations] are reasonable and would leave them a fair margin of profit.185 Moore, and most within the abkari department, complained that Bhandari liquor strike

That being the case, I refer to this brief collective action with the only word used to describe it in the archives- strike. As mentioned above on page 15, total abkari receipts soared even as receipts from toddy-related excise fell. Moore, J.G., Under Secretary to the Government of Bombay. "Abkari: Memorial from Bhandaris of Bombay against the Arrangements Sanctioned by Government for Regulating the Taxation and Sale of Toddy Spirit in Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1885. Moore, J.G., Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Abkari. "Letter to the Secretary to Government, Revenue Department, Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 11. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1885. Ibid. Moores sanguine position regarding the profitability of toddy production under the 1878 law was later disproven by facts. By the 1900s it was acknowledged be even the most staid observers that Bhandaris had been largely forced out of toddy production. See Enthoven, The tribes and castes of Bombay.
185 184 183 182

76 was, kept by the action of well-to-do Bhandaris for their own interests while the poorertake their role from the more influential of their class.186 In this sense, Government officials dismissed the claims of petitioners as a conflict between wealthy liquor contractors and the statean accurate but ironic position in light of the fact that the situation was the result of governments doing, for it was precisely small-scale producers who had been driven out of the trade. With the complaints of Bhandaris thus dismissed, licenses for the tapping and distribution of toddy were issued to yet largerscale producers, many of whom held contracts in multiple localities. With only large-scale toddy producers in operation after 1886, dissatisfaction with the abkari law grew by leaps and bounds. Bombay newspapers continued to lament that drinkers were paying higher prices for poorer quality drinks as harsh regulations pushed small-scale producers out of the trade.187 The exchange of money or goods for alcohol within the community had been radically reconfigured. Those who persisted in drinking were increasingly moving towards stronger country liquor taxed at a lower rate. Bhandaris, having withheld their labor in a desperate attempt to change policy, hit the wall with a government resolved towards increasing revenue and quite happy to deal with long-standing monopolists rather than myriad small scale traders. This new state of affairs proved satisfactory to Government, enabling the Abkari Commissioner of Bombay

186

Ibid.

British temperance advocates began to take much greater notice of Indian excise policy during this period. As some of them journeyed to India to foster temperance there, complaints of increased drunkenness grew, leading to a flurry of newspaper articles written by Indians concerned with growing intemperance. Despite the new interest in temperance by some Indians, complaints of high prices and poor quality continued to vastly outnumber articles in favor of temperance. The relationship between European temperance advocates and their Indian colleagues will be discussed in much greater detail in chapter 2.

187

77 to report to the revenue department that, the present strike among the Bhandaris has not affected in any way the supply of raw toddy for sale or its selling price.188 With Bhandaris slowly drifting towards different occupations after 1886, in the mills or as Hawals or labourers, Government seemed poised on the cusp of a minor victory and abkari administrators were sanguine about the future.189 Twenty five years later, Enthovens The Tribes and Castes of Bombay would refer to toddy tapping as the hereditary occupation of Bhandaris, but since the rise in the palm-tree cess (1877) many had become husbandmen and labourers.190 Most remaining liquor producers, both of toddy and of other forms, were now large-scale capitalists who had benefited from government regulation that had choked off the livelihoods of thousands. Indian liquor was still produced, but less often by friends and neighbors and more frequently by moguls with an interest in defending extant abkari policy.191 From the perspective of colonial administrators, their policy appeared to be a success, but they would soon discover that reactions to their policy shift had only begun. As drink prices rose and quality deteriorated under the care of monopoly holders, Government soon found itself beset with the ire of a more influential group of peopledrinkers.

Moore, J.G., Under Secretary to the Government of Bombay. "Abkari: Memorial from Bhandaris of Bombay against the Arrangements Sanctioned by Government for Regulating the Taxation and Sale of Toddy Spirit in Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1885.
189

188

Ibid.

Enthoven, Reginald Edward. The Tribes and Castes of Bombay, Native Races of India. Delhi: Cosmo Publications, 1975, 103. Enthoven incorrectly cites 1877 as the date when the Bhandaris faced an occupational crisis. As previously mentioned, the legislation leading to this was changed in 1878 and enacted the following year. 191 Anger over strike-breakers proved long lived with those continuing to tap trees as late as the 1920s lowered in estimation compared with those who had moved towards other occupations.

190

78 The Drink Strike In October 1886, the first drink strikes emerged in Western India. Panvel, just east of Bombay, was the first taluka to strike. Toddy and other traditionally produced forms of liquor had increased in price now due to both the increased duty placed upon it by Government, and by Governments decision to sell the contracts to monopolists who, in absence of competition, could both adulterate their liquor more freely and charge more money for them. Since toddy was the most heavily-taxed liquor, monopoly holders phased out all but a trickle of toddy production in favor of much stronger Mowhra and country liquors. On the coast of the Arabian Sea, Panvel had an abundance of toddy trees and its denizens a taste for toddy.192 With toddy production at a fraction of its previous volume and quality, Panvel was the first taluka to publicly adopt a resolution to, abstain from the use of liquor and toddy until such time as abkari rigor relaxed in order to enable them to easily procure liquor and toddy.193 This movement spread quickly across Western India as both civic and caste organizations took up the abstinence pledge in an effort to deny Government its drink revenue. The movement emerged among those low status Indians long associated with drink rather than among elites such as those who populated the Bombay Presidency Association, whom a correspondent for Bombay Samachar hoped would take an interest in the movement.194

Wacha, Dinshaw E. "Indian Abkari Administration, Being Notes on the Despatch of the Government of India, Relating to the System of Licenses for the Distillation and Sale of Spiritous Liquors in Force in the Various Provinces of India, Presented to the House of Commons on 4th August 1887." Bombay: Bombay Gazette Steam Press, 1888, 64.
193

192

Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 8. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, 1886." 9-10. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886.

194

79 Panvels anti-drink strike, aimed at reducing the cost of alcohol locally, soon became a movement, quickly spreading across Western India.195 In Gujarat, the Kali Paraj tribe, residing in some 30 villages made drinking alcohol punishable with fine and excommunication.196 The Kali Paraj were shortly followed by Khalpas and other castes.197 Some of these strikes were for a fixed period,such as the Gola and Ghanchi castes of Navsari who outlawed drinking for the space of one month. By December of 1886, Jame Jamshed could report that other castes such as the Dhedas were following suit.198 The motive for the drink strikes as described in both Native Press Reports and in internal government documents in the latter half of the 1880s was solely to increase access to quality alcohol. Only by the 1890s did temperance advocates (primarily from Britain and the United States) begin to refer to these strikes as purity movements, as will be discussed in much greater detail in the following chapter. As the movement gathered strength, descriptions of it increasingly appeared in the Indian press. Bombay Samachar wrote that the Dhorias and Kolis of 32 villages took up abstinence, joined by, oil-makers, rice-beaters, fishermen and other classes in Bulsar. One correspondent reported that in the native-state, Dharampor, out of 360 villages100 to 150 villages have of their own accord resolved to abstain from the use

The power of local collectors to set the specific rules for their districts led to a great deal of variation. Although dissatisfaction with abkari affairs more generally were widespread, liquor strikers seemed most concerned with affecting change in their own locality. As village panchayats initiated strikes, it was increasingly defined as a movement in the press. Reporting on local strikes, each concerned with district-level policy, had the effect of making these diffuse events appear more coordinated, or more like broad movement.
196

195

Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 12-13. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886. Ibid. Ibid.

197

198

80 of toddy.199 The Dhorias of Surat also outlawed the use of alcohol within their caste.200 By as November of 1886, Jama Jamshed could report that, the movement to abstain from the use of liquor now appears to have been joined by the whole of the Bulsar Taluka. In 1887 the movement penetrated some of the princely states of Rajasthan, where the leather-working Chamars joined in prohibiting the use of alcohol. Native Christian groups, sensitive to accusations that their sect was best recognized by their drinking, followed suit, punishing drinkers with, excommunication.201 At least some of the time, the decision for group abstention from alcohol use could be fairly democratic. Thanas Arunodaya reported 1,100 agriculturalists between Bhandup and Kolshet had agreed at one such meeting that the use of alcohol would be punished by a caste fine of Rs. 50.202 The Parsi-owned Jama Jamsheds correspondent noted that, excepting the Parsis, almost all the classes of peoplehave, it is said, to resolved to abstain from it.203 Concerned with the ability to purchase safe alcohol at reasonable prices, the antidrink movement of this period was at first decidedly lower-class affair, drawing little commentary from prominent nationalists of the time. Bombay Samachar reported that, no educated Native gentlemen were involved in the movement.204 Class was fundamental to the matter as the poor openly complained of the government plundering
199

Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 12-13. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886. Ibid. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 10-11. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1887. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 2. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886. Ibid. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 12-13. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886.

200

201

202

203

204

81 the people with a view to replenish their treasury, amounting to nothing less than, sucking the blood of the people.205 Some critics of the strike placed its impetus in the hands of Brahmin wirepullers, in an attempt to discount the credibility of the movement.206 Bombays AngloMarathi Native Opinion excoriated those critics, writing, the poor people of [Bombay] have often complained of the exorbitant taxes on their native drinks.207 Those taxes

were now so severe that, toddy almost disappeared or was made so dear as to be inaccessible to the ordinary people. Far from being a movement inspired by the upper classes, this peoples movement, laid down a lesson worth of being imitated by the most advanced sections of the native community. Talk loudly as we may of our education, these uneducated people have put us all to shame.208 By the end of 1887, elites had indeed begun to take an interest in the movement and were thus praised for their newfound interest in the drinking habits of the poor. Bombay Samachar congratulated, some individuals of the higher classes of the Hindus [for] taking interest in the spontaneous temperance leagues among the poor classes of people in the Konkan and Gujarat who have entered into the union for the purposes of escaping from the severities of the abkari laws.209 As with most social movements spread over a large geographical space, determining its degree of social adherence is difficult. Surely, not all within a given village-based caste supported the decision to abstain from alcohol. Indeed, the levying of
205

Ibid. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, 1886." 5-6. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886. Ibid. Ibid. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 12-13. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886.

206

207

208 209

82 fines rather than strict excommunication seems to have been the rule, though there were some notable exceptions. The levying of fines hints at fears that at least some drinkers would persist in the habit despite the proscription. Attaching a fine to the violation rather than social ostracism suggests that those changing the policy were keen to avoid the social upheaval associated with expelling from their caste those who continued to drink. On the other hand, the word most often used to describe these movements is spontaneous. Since the anti-abkari and anti-drink sentiment emerging was not ex nihilo, we can assume that the spontaneity of the movement lies in the fact that its impetus was found outside of more typical centers of social power. That is to say, large numbers of drinking Indians were sufficiently unhappy with abkari policy that they organized publically to change it. Moreover, this agitation against the policy was large enough to provoke a response from Government. Faced with a lack of funds from the once lucrative tax on alcohol production and consumption in 1886, the Government of Bombay found itself faced with something of a dilemma. One the one hand, allowing a mass movement among the lower classes to dictate public policy would undermine the authority of British rule. On the other hand, the strike impaired the ability of the state to collect revenue from the population. Further, those Indians who held licenses were now petitioning the government to relent on the guaranteed minimum payments to the state demanded under some licenses because sales had dropped significantly. Government responded to the new crisis with an attempt to limit the ability of caste panchayats to penalize the use of alcohol by its members. Some local magistrates responded to caste proscriptions on alcohol by attacking such activities as illegal. Local officials carefully observed villages, with police patels

83 receiving instructions to, report immediately to head-quarters all gatherings of the people, as though there is treason in the [liquor strike] movement.210 In 1886, at the onset of the liquor strike, Bombays newspapers had urged Government to state publicly that it would not interfere with the desire of the peopleto improve their morals by abstinence, and to refrain from, placing obstacles in the way of these determinations of the people.211 Yet Indians associated with the anti-drink movement were targeted by the police for harassment. One case which received some notoriety involved an Inamdar (landowner) who, in connection with the movement was forcibly disrobed, treated roughly and degradedin terms of food and then harassed.212 Arundoya lamented of the case, does it not throw discredit upon the goodness of the English? Do they look upon the Hindus as so many worms?213 Local magistrates were invested with a great deal of discretion regarding what steps to take against unlawful combinations. Police began arresting villagers who took leading roles in the drink strike. One particular hotspot was in Kolaba, where the Poonas Marathi-language Sri Shivaji accused a magistrate of, disrespect, abusive language, and imprisoning leaders of the movement. The writer warned in this connection that, British rule would not last long, if Government persisted in placing

210

Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 12-13. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 2. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886.

211

Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 9. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1887. It is noteworthy that although the drink strikes at this point were not explicitly associated with purity, Government chose to harass this strike-organizer by degrading him in terms of food. To foster the drink trade under now current arrangement, the magistrates were polluting local leaders. In at least this case, Government officials reinforced the connection between alcohol use and pollution. Government bureaucrats further indicted the purity of drink strikers by degrading their leaders. If drink had long been a marker of low status, Government associated it even further with pollution.
213

212

Ibid.

84 political considerations before, morality.214 One particular case in the Panvel Taluka of Kolaba featured the trial of eight agriculturalists convicted of intimidation against intemperance and sentenced to seven days rigorous imprisonment. This struck the Poona Vaibhav as something that, smacks the Mogul policy, destined to estrange the hearts of the public.215 Strong feelings were present on both sides, and it should be noted here that even supporters of the anti-drink strike observed that, in a minority of cases, overly zealous men, in the desire to have their temperance rules obeyed, have gone beyond the law and used physical violence in enforcing temperance.216 Nevertheless, the draconian response of the Kolaba magistrate even drew the attention of the Free Church of Scotland, which petitioned the Government of Bombay to end the practice of, forbidding all interference with the buying and selling of liquor [and]for endeavouring to restrain [Indians] from indulgence in strong drink.217 The organization would later send a petition to the Government of Bombay, asking for an immediate enquiry into Government interference with, a Temperance Society working among fellow countrymen.218 Noting with mortification the stance of Government in the matter, the Anglo-Marathi Dnyadoya condemned, opposition to the important temperance

214

Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 12. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1887. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, 1886." 7-8. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886.

215

216 217

Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 16. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886. Scotland, General Assembly of the Free Church of. "Petition on Intemperance." In Revenue, Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1887.

Bradshaw, Chairman, Mission Hall High Street, Edinburgh. "Letter to the Governor of Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1887.

218

85 movement.219 Critics complained that Government saw, their combination as a sort of revolt which they would gladly put down if they could.220 The Colonial Government was not alone in its stance against the anti-liquor strike; it found its natural allies among the large-scale alcohol producers who had replaced the Bhandaris. During the strike, critics observed that the movement had, so decidedly diminished the sale of liquor in some places as to alarm the liquor sellers [who]are actively engaged by intimidation and bribery in endeavouring to break up this combination against their iniquitous traffic.221 For the first time, the Government of Bombay found itself explicitly allied with liquor sellers in their effort to break the liquor strike. Once firmly ensconced in village economies, the production of alcohol now took place both spacially and politically outside of the community. Critics were quick to observe that the current state of affairs was advantageous only to Government and, to liquor farmers.222 Although Government had shed its responsibilities to Bhandaris

and other small scale producers, it became forever wed to the fortunes of large-scale producers. The relationship between large-scale alcohol producers and British Government administrators would consistently be made exposed and condemned throughout the nationalist movement. From this point forward, British administrators and alcohol monopolists saw their fortunes bound together, a relationship that would eventually provide a central plank of the nationalist movement.

219

Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 12-13. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886. Ibid. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 16. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 2. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886.

220

221

222

86 In 1887 the magistrate of Kolaba, Alfred Keyser, found himself compelled to rescind a notification, distributed throughout the district, outlawing caste proscriptions on liquor use.223 Bombays Indu Prakash was not alone when it asked, what right has

the Collector of a district to tell that community or any of its members that any one forcing people to abstain from drink will be prosecuted?224 The conservative and

nationalist Poona Vaibhav suggested that, Government are afraid that if we succeed in our anti-liquor league we may succeed in similar other leagues and thus endanger British Government.225 Keyser was ultimately forced to rescind his, puerile order by proper authorities.226 The way in which the nullification of that notice proceeded, with merely sending the new edict to village officers rather than posting it more publicly, exhibits some degree of humiliation on the part of the magistrate. Thanas Arundoya complained that the magistrate should have rescinded the notification with all the fanfare with which the initial edict has been promulgated so that, they have full liberty to resolve to not drink liquor.227 The response of authorities to the liquor strike proved nothing less than an unmitigated disaster for the Colonial Government. In some cases, the crackdown itself was cited as the very reason for participating in the strike. As late as 1890, some individual magistrates were still prosecuting those seen as responsible for spreading the liquor strike. Bombays Anglo-Marathi, Vartahar, praised the fishermen and Dublas of
223

Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 8-9. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1887. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, 1886." 7-8. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 2. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, 1886." 7-8. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1886. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 8-9. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1887.

224

225

226

227

87 Thana for responding to, the oppression of punitive police for unanimously agreeing to abstain from liquor use. The police, Vartahar sarcastically suggested, should be thanked for their oppression for otherwise, these men would never have given up the vice to which they have been long addicted.228 Government flew its obstinacy like a flag, turning what might have been a minor excise policy issue into a public fight pitting the colonial state against virtually all sectors of the Indian public, including a nascent, yet burgeoning, Indian temperance movement. This line of government criticism grew in prominence from 1890. The notion that those involved in the liquor strike had been addicted to drink is an important deviation from the original intent of the strikers. The stated goal of liquor strikers from 1887 had been to reduce the price and increase the quality of drink. By 1889 the movements new supporters backed the efforts to the lower classes to rid themselves of, vice, never a stated goal of the movement. As middle class reformers rose to the defense of liquor strikers in the 1890s, they appropriated and reconfigured the meanings and social significance of the movement. The original goal of reducing the cost of alcohol was subsumed by the importance of Indian morality in the face of Government of India oppression. Governments attempted crack-down on the ability of caste organizations to police the drink habits of their ranks drew the ire of middle class Indians. Governments actions against poorer liquor-strikers energized the drink strike with implications far beyond initial concerns with price and access. What was once a matter of economics became one of Indian morality in the face immoral British governance. Where once middle-class reformers focused their energies primarily on seeing alcohol use removed
228

Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Report, Bombay." 14. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1890.

88 from respectable areas, they now set to the task defending the rights of Indians to dictate their own social affairs. Government interference with the behavior of Western Indias drinkers ran afoul of both liberal constitutionalist reformers such as Dinshaw Waccha and staunchly conservative nationalists like Lokmanya Tilak. In 1891, hundreds of the inhabitants of Thana sent a petition to Lord Reay, the Governor in Council of Bombay, complaining about the monopoly system with its incumbent increases in both prices and adulteration. In one of Governments first reversals on the issue of drink, the duration of licenses for the sale of alcohol were reduced from 12 to 5 months.229 In a capitulation to toddy drinkers, taxes on toddy palms and licenses for tree-foot stands were also lowered, allowing some Bhandaris to resume their trade. Large-scale producers still controlled much of the drink market, but this reduction in taxes was sufficient to induce the petitioners to, see that toddy is sold cheap, in order that it may come within the means of the poor.230 An auction system was introduced, prompting some competition from competing monopolists over a limited number of licenses for favored locations. Although monopolists still accounted for a great deal of the production, the price of toddy was reduced, making it much more affordable for the drinking classes of Western India. Accordingly, the drink strike lost much of its momentum. Villages that had sworn off drink slowly gravitated back towards allowing the use of alcohol,

Dorabji, Manjii and others, owners of Toddy trees, Bhundaries, ryots, agricultural labourers and others, Inhabitants of the Taluka Dahanu and Peta Umargaum in the Thana District. "Petition." In Revenue, Bombay, 4. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1891. Dorabji Nanjibhai and others, Inhabitants of the Taluka of Dahanu-Umargaum in the Thana District. "Petition to Lord Reay, Govenor and President in Council, Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 4. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1891.
230

229

89 continuing to strike intermittently as local abkari arrangements were altered.231 Despite the brevity of the drink strike, its scale made an impression on British temperance advocates who now saw former drink strikers as low-hanging fruit for campaign they would launch in India. International temperance activists like The Anglo-Indian Temperance Association (AITA) and the Womens Christian Temperance Union WCTU in tandem with middle class Indians prepared to make their mark.

231

On-again off-again liquor strikes continued to puzzle European temperance advocates. See Caine, W.S. "Mahant Kesho Ram Roy and the Surat Liquor Strike." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 20 (1895): 1.

90

CHAPTER III: STRANGE BREW: ALLIES AND ADVERSARIES IN INDIAN TEMPERANCE, 1890-1919 Introduction An influential Temperance Association has been formed in Poona. Its inaugural meeting was held in the General Library Hall on August 20th 1907, the Hon. Mr. G.K. Gokhale, C.I.E., president, being the chair. About a hundred leading members of the various communities in Poona joined the society which has the support of Mr. B.G. Tilak and many other prominent men in the city. The secretaries are Mr. L.R. Gokhale Pleader, Mr. N.C. Kelkar (editor of the Mahratta), and the Rev. A. Robertson, M.A. All the missionaries have joined in the effort. The Committee have already taken steps to educate public opinion and to secure a more restrictive administration of the Excise laws. Frederick Grubb232 As soon as the temperance movement is found to be represented by Messrs. Tilak and Kelkar, it is as idle to say it is not political as to say that a meeting organized by Miss Pankhurst did not aim at female suffrage. Such others are working with them to some extent (Messrs. [missionaries] Macnichol and H. Mann) are of course their dupes. F.G.H. Anderson, Assistant Collector, Poona.233

In this chapter I examine the beginnings of large-scale temperance agitation in India and the diverse coalition that supported it from the 1890s through 1919, with a particular emphasis on a temperance disturbance occurring in Poona in 1908. I argue that temperance organizations born of cooperation between British temperance activists and early Indian nationalists created an important political space for the incubation of Indian nationalism.234 Long before overt calls for home rule were utterable in the public

Frederick Grubb ed., "Cuttings from the Press," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 71 (1908). F.G.H. Anderson, Personal Assitant to the Collector of Poona, "Report on Poona Disturbances," in Judicial, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1908). Ian Tyrrell wrote in 1991, the role of the WCTU remains an almost totally neglected aspect of the historical development of Indian cultural nationalism. And so too are the roles of the AITA (as discussed
234 233

232

91 sphere, temperance organizations created a rhetorical space within which very pointed criticism of colonial rule on moral grounds was possible, along with the implication that the problem of temperance was solely a colonial construction. That is to say, that if alcoholism was a product of empire, then empire itself was to blame. Secondly, I will argue that during this period several castes long associated with drinking, many of which had participated in the drink strikes of the 1880s, moved towards temperance, enacting penalties for drinking. This movement towards the abstention of alcohol has been erroneously attributed to the conscious imitation of highcaste norms, or sanskritization. Both the colonial government and the nascent nationalist movement had largely turned a deaf ear towards the grievances of the drinking classes related to access, quality, and price of alcohol. From the 1890s through 1920,

those same low-caste groups began spontaneous temperance and prohibition organizations, resisting elitesboth Indian and Britishwho had earlier ignored their pleas. Temperance organizations like the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association (AITA) visited these areas, attempting to channel local anger regarding alcohol policy into the formation of local temperance organizations that would affiliate with the AITA. Support for these movements carried with it the marginalization of low-caste temperance associations under the larger umbrella of regional, national, and international temperance organizations let by Britons, Americans, and high-caste Indians. I will begin the chapter with a description of the earliest organized temperance activities in India, most of them associated with the efforts of the AITA. Prominent members of the AITA like W.S. Caine and Thomas Evans travelled across the
in this chapter) and the Prohibition League of India, discussed in Chapter four. Ian R. Tyrrell, Woman's world/Woman's empire : the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in international perspective, 18001930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Caronina Press, 1991). 164.

92 subcontinent in the 1880s and 1890s, working with Indians to form local temperance organizations in cities and on college campuses.235 These organizations were peopled by Indian activists who would later become key figures in the nationalist movement. It will become evident that the AITA served as a network for early nationalists, publishing a journal, Abkari, that documented the sins of colonial rule in various localities. The airing of grievances against the colonial state in a single journal played a vital role in integrating myriad local disputes within India into a single, national discourse. It has long been argued, and correctly so, that the common experience of colonialism was largely responsible for the formation of a distinctly Indian identity. This chapter will argue that temperance work in India is an under-examined contributing factor towards that national identity. I will also discuss how the temperance component of early nationalism influenced the demographics, and thus, the social character, of the Indian National Congress (INC, or Congress). From its foundation, the INC was peopled by high-caste men, many of whom were the products of English-language education. These current and former students were the focus of criticism from conservative, high-caste Indians who expressed anxieties that students exposed to Western culture were being degraded by that contact. One reason for the dramatic level of student participation in, and in the formation of, temperance organizations stemmed from a conscious defense of their continued Indianness despite close contact with Europeans and their institutions.

W.S. Caine was a co-founder of the AITA and author of a Parliamentary statement condemning colonial alcohol policies in India. Thomas Evans was the AITAs first paid lecturer in India.

235

93 Early Stirrings of Indian Temperance The Indian temperance movement was born in an imperial context as a cooperative effort between British and American temperance activists and high-caste Indians in the 1880s. Prior to this time, rhetoric within India about alcohol was most frequently infused with the language of caste. That is to say, an historically abstemious past for India had not yet been created, and the value of a temperate Indian had not yet been generalized. As shown in chapter two, a large number of Indians had been doing a great deal of drinking in the late 19th century. Revenue from abkari sales marched steadily higher and higher. This increase in abkari revenue did not go unnoticed by educated, elite Indians or by British temperance activists. Reports of growing revenue from alcohol taxes alarmed and then brought together progressive British temperance men and western-educated Indians who were pioneers in the nascent Indian nationalist movement. Imperial administrators were consummate record-keepers and Western-educated Indians soon used those very records to question the nature, if not the very legitimacy, of British rule. The colonial city of Bombay was home to a number of Western-educated Indians like Dinshaw Edulji Wacha and Dadabhai Naoroji who used data created by British administrators to interrogate India policy. In 1867, Naoroji, the Grand Old Man of India, put forward his famous drain theory: the notion that British rule simply drained capital out of the Indian economy without reciprocity, thereby depriving the country of substantial economic resources. As a professor of mathematics and natural philosophy he was well-equipped for the task of criticizing the colonial economy. Similarly, Wachas training in economics, his sharp mind, and sharper tongue made him

94 an ideal critic of the effects of British rule. His attacks on military spending and excise taxes vis--vis poverty earned him the epithet, the Firebrand of Bombay.236 In the winter 1887, Member of Parliament and staunch temperance man, W.S. Caine visited India for the first time. In Bombay he was met by a deputation, consisting of influential citizens-Hindus, Moslems, Parsees and Christians [who]expressed a strong desire that some organization should be formed in England to act in Parliament, and also for the purpose of promoting and assisting an agitation throughout India for drastic restriction of liquor traffic.237 The deputation of educated Hindoos, as Caines biographer described them, called his attention to the abuses of the Excise administration.238 Wacha and Naoroji, both Parsis, were among the deputation asking for Caines help in preventing the Government policy of demoralizing the country.239 On the 24th July, 1888, after his return to England, Caine formed the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association (AITA).240 AITA Activism in Britain For the first year of the AITAs existence, the organization focused on parliamentary action in London rather than working within India itself. British administrators in India were casually dismissive of allegations impugning abkari administration. Official opinion among these administrators tended to echo those of C.B. Pritchard, Commissioner for Sind, who wrote with regard to excise,
Dinshaw E. Wacha, in Voices of Indian Freedom Movement, ed. J.C. Johari (New Delhi: Akashdeep Publishing House, 1993). 237 Frederick Grubb, Fifty Years Work in India: My Temperance Jubilee, 1st ed. (London: H.J. Rowling and Sons, 1942).
238 239 236

John Newton and Alexander Maclaren, W.S. Caine, M.P. : a biography (London: J. Nisbet, 1907), 236. Henry J. Osborn, "Mr. Caines report to the President," I, no. 5 (1891). Ibid.

240

95 There is no subject on which the recent action of Government, especially in the Bombay Presidency, has been more persistently and mischievously misrepresented by the public press, and none, I think, on which more misunderstanding prevails even among persons who have sought for information. Under these circumstances the publication of an authoritative exposition of the policy pursued and of results obtained is likely to be useful. I would suggest that copies of the papers be circulated to the missionaries and chaplains and Temperance Societies as well as to newspaper editors and Native Associations. Many of the misstatements that attracted attention in England have emanated from missionaries and other persons interested in the spread of temperance, who are altogether ignorant of the real facts of the case.241 Likely adding to the frustration of colonial officials was that the AITA facilitated communications between temperance activists in Britain and Indian critics on the subcontinent. Pritchard noted with some consternation that abkari data and accompanying criticisms reported in the Bombay Gazette had not yet been published by the Government of India but have [only] been published as a Parliamentary paper and four letters under the signature of "D.E.W."242 Criticism of colonial alcohol policies originating in Britain appeared on the pages of Indian newspapers before the Government of India could respond. Dinshaw Edulji Wachas association with Caine and the AITA was already paying dividends. But with the complaints of educated Indians ignored in India and the AITA membership labeled as naive, the AITA moved to change public and governmental opinion in Britain. On April 30, 1889, Caine and his temperance allies in Parliament achieved something of a legislative coup.243 He and Samuel Smith244 offered for the House of Commons a resolution that

C.B. Pritchard, "Letter to Lord Reay, Governor and President in Council, Bombay," in Revenue, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1887), 145. 242 "Untitled Note," in Revenue, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1887). Temperance was a key aspect of Liberal politics in the 1880s and 1890s. It haunted Liberals and contributed to electoral defeats as Conservatives allied with the drink industry. See David M. Fahey,
243

241

96 In the opinion of this house, the fiscal system of the Government of India leads to the establishment of spirit distilleries, liquor and opium shops in large numbers of places, where, till recently, they never existed, in defiance of native opinion and the protest of the inhabitants, and that such increased facilities for drinking produce a steadily increasing consumption, and spread misery and ruin among the industrial classes of India, calling for immediate action on the part of the Government of India with a view to their abatement.245

The motion carried, 113 to 103, sending the Government of India scrambling to rebut criticisms that could no longer be ignored. Interested members of Parliament were in a position to demand that colonial authorities respond to the criticisms of their Indian subjects. Caine forwarded the findings of a local Indian temperance worker, Sabapathy Moodeliar, reporting a large number of liquor shops in Bellary. In internal memos, the Government of Madras was confident that local Government will, doubtless, expose Mr. Moodeliar and looked forward to taking, any steps against Mr. Moodeliar for supplying a Member of Parliament with such inaccurate information.246 Much to the disappointment of the Government of Madras, Moodeliars information was reliable and he was safe from these steps. He and other Indian temperance workers could count on the support of

"Temperance and the Liberal Party - Lord Peel's Report, 1899," Journal of British Studies 10, no. 2 (1971): 133. Samuel Smith was a former cotton dealer from Liverpool who had long known and admired Dadabhai Naoroji. He was a cofounder of the Anglo Indian Temperance Association along with Caine and Naoroji. For more information regarding the cooperation of early Indian nationalists with liberal members of Parliament, see Mary Cumpston, "Some Early Indian Nationalists and Their Allies in the British Parliament, 1851-1906," The English Historical Review 76, no. 299 (1961).
245 244

Newton and Maclaren, W.S. Caine, M.P. : a biography: 237.

Government of India, "Excise, General Matters, Letter from Mr. W.S. Caine, M.P., concerning Liquor Shops in the Towns of Adony and Hospet in the Bellary District of the Madras Presidency," ed. Separate Revenue Department of Finance and Commerce, Excise, General Matters. A-Proceedings, Excise, General Matters (Shimla: Government of India, 1890), 3.

246

97 important politicians in London, mitigating the heavy-handed proclivities of the colonial state. AITA activities in Britain were not conducted by Britons alone. Dadabhai Naoroji, the first non-Anglo member of Parliament, was among the founders of the AITA. With the help of AITA members, and fellow members of Parliament, William Wedderburn, and Caine, Naoroji attempted to apply pressure to the colonial state through a different avenuehe penned a personal note to the Queen accompanied by a pamphlet on Indian drink policy.247 The letter was returned by the Queens personal secretary, A. Briggs, who initially ignored it, replying after a third copy was received that the package deals with subjects of a controversial nature and could not be submitted to Her Majesty.248 After some delay, and likely some deliberation on the matter, Briggs asserted that sending the letter to the Secretary of State for India was a more appropriate choice.249 Occurring seven years after the Parliamentary resolution on the need to abate drinking in India, this rebuff likely offered some solace to the Secretary of State. The colonial government still had to answer to Parliament, but it appeared they would not have the added problem of placating a displeased Queen. Other British Temperance Organizations and India The AITA was not the only organization working in Britain for temperance in India, and it was far from the first one founded. Other institutions like the United Kingdom Alliance (est. 1852) the British and Foreign Temperance Society (est. 1831)
See William Wedderburn, "Letter to D. Naoroji," in Dadabhai Naoroji (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1895). And W.S. Caine, "Letter to Dadabhai Naoroji," in Dadabhai Naoroji (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1896).
248 247

A. Briggs, "Letter to D. Naoroji," in Dadabhai Naoroji (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1896). Ibid.

249

98 had long technically included temperance in India among their goals. Yet despite their international (or imperial) scope they had little influence on Indian policy and virtually none among Indians living in India. The Womens Christian Temperance Union, founded in the United States in 1874, counted a large membership in Britain but had relatively little impact on India policy within Britain. Its influence in India, on the other hand, was much greater and will be discussed below. The International Order of the Good Templars (IOGT) had branches across Britain and boasted over 96 lodges in India in 1900.250 There were approximately 3,500 Templars in India, with membership drawn primarily from British soldiers with a sprinkling of civilians and natives.251 Although there were notable exceptions and some controversy, Templar lodges, particularly in the southern United States and in India, tended to be segregated by race. However, Londons Indian Templar lodge invited enrollment of natives of India, and others, desiring to become associated with a WorldWide Temperance Association, admitting all nationalities and religions into membership. 252 But British-populated lodges in India had fought to remain racially segregated in practice if not by rule. After all, as one British Templar in India

William W. Turnbull, The Good templars (n. p.,1901). 153. Founded in the United States in 1850, the IOGT was truly international in scope, with lodges across the globe. Its constitution was surprisingly egalitarian for the time, inviting membership from all races within their lodges. The facts on the ground, proved different entirely. David Fahey has written about a split in this organization over the refusal of American (particularly southern) lodges to racially integrate. Most British Templars argued against this, eventually splitting from their American brethren. Yet beneath this veneer of racial harmony, most British lodges remained effectively segregated and in India, officially so. See David M. Fahey, Temperance and racism : John Bull, Johnny Reb, and the Good Templars (Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 1996). Despite the large number of Templar lodges in India, little archival evidence remains.
251

250

Turnbull, The Good templars: 153.

International Order of Good Templars, "Advertisement for International Order of Good Templars, "Indian Lodge"," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 106 (1916).

252

99 commented, should open our doors wider for our coloured brothers than for our own race?253 Indian lodges eventually trod a middle path, with some local lodges admitting Indians and others not. British IOGT members supporting their Indian sympathizers encouraged them to open a Native lodge and to frame a set of rules inculcating such principles as has been tried in their own case and have proved fruitful in harmonising mutual relations and creating brotherly love.254 In a colonial context, brotherly love was often best enjoyed in segregated lodges. Nominally integrated lodges practicing racial segregation could still count on the Grand Lodge of Indias constitution, which endorsed a black-ball system and thus allowed racial segregation to continue in the name of generalized exclusivity.255 The activities of the IOGT in late 19th and early 20th century India are obscure. Pictures of lodge members appear in the journals of other temperance organizations. These other temperance organizations, like the AITA and the Womens Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), noted the involvement of IOGT members in joining other temperance organizations, occasionally sharing resources like bioscopes and temperance literature. Despite the number of lodges in India, their own records remain elusive. Extant sources suggest that the Indian IOGT concentrated more on the social dimension of a fraternal order of teetotalers than on politics. That said, individual members of the IOGT were very active in numerous other organizations that focused a good deal more on

Anonymous, "Untilted Editorial," The Good Templar Journal: A Monthly Devoted to the Cause of Total Abstinence 1, no. 3 (1878). "Report of the Fourteenth National Social Conference Held in Lahore on 30th December 1900," (Poona: Indian National Social Conference, 1900), 45. Independent Order of Good Templars, Independent Order of the Good Templars, Grand Lodge of India, Constitution and Bye-Laws, Grand and Subordinate Lodges (Ahmedabad: Grand Lodge of India, 1879). 41.
255 254

253

100 reaching out to the unconverted. For instance, Harold Mann, head of the Grand IOGT lodge of India, was also an active member of the AITA whose contributions frequently appeared in Abkari, The Indian Temperance Record and White Ribbon, and other temperance journals in India and abroad. The 1900 Indian National Social Conference praised the IOGT for, taking a great interest by co-operating and sympathising with us in our undertakings. They now and then deliver lectures in English and have a shown a great fervour and zeal in furtherance of the cause.256 There were also some indigenous efforts concerning alcohol along gender lines. During the nationalist period, Indian men competed with British administrators to protect Indian women.257 One way to protect women was by keeping the bar or drink-stand as an exclusively male space. Alarmed by the appearance of Indian barmaids, Indian social organizations joined the AITA in petitioning Calcutta that no woman shall be employed in connection with [liquor sales] in any capacity.258 This protection of Indian women removed the option of participating in the liquor trade for low-status women, but at the cost of occupation. Women who could at one time profit from their degraded status as liquor women found themselves no longer able to do so in Calcutta after 1901. Bhalchandra Krishna, a respected physician and member of the Bombay Municipal Corporation, delivered a petition to achieve the same reforms in Bombay in

256

"Report of the Fourteenth National Social Conference Held in Lahore on 30th December 1900," 45.

Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial masculinity : the 'manly Englishman' and the' effeminate Bengali' in the late nineteenth century, Studies in imperialism (Manchester: Manchester University Press; Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press, 1995).
258

257

Frederick Grubb, "Barmaids in India," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 47 (1901): 116.

101 1901. Numerous European and Indian led temperance organizations signed on to the petition.259 Yet the effort failed in Bombay the next year, stymied by the British Government of Bombay.260 In December of 1905 Krishna vented his frustration that despite the fact that keeping women out of bars was a moral cause, the Government of India saw nothing, offensive or objectionable in the presence of women at liquorbars.261 Elite Indian men were already protecting Indian women by protesting the proximity of liquor shops to places frequented by women or respectable homes.262 The Government of India, on the other hand, hardly recognized this as a moral problem at all. This distinction between British and Indian protection of Indian womanhood become more important as the nationalist movement grew in strength. If British masculinity proved unequal to the task of protecting Indian women, Indian men could not but intervene. Colonial Government Response to Temperance Activism in Britain The colonial government mobilized to defend itself against the charge that it was contributing to the moral degeneration of India. Officials recorded instances of press

Organizational signatories included the AITA, the Independent Order of Rechabites, The independent Order of Good Templars, the Womens Christian Temperance Union, The Church of England Temperance Society, the Free Church of Scotland, the Young Mens Christian Association, The Bombay Temperance Union, the Kshatriya Temperance Association, the Telugu Temperance Association, the Khoja Social Progress Union, the Zoroastrian Brotherhood, the Arya Samaj, the Aryan Social Union, the Bhatia Mitra Mandal, the Maratha Aikechhu Mandal, the Phathare Prabhu and the Prabhu Social Samaj. See Sir Bhalchandra Krishna, "Letter to Chief Secretary of Government, Revenue Division," in Revenue, Bombay (Bombay: Maharashtra State Archive, 1901). Frederick Grubb, "Barmaids in Bombay," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 48 (1902): 49-50. Sir Bhalchandra Krishna, "Address Delivered at the Second All-India Temperance Conference Held at Benares on December 26th, 1905," in Revenue, Bombay (Bombay: Maharashtra State Archives, 1905).
262 261 260

259

Syed Shamsuddin Kadri, "Native Newspaper Reports, 1907," (Bombay: Bombay, 1907).

102 criticism both in India and within Britain. They noted the similarity of criticisms posited by Wacha in the Indian press and by Caine in the British press and sent their own rebuttals to newspapers, arguing against Caine and his Indian allies.263 Yet abkari revenue in the 1880s was generally higher than hitherto and in this sense, the Government of Indias own records seemed to bolster criticism that intemperance was on the rise. Administrators attributed the increase in revenue to more effective taxation methods, the gradual relaxation of caste restrictions, to increased prosperity and consequently greater purchasing power.264 In other words, growing abkari revenue indicated not degradation, but social and economic progress. Yet Parliaments 1889 resolution required more than responses confined to the press alone. The Government of India took eight months to provide a formal response to the House of Commons. It steadfastly maintained its position that its critics were ignorant of the facts on the ground. That said, the colonial government had to acknowledge increasing anxieties on the part of some Indian subjects regarding what they perceived as growing intemperance. Colonial administrators thus settled on a policy they hoped would mitigate these anxieties without unduly affecting the dependable revenue stream. Local option, the principle that local people had the democratic right to determine whether to allow alcohol within their area, had long existed in the public

"A--Proceedings, December," ed. Separate Revenue Department of Finance and Commerce, Excise, General Matters. A-Proceedings, Bombay Government Requested to Furnish the Government of India with a Copy of the Reply that may be sent to the Secretary of State regarding Mr. Wacha's Pamphlet on the Excise and Liquor Question in the Bombay Presidency (Simla: Government of India, 1889), 4. Government of India, "Correspondence on the Subject of the Alleged Increase of Intemperance in India Ending with a Despatch to Secretary of State Forwarding the Opinion of the Governmnet of India on the Whole Question," ed. Separate Revenue Department of Finance and Commerce, Excise, General Matters. A-Proceedings (Simal: Government of India, 1887).
264

263

103 discourse on temperance and drink. As early as 1855, British temperance advocates drew inspiration from the Maine Law of 1851 in which the American state of Maine had voted to prohibit traffic in alcohol within its borders.265 If an entire U.S. state could outlaw alcohol by public acclamation, then certainly it could work equally well in smaller constituencies. The Government of India began a local option pilot program in Bengal for experimenting with alcohol policy. This included the gradual removal of the out-still system, causing an increase in the number of liquor shops.266 It also included a uniquely autocratic brand of local option. In Europe and the United States, the right of self-determination was the bedrock upon which local option functioned. The elected legislature of state of Maine had voted for that measure. Similarly, in Britain, temperance advocates were able to argue for public option because they operated within a quasi-democratic state. Colonial administrators, on the other hand, rarely consulted public opinion and legislated topdown. Local option as practiced elsewhere anathema to colonial rule. Yet in the matter of alcohol, the Government of Bengal advised its Collectors that, responsible officers[should] ascertain, though not in all cases conform to, local opinion.267 The Government of India found in Bengal an answer to its ignorant critics in India and in

Dawson Burns, W. S. Caine, and William Hoyle, Local option, 3d. ed. (London,: S. Sonnenschier, 1896). 16.
266

265

See chapter two for a discussion of the out-still system in greater detail.

Government of India, "Questions Affecting Generally the Principles of Excise System: Resolution by the Government of Bengal on Mr. C.E. Buckland's Report on the Results of his Enquiry into the Systems of Excise in Bombay and Madras," ed. Separate Revenue Department of Finance and Commerce, Excise, General Matters. A-Proceedings, A-Proceedings, October (Shimla: Government of India, 1889), 7.

267

104 Britain. The Secretary of State sent out a memo to the revenue departments of the presidencies that local opinion would be consulted, but not necessarily adhered to.268 This colonial version of local option was never more than a veneer. Indeed, some collectors occasionally closed or moved drink shops that raised the alarm of local Indians. But more often, they dismissed the concerns of Indians who protested liquor shops, saying that those who petitioned for the closing and removal of shops were not truly representative of local opinion. This reply served the needs of local collectors to keep revenue-generating shops open, and in any case was not entirely divorced from the truth. Those who petitioned against shops were a self-selecting group. They were more likely to be educated, high-caste, and socially conservative. Respectable drinkers who purchased (or had purchased for them) alcohol were generally not keen on the idea of advocating for the shops publicly. Those who most often purchased liquor were of low caste, uneducated, and less likely to protest against their employers, landlords, and social betters in favor of liquor shops. ICS officers complained to the Secretary of State for India that In the first place, it is not allowable for members of the Mohammedan community to openly countenance or tolerate in any way the consumption of spiritous liquors. The use of spirits is forbidden by the Koran, and the representatives of this community would undoubtedly, were it in their power, uniformly declare against the grant of licenses to sell alcoholic stimulants. And again, notwithstanding that many Hindu gentlemen are entirely free from all prejudice in the matter, the general feeling amongst them is adverse to the consumption of spirits, and they would in most instances join with the Mohammedans in negating proposals to grant licenses. On the other hand, the lowerclasses who habitually resort to stimulants, and who seldom use them in immoderate or injurious quantities, but in many cases as an antidote to the climactic influences to which they are exposed, are entirely unrepresented upon Municipalities and District Boards, and would, were their supply of liquor removed, be undoubtedly forced to have resort to illicit distillation and consumption. We are led by these consideration to the conclusion that it
268

E.F. Jenkins, "Letter to All Local Governmental Administrations on Local Option," in Revenue, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1889).

105 is altogether chimerical to expect that the lower classes could by the removal of liquor shops be driven to habits of strict temperance, and that the Government would be guilty of a dereliction of duty if it were to permit the creation of the class tyranny that would inevitably result from the adoption of a system of local option.269 The above argument is unquestionably self-serving from the fiscal perspective of the colonial government, but it rings true nonetheless. As abkari revenue indicates, many Indians were drinking in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but they were not nearly as vocal or vociferous as their temperate, conservative countrymen.270 Colonial administrators tried to accommodate the latter by removing liquor shops from near market places, schoolsand other places where they are likely to afford more than usual temptations to drink or to offend local opinion.271 Local opinion varied markedly. While the upper-castes eschewed drinking, at least publically, imbibing was widely acceptedindeed emphatically defendedby the members of low castes and tribal groups. Kolis, a caste organized around fishing and known for their drinking, were particularly problematic for abkari officials. One local official, John Lorimer, complained to his superiors that they are very clannish in their ways and adhere closely to one another, and except for strong reasons they do not give information against one of their own caste, but on the contrary defend him against arrest if occasion warranted. Instances have been known

F.S. Roberts Lansdowne, G. Chesney, A.R. Scoble, C.A. Elliot, P.P. Hutchins, & D. Barbour, "Letter to Viscount Cross, Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India," in Bombay, Revenue (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1889). This also marks the beginning of an important theme in later nationalist discourse. The colonial government allied itself with drinkers and drink-makers, an association that would prove quite damning by the 1930s. See chapter five. India, "Questions Affecting Generally the Principles of Excise System: Resolution by the Government of Bengal on Mr. C.E. Buckland's Report on the Results of his Enquiry into the Systems of Excise in Bombay and Madras," 7. Colonial administrators continued a long-established pattern here of attempting to remove liquor shops from respectable areas to out of the way locations. See chapter two for a larger discussion of this issue.
271 270

269

106 where Abkari officers have been roughly handled, and difficulty is experienced in tracing offenders of this class under the Abkari or any other law.272 No little danger was associated with abkari work among drinking populations. Lorimer recounted that a party of the Abkari and Opium Police met with some difficulty in Novemberwhen the Dharallas273 made an attack on the Government men, and had it not been for the Opium Police, who threatened to shoot the Kolis if the rioting did not cease, matters would have ended very seriously.274 Nevertheless, colonial local option was a practical solution for the Government of India. In October of 1889, it ordered its revenue officers to take every precautionregarding the licensing and location of spirit shops in their respective areas.275 Each collector was first to carefully to consider the representation made by the Abkari farmer, the proximity of other shops in the district, the distance of the villages from neighbouring foreign territory where liquor is easily procurable, and the chances of distillation or smuggling.276 As one Collector explained, after consulting the local liquor man, he ascertained the population of the village, the castes of the villagers, their general character as to drinking proclivities and crime, and [he] finally used to ask the opinions of the village people themselves as to whether they wanted a shop opened

John Lorimer, Superintendent, Opium Preventive Services, "Letter to Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Abkari," in Revenue, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1905). 273 Dharallas are a community among the Kolis, that British administrators labelled a martial caste. See Vinayak Chaturvedi, Peasant pasts : history and memory in western India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). 30.
274

272

Lorimer, "Letter to Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Abkari."

Bombay Revenue Department, "Abkari: Suggestions of the Government of India as to the best method for ensuring the payment of due regard to local public opinion in the matter of licensing liquor shops," in Revenue, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1889).
276

275

Ibid.

107 there.277 In some cases good public order mandated continued liquor sales rather than their suppression. It is important to note here that the AITA would not take a position in favor of absolute prohibition of alcohol until well into the 1930s. In fact, Wacha, a founding member of the AITA, was a signatory to a petition sent to the Government of Bombay asking for a decrease in taxes applicable to toddy.278 Caine argued for removing taxes on toddy altogether.279 Other key organizations such as the Indian National Social Conference and the Indian National Congress also avoided taking firm positions in favor of prohibition. Although members of these organizations spoke in favor of temperance generally, they issued no resolutions on the subject for decades. Even the Indian National Social Conference did not pass a resolution on temperance until 1893.280 Absolute prohibition of all alcohol was a virtually unthinkable proposition for Indian nationalists and social activists until the 1930s. In the early years of the 20th century, universal temperance was not yet a value applicable to all Indians. As missionary and temperance worker D.J. Melchizedek put it in an 1893 plea for financial support from Britain, the rich [in India] generally are indifferent and hence the movement suffers.281 Another key activity of the AITA within Britain was surveillance of the Government of India. Not willing to take the colonial government at its word, Caine and
277

Ibid.

Bombay Presidency Association, "Petition to the Secretary to the Government, Revenue Department, Bombay," in Revenue, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1887).
279

278

Newton and Maclaren, W.S. Caine, M.P. : a biography: 241.

Indian National Social Conference, "Report of the Sixth Indian National Social Conference," (Lahore: Indian National Social Conference, 1893), 41.
281

280

D.J. Melchizedek, An Outline of the History of 'The Temperance Mission' Est. 1893 (Madras: The Temperance Mission, 1897). 6.

108 his fellows at the AITA used their political clout to demand answers to questions posed by Indians that were ignored by administrators in India. Servants of the colonial government now operated under the watchful eyes of temperance advocates back in Britain. Acting on the information of local informants, Caine penned a letter to Lord Cross, Secretary of State for the Government of India, complaining of a considerable increase in the number of liquor shops in the Bellary district of Madras.282 Caine went further, citing this as evidence that the various administrations of India are continuing a policy which has been condemned in the House of Commons.283 The critic who tipped off Caine to this increase was a local reformer, Sabhapathi Mudaliar. The Collector of Bellary, probably unaccustomed to this level of scrutiny, groaned that the introduction of [Mudaliars] name into [government] correspondence is a source of unfeigned regret.284 The Collector of Bellary, Harry Goodrich, initially acquitted himself of Mudaliar and Caines accusations, finding that Mudaliar had erroneously counted toddy-shops as liquor-shops. Although both shops sold alcohol, it was of differing strengths and had long been categorized differently by the British administration. In his report to Lord Cross he averred that the number of liquor shops had actually fallen, and sneered at Caines faith in the veracity of a report written by an Indian. He said of Caine that he

Government of India, "Alleged Increase in the Number of Liquor Shops in the Towns of Adoni and Hospet in the Madras Presidency," ed. Separate Revenue Department of Finance and Commerce, Excise, General Matters. A-Proceedings, A-Proceedings (Shimla: Government of India, 1889), 1.
283

282

Ibid.

"Excise, General Matters, Further information regarding the alleged increase of Toddy Shops in Hospet and Adoni in Bellary District, Secretary of State's remarks on the reduction of licensed Spirit and Toddy Shops in the Madras Presidency," ed. Separate Revenue Department of Finance and Commerce, Excise, General Matters. A-Proceedings (Shimla: Government of India, 1891), 2.

284

109 might have anticipatedthe vague character that is apt to distinguish oriental ideas of time and space.285 In his parting shot at Caine he bewailed any attempt on the part of English party-politicians to force on the high-handed closure of shops in India, while at the same time they neglect the reform which is so urgently called for in their own country.286 The Collectors casual racism aside, one could hardly blame him for his indignant feelings. An oriental had forced him to explain the details of his work before no less august an administrator than the Secretary of State of India who would go on to report his findings to the House of Commons. At any rate, subsequent investigations by the Secretary of Finance and Commerce for the Government of India, J.F. Finlay, found the Collectors report erroneous. Lord Cross then ordered the revised numbers be published in the Fort Saint George Gazatte.287 As the Collector of Bellary discovered to his humiliation, an Indian who had the ear of a Member of Parliament was a powerful man indeed. Activism in India by the AITA and Others AITA members worked tirelessly to influence India policy in Westminster, but their activities in India had even greater repercussions. In 1889, before introducing his resolution in condemnation of Indian excise policy, Caine had made his second trip to India, this time as an official representative of the AITA in the company of the AITAs first paid lecturer, the Reverend Thomas Evans. Born in England, Thomas Evans was a
285

Ibid., 3. Ibid., 4.

286

287

"Alleged Increase in the Number of Liquor Shops in the Towns of Adoni and Hospet in the Madras Presidency," 8.

110 retired Baptist missionary of Mussoorie whose personal acquaintance with his fellow missionaries would prove invaluable to the AITA.288 While Evans brought missionaries into the AITA fold, Caine consciously sought out the support of prominent Indians in the Indian National Congress.289 In fact, Caine boasted that half of the membership of the AITA belonged to the INC and that almost all men involved in temperance work in India were members of the INC.290 INC members frequently paid all the costs associated with temperance meetings convened and operated by the AITA.291 This alliance between western missionaries and Indian nationalists granted legitimacy to the former in the eyes of the latter. Meanwhile the Government of India was loathe to crack down on increasingly radical criticism couched in the language of temperance. From the very beginnings of the AITA, the lines between it and the INC were blurred by design.292 The AITA also won support from what they called purity associations, making the temperance movement in India truly multi-religious.293 Temperance organizations criticism of colonial alcohol policy with regard to alcohol resonated with nationalist

Lucy Carroll, "Origins of the Kayastha Temperance Movement," Indian Economic and Social History Review 11, no. 4 (1974): 433.
289

288

Ibid. Ibid., 434.

290

"The Temperance Movement in India: Politics and Social Reform," Modern Asian Studies 10, no. 3 (1976), 421. This contrasts sharply with the WCTU which, to the extent that its activists in India spoke on empire was fairly supportive until 1920 with the appointment of Emma S. Price. She found nationalistic feeling as a catalyst to further the temperance cause. See Tyrrell, Woman's world/Woman's empire : the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in international perspective, 1800-1930: 166. The vast majority of these purity organizations seem to have been Hindu in religious orientation. Muslim temperance organizations were present since Caines first tour but remained a minority.
293 292

291

111 Indians as a means to achieve unity and moral regeneration.294 Henry J. Osborn, editor of Abkari, praised The various Purity associations in connection with the Various Brahmo-Somaj and Arya-Somaj churches, [who] devote much of their time and energies to the Temperance movement.295 Indeed, Brahmo-Somaj also appointed travelling lecturers to spread their gospel of abstinence.296 These organizations would remain bulwarks against intemperance into the 1940s. Caine and Evans toured across India, holding upwards of 300 meetings..[with] at least 250,000 persons in attendance.297 Caine and Evans assisted in the formation of local temperance associations that would then affiliate with the AITA. Caine and Evans also carefully tended these organizations long after their inception. On the advice of Evans, Caine encouraged the formation of caste-based temperance associations, the most successful of these being the Kayastha Temperance Association.298 Caine also wanted special attentiongiven to the formation of Students Total Abstinence Societies. At Bombay, Ahmedabad, Lahore, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Agra, Cawnpore, Allahabad, Patna, Hooghly, Serampore, Howrah, Calcutta, Bhowanipore, Dacca, Madras, Madura, Bellary,

Tyrrell, Woman's world/Woman's empire : the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in international perspective, 1800-1930: 164. Henry J. Osborn, "Purity Associations," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 14 (1893): 102.
296 295

294

Carroll, "The Temperance Movement in India: Politics and Social Reform," 424.

Henry J. Osborn, "Anglo-Indian Temperance Association Report," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 2 (1890): 32. Carroll, "Origins of the Kayastha Temperance Movement," 434. The Kayastha Temperance Association went so far as to publish the names of individuals found drinking prohibited alcohol in the organizations journal, Hitkari. See Frederick Grubb, "Kayastha Temperance Movement," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 86 (1911): 123. Kayasthas were a jati associated with writing. Many Kayasthas worked in the employ of the colonial state as clerks and lower-level bureaucrats.
298

297

112 and many other towns and cities throughout India, vigorous Students Total Abstinence Societies have been formed.299 Students were attractive to the AITA for some important reasons. Firstly, they were very similar to in terms of demographics, class, and caste to members of the INC who helped make the AITA so successful. They represented the pool from which subsequent generations of Indias elite reformists cum nationalists would emerge, cementing (for a time) the alliance between nationalists and British temperance advocates. Secondly, English-speaking college students were easier for monolingual speakers like Caine to address. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Indian college students, many of them from higher castes, found themselves under attack for westernizing due to their close contact with Europeans. Indian college students responded defensively by forming student temperance and purity associations to create a moral atmosphere round the student community.300 Indian social reform organizations, temperance advocates of all stripes, and colonial administrators, had all observed an increase in drinking among college students. As early as 1870, the eminent Bengali reformer, Keshab Chunder Sen spoke at the United Kingdom Alliance warning that this poison [alcohol] was not once tasted by our uppermiddle classes, and yet now you see a different state of things.301 In 1893, The National Social Conference (NSC) expressed concern over their own elite members, asking them to include total abstinence from all intoxicating and narcotic drugs as a necessary part of
299

Osborn, "Anglo-Indian Temperance Association Report," 32.

Indian National Social conference, "Report of the Tenth National Social Conference Held in Calcutta on 1st January 1897," (Poona1897), 58. Keshub Chunder Sen, "Liquor Traffic in India," in ULAN Livesay Papers, Preston, ed. United Kingdom Alliance (Manchester: James Clark & Co., 1870).
301

300

113 the programme of reform, to which the members of such Associations should pledge themselves to adhere on all occasions.302 They further expressed gratitude to the AITA for doing all they possibly can to promote the cause of temperance chiefly among the educated classes.303 The NSC praised the results of these efforts, noting the growing sympathy of educated young men with the cause of temperance.304 As Caine had put it in 1894, educated young men are the very backbone of the [temperance] movement in India.305 They also represented the future of the AITA. As Grubb would write in 1942, It was always understood that the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association would transfer its main functions to its Indian collaborators so soon as the necessary organization could be established.306 Indian college students had good reason to be sympathetic with the mission of the AITA. Their drinking habits came under increasing scrutiny as indicators for the moral future of Indians of high social status, and the future looked dark indeed because some Indian elites were already moving towards alcohol. Mary Campbell, who began missionary work in 1880s, recalled the Muslim gentleman who encouraged her to devote more of her time to temperance work. He lamented the present day fashionto drink, and offer drink, at all dinner parties, and no formal call is up to date without drink. Western ways are not good for our people. There are men in our town who use two

302

Conference, "Report of the Sixth Indian National Social Conference," 41. Ibid., 135. Ibid., 136.

303

304

W.S. Caine, "Current Notes: Harji Ram Kaisth," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 16 (1894): 10.
306

305

Grubb, Fifty Years Work in India: My Temperance Jubilee: 18.

114 bottles of whisky daily in entertaining their friends.307 Madras Christian College Magazine also noted the new taste for drink among the upper classes: In the City of Madras the use of foreign liquor among Indians has become distressingly common. Attention has frequently been directed to this in the public prints [pamphlets and posters] conducted by Indians, and, in particular, protests have from time to time been made against the presence of a bar in the Cosmopolitan Club as a source of evil. Besides this Club, I have been told of two clubs in Madras where Indians drink in a more private way; and that private parties, called upstairs parties and jollifications, at which drinking goes on, are not uncommon.308

Campbell recalled the response of local elite drinkers when she decided to begin her own temperance work in the Punjab. She recounted the dismissive clucking of the well-to-do drinking classes who wondered, doesnt she know that is the fashion of men of our social standing to drink?309 A temperance deputation visiting the Secretary of State for India in 1912 led by AITA member, Herbert Roberts, expressed alarm over the growing alcohol problem among classes in which its use was previously very limited and discredited.310 Agnes Slack, a member of both the WCTU and the BWTU (British Womens Temperance Union) reported on an interview with Sir Balchandra Krishna, who told her, in every caste religious restrictions with regard to drink are breaking down, largely owing to contact with the English.311 The middle class was at the

Mary Campbell, The Power-House at Pathankot: What Some Girls of India Wrought by Prayer (Philadelphia: Board of Foreign Missions of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, 1918). 28.
308

307

Unknown, "Clipping from Madras Christian College Magazine," in Charles Roberts Collection (London: British Library, India Office, 1909). Campbell, The Power-House at Pathankot: What Some Girls of India Wrought by Prayer: 30.

309

Government of India, "Criticisms made on the Excise Administration in India by the Temperance Deputation which waited upon the Secretary of State in July 1912," ed. Excise A Department of Commerce and Industry (Calcutta: Government of India, 1914), 37.
311

310

Agnes Slack, My Travels in India (London: National British Women's Temperance Association, 1908).

8.

115 epicenter for this breakdown of religious values. As the Indian Social Reformer put it, the middle classes who were not usually addicted to taking liquor, has developed quite a taste for imported liquor due to the tendency to imitate western customs in this respect and by their superior attractions and real or fancied greater respectability as compared with the country spirit shops.312 Colonial administrators did not contest these observations of increased drinking among the upper class/caste young men. They granted that it had occurred during British rule but argued that it was not because of British ruleunless, of course, a given officer claimed that increased drinking was due to increased prosperity. In 1920 the Government of Bombays revenue department reported that the use of alcoholic liquors among the educated classes is no doubt spreading but here it is used in moderation and cases of drinking to excess are not common. Three years later A.W. Pim, a United Provinces (UP) revenue officer, attributed growing consumption to the weakening of religious sanctions and caste restrictions.313 C.E. Wild, Commissioner of Excise for UP downplayed the increase in drinking, writing, The use of alcoholic liquors among the educated classes is no doubt spreading but here it is used in moderation and cases of drinking to excess are not common.314 The Kayastha Temperance Association shared this assessment, noting that although private drinking continued among upper caste

312

Uknown, "The Consumption of Foreign Spirits," Indian Social Reformer XIX, no. 14 (1908): 1.

India, "Criticisms made on the Excise Administration in India by the Temperance Deputation which waited upon the Secretary of State in July 1912," 41.
314

313

Ibid., 47.

116 people, no gentleman is now found drinking openly for he dares not defy the sense which prevails in the community against intemperance.315 Both passionate temperance-advocating nationalists and colonial administrators agreed that there was an increase in drinking among the upper-classes, particularly among educated young men. The heartfelt concern of students who founded and joined student temperance associations for the drink problem cannot be denied. Nevertheless, membership in a temperance organization also served another purposean implicit rebuttal of the accusation that western education was necessarily connected to intemperance. That is to say, participating in temperance activity also served as an effective answer to critics implying that their Indian identity and social purity had been degraded by close contacts with British educators. Indian degree-holders vocally asserted their social status and Indian-ness through their participation in the temperance movement. This connection with the temperance movement, specifically with the AITA, provided them with yet another connection to nationalism due to the blurred boundaries between the two movements. The AITA also supplied a communication network among affiliated institutions. The personal and institutional relationships facilitated by shared membership in the AITA brought elite Indians from different localities together. The AITAs Abkari provided the names and temperance organizations and their organizers across India and reported on their shared efforts. What the INC did in terms of knitting together far-flung elites into a fairly cohesive movement also occurred with the AITA in a more localized manner. Temperance organizations shared equipment (like magic lanterns, slides, and the

Babu Lalta Prasad Saxena, Short History of Temperance Reform in the Kayastha Community (Agra: Moon Press, 1911). vi.

315

117 projector seen below), propaganda techniques, and missions. Taken in 1917, the image below puts together two activists, Lala Nand Lal, a Hindu social reformer with Nadir Shaw, a Muslim social reformer, united in common cause.316 Lala Nand Lal also collaborated a great deal with Mary Campbell of the WCTU.317 The issue of temperance formed coalitions within organizations and among organizations.

Figure 2: The Bioscope in Temperance Work, Amritsar Source: Frederick Grubb, "The Amritsar Temperance Society," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 107 (1917): 10.

The AITA also closely watched newspaper reports and the journals of other temperance organizations for reports of spontaneous temperance movements when they
316

Frederick Grubb, "The Amritsar Temperance Society," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the AngloIndian Temperance Association I, no. 107 (1917): 10. Campbell, The Power-House at Pathankot: What Some Girls of India Wrought by Prayer: 24.

317

118 emerged among lower-caste and lower-class groups. Instances of these movements were reported in local newspapers, watched by temperance advocates, and repeated in the journals of temperance organizations. For instance, in 1895 the lower-caste drinking classes of Surat collectively refused to buy government alcohol in protest of its poor quality and high price in an echo of earlier drink strikes of the 1880s and 1890s.318 Acting on reports of the Surat drink strike, the AITA responded by concentrating the forces of our open air lecturers upon these districts.319 In another instance the AITA responded to a similar movement in 1905 by the Khatiks, a fruit-vending caste, by dispatching an Indian temperance lecturer, Sirarankar Tiwari, to encourage a Kahtik leader to persevere in the good work he had begun, and told him to send for [Tiwari] when a meeting of Khatiks is held again.320 The assistance and support of the AITA for low-caste, spontaneously-organized temperance agitation, also iterated the social divisions between high status temperance activists and their low-status brothers. Providing alms to the poor was a long tradition for high-status individuals. This new temperance work brought high-caste people into crowds of low caste personsa notion that resonated with European (and almost exclusively Christian) temperance advocates. The image below, depicting AITA temperance preacher Yashwant Javagi Debir, reveals how images used in Indian temperance could be seen in different ways by Indian and British members of the AITA. Christian iconographic styles were adapted for the
318

See Chapter two for a discussion of these earlier drink strikes.

W.S. Caine, "Current Notes," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 20 (1895): 3.
320

319

Temperance Lecturer Sivarankar Tiwari, "A Caste Meeting of Khatiks (or fruit-vendors)," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 59 (1905): 26.

119 purposes of temperance propaganda by the AITA.321 Debir gave open-air lectures all the year round in the crowded bazaars and in the neighbourhood of the cotton mills throughout Bombay.322 In the image, Debir stands, his skin gleaming white, against a background of dark-skinned Indians, wearing turbans. They squat on the ground or lead against a tree as Dabirs right hand gestures beatifically. In his left hand is a large book which we can assume represents a religious book. Dabir and his colleagues at the AITA brought the word of temperance to drinking (or formerly drinking) populations as a holy cause. For Indians, Debir resembled Tilak, a Chitpavan Brahman and nationalist firebrand discussed in greater detail below.

321

Caine, "Current Notes: Harji Ram Kaisth," cover.

W. S. Caine, "Mr. Caine's Report to the President," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 5 (1891): 102.

322

120

Figure 3: Yashwant Javagi Debir Source: Temperance Lecturer Sivarankar Tiwari, "A Caste Meeting of Khatiks (or fruit-vendors)," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 59 (1905): 26.

121

Both the AITA and local temperance societies organized by low-caste persons benefited from the arrangement. AITA gained assets for gathering information about the local implementation of abkari policy. It made it possible to claim that the AITAs interests extended far beyond elites. Through these contacts they were able to collect stories of redemption from demon drink that raised the spirit of those contributing to the coffers. This also won the AITA a respected place among global temperance organizations. Many people were members of numerous temperance organizations at any given time. The activities of the AITA were reported in temperance journals around the world. Now the success of such low-caste organizations as the Tanners of Sholapur in petitioning for the removal of a liquor shop were construed as AITA victories as well.323 Locally organized, low-caste temperance organizations also benefited from the arrangement. The attention of AITA members, many of them with great political and monetary resources, upon the local activities of these groups afforded them a measure of protection from the caprice of colonial administrators. The AITA, WCTU, and other temperance organizations often proved eager to aid these organizations with resources from lantern slide projectors and brick-and-mortar temperance meeting halls to that most fundamental need--food.324 Like missionaries, their mission of enlightening the population involved charity. This forged a relationship between benefactor and recipient that, it was hoped, would make enlightenment more likely. Temperance workers, much

Henry J. Osborn, "Tanners of Sholapur," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 16 (1894): 13. Krishnama V.K. Chari, Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 52 (1903): 64.
324

323

122 like the missionaries that comprised so many of their numbers, were the consummate institution-builders.325 Of all the temperance organizations operating in India between 1890 and 1920, the AITA and the WCTU were the most influential. The AITA had been largely (though never entirely) sympathetic to the goals of nationalists from its inception. The WCTU, less intentionally political, began its work in India by fusing together the causes of the Christian mission and temperance. According to Tyrell, it ended its work by contributing to the emergence of the very nationalism they had only partly comprehended.326 Both the AITA and the WCTU were fairly anti-racist for the time. The AITA included Indians in positions of leadership from the very beginning, and employed Indian temperance preachers to spread their message. Pictures of Indian temperance workers graced the cover of the AITA journal, Abkari, from its earliest issues. Although the leadership of the AITA favored integration of Indians in its upper echelons, there were some exceptions to this racial amity. For some members of the AITA, their work was the product of paternal responsibility. AITA member J. Bryce worried that if alcohol had done such damage to the minds of Europeans, then it would damage the minds of Indians even more. At an 1891 AITA meeting in London he averred, the like mischief will tell more severely upon races whose will is less able to resist temptation, and whose mental fibre, perhaps I might even say whose brain substance, [are not the] same strength and

See Jeffrey Cox, Imperial fault lines : Christianity and colonial power in India, 1818-1940 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002). Tyrrell, Woman's world/Woman's empire : the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in international perspective, 1800-1930: 168.
326

325

123 quality as that of our Northern races.327 Yet Bryces opinions on the relative weakness of the Indian race were in a minority. Records of annual AITA conferences in London contain a small number of these kinds of observations, usually made by members living in England. Even this small number gradually diminished. By the end of the noncooperation movement in 1922 they had all but vanished.328 In contrast, the WCTU did not place Indians in the upper echelons of their organization, even within its Indian branch. In 1892 the Indian WCTU lecturer, Pandita Ramabai, who worked primarily in England, remained loyal to the organization despite complaints regarding the racism of some of its members.329 When Agnes Slacks tenure as head of Indias WCTU drew to a close, her position was filled by American women like Mary Campbell and Ruth Robinson. Unlike Slack, who derided Parsis as the Jew of the East, Campbell and Robinson avoided making controversial statements on race.330 In the pages of WCTUs India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon, and in the published recollections of Campbell, Indian women were mentioned primarily in aggregate. Temperance Halls and the WCTU Temperance Halls, like the Mission Halls upon which they were modeled, served as community centers within the Indian localities in which they were built. Determining the exact number of temperance halls in India at the beginning of the 20th century is

327

Henry J. Osborn, "Proceedings of the annual conference held April 4th 1891," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 6 (1891): 141. See chapter four.

328

Tyrrell, Woman's world/Woman's empire : the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in international perspective, 1800-1930: 102.
330

329

Slack, My Travels in India: 7.

124 difficult. That said, it is clear that there were at least dozens of them. Some of them were in shared purpose buildingsfor instance, a mission building that also housed a temperance hall. But from the late 19th century, temperance activists were constructing more and more buildings for the sole purpose of temperance meetings. This purpose, one that was (mostly) religiously inclusive, brought together vocal critics of government policy with an audience that sympathized with their larger aims.331 Temperance activists and nationalist speakers (who more often than not, were one and the same) increasingly had public, brick-and-mortar venues for their speeches extolling the virtue of abstinence and the pollution of colonial rule.

I use mostly advisedly here. While Christians, Hindus, and Muslims each could point to various religious traditions against drink, some minority religions in India were excluded. Far from prohibited, alcohol was actually a necessity for the religious practices of some tribal groups. Adivasis would thus not likely have found temperance halls entirely inclusive of all religions. Secondly, as the above photo demonstrates, some of the emaciated poor attendees were more interested in food than in sustenance.

331

125

Figure 4: Source: Krishnama Chari, "Feeding the poor in the Compound of Teynampet Temperance Hall, Madras, 24th January 1903, Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 52 (1903): 64. Foremost among organizations building temperance halls was the Womens Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). The WCTU was founded in Cleveland, Ohio by Frances Willard in November of 1874. Early activities in America included pray-ins at saloons, the collection of abstinence pledges, and lecture tours to both raise awareness of intemperance and to found new, local chapters of the WCTU. The popularity of the WCTU, which identified a distinctly gendered responsibility of women to address the problem of drinking, quickly spilled across the borders of the United States with chapters

126 appearing across the globe. In the mid-1880s, American Mary Greenleaf Clement Leavitt began founding new WCTU chapters in India.332 Before the founding of the AITA, the WCTU was the only temperance organization that could claim to have branches across the subcontinent.333 These chapters attracted Indian Christians, AngloIndian Eurasian women, and high-caste widows.334 The WCTU in India organized meetings across India with audiences often comprised almost entirely of native women.335 The content of WCTU propaganda and speeches varied by audience. WCTU required that its members be Christians, but spoke in myriad venues under the auspices of other temperance organizations. Early WCTU workers in the 19th century continued to focus their efforts on Christians alone, with occasional exceptions, but by the early 1900s this began to change. In settings in which Christian language might be offensive to temperance activists of other faiths, WCTU speakers toned down explicitly Christian contentthough never entirely so. Many WCTU temperance meetings occurred in Christian mission halls and opened with Christian prayers, but at the conclusion of the prayer the explicitly Christian content was reduced to such a degree that people of different faiths rarely contested it. Mary Campbell, who will be discussed in further detail below, remarked that only once in all her temperance meetings did a rabid, green-

Ian R. Tyrrell, David M. Fahey, and Jack S. Blocker, Alcohol and temperance in modern history : an international encyclopedia, 2 vols. (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2003). 309. Tyrrell, Woman's world/Woman's empire : the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in international perspective, 1800-1930: 164.
334 333

332

Tyrrell, Fahey, and Blocker, Alcohol and temperance in modern history : an international encyclopedia: 309.

335

Woman's Board of Missions., "Life and light for woman," ([Boston: Woman's Board of Missions, 1922), 278.

127 turbaned Mohammedan object to the Christian prayer.336 He was silenced by a Muslim attendee who admonished him, Brother, be quiet; this is our custom.337 Temperance was in fact an ecumenical movement and brought together the devout of several faiths, forming, societies in which Hindus, Buddhists, Mohammedans, and Christians unitedly fought demon drink.338 Although the WCTU was explicitly Christian, its members facilitated the organizations of new temperance organizations, many of which were explicitly not Christian. They also helped those organizations win access to propaganda materials, and celebrated their successes in the pages of WCTU of Indias journal, Temperance Record and the White Ribbon. In many respects, the work of the WCTU and the AITA were quite similar. Although the WCTU was an explicitly Christian organization (unlike the AITA), most of its prominent workers in India were willing to tamp down religious dogmatism to appeal to broad Indian audiences with their message of temperance. It conducted notable work through public meetings, medal contests, suitable literature and efforts to bring about better legislation.339 Agnes Slack, a bright, forceful little Englishwoman from London, was a friend of WCTU founder, Frances Willard, and secretary of both the Worlds and British Womens Christian Temperance Unions.340 She first went to India

336

Campbell, The Power-House at Pathankot: What Some Girls of India Wrought by Prayer: 34. Ibid., 35. Emphasis original.

337

Wilbur Fisk Crafts and Sara Jane Timanus Crafts, World book of temperance: temperance lessons, Biblical, historical, scientific, 3d rev. and enl. ed. (Washington, D.C.,: The International reform bureau, 1911), 125. Brenton Thoburn Bradley, "Total Abstinence: India's Goal," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 118 (1919): 66. Unknown, "Agnes Slack Here," New York Times, 2nd August, 1896 1896, 7. Born in Derbyshire to Liberal, Methodist parents, Slack also campaigned for womens suffrage in Britain. See Eve Colpus,
340 339

338

128 for the cause of temperance in 1907, addressing public meetings, taking temperance pledges, enrolling new members into the WCTU, and collecting subscriptions to the newly-minted WCTU journal, Indian Temperance Record and the White Ribbon.341 Unlike the WCTU activists in India who followed, many early British WCTU activists in India like Slack and Margaret Denning, were very much in favor of empire.342 Drink, she believed, was a threat to empire because it invited sedition among the capricious natives.343 Like AITA organizers, WCTU leaders were also keen to help organize other societies. Slack boasted of her achievement in enrolling 575 men for other temperance organizations and forming 15 new unions.344 This interaction between Slack and high-status Indians occasionally caused friction as when she appealed to the Indian men [of Ludhania] to organize a temperance society, one of whom suggested that, before doing so, Miss Slack should first get the British Government not to send drink to India.345 Slack and the WCTU were well aware of the limitations of their white members in India. Much (though not all) of Slacks work during her 1907 tour of India involved working with elites alone. She dined with temperance-minded government officials and the temperance nawabs of the princely states. Owing to the isolation of WCTU
"Slack, Agnes Elizabeth (1858-1946)," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Women's Christian Temperance Union, Report (Illustrated) of the Seventh Convention of the World's Women's Christian Temperance Union (Boston: Tremont Temple, 1906). 69. Tyrrell, Woman's world/Woman's empire : the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in international perspective, 1800-1930: 165.
343 342 341

Ibid., 163.

Union, Report (Illustrated) of the Seventh Convention of the World's Women's Christian Temperance Union: 69.
345

344

Slack, My Travels in India: 19.

129 workers and their absorption in their missionary work, Slack used her status as national secretary in India to push for paid organizers, who shall be constantly on the move.346 The first of these paid organizers, Mary Lochhead, a White Ribbon missionary, was sent by the Scottish Christian Union to work in India solely on the cause of temperance in 1910.347 Slack lamented that English-speaking W.C.T.U.s can hardly appreciate the difficulties of language in India but was happy to report that temperance literature in Hindustani, Bengali, Hindi, Nearathi, Gegerali, Tamil and Telagu had been produced in 1906.348 The WCTU in India was guided mostly by capable and enthusiastic American women like Mary Campbell.349 These American WCTU activists were much more likely to be openly critical of colonial rule than their British predecessors.350 The national temperance organizer for India, Campbell was born in Illinois in 1865, the eldest of eight children. When her parents died suddenly, various relatives took on the responsibility for her and her siblings and, inspired by a visiting missionary recounting his work in Egypt, she resolved to become a missionary herself.351 She arrived in Punjab

Union, Report (Illustrated) of the Seventh Convention of the World's Women's Christian Temperance Union: 69. Report of the Ninth Convention of the World's Women's Christian Temperance Union (Evanston, Illinois: Women's Christian Temperance Union, 1913), 37.
348 347

346

Report (Illustrated) of the Seventh Convention of the World's Women's Christian Temperance Union: 70. By Nearathi and Gegerali Slack likely meant Marathi and Gujarati. Bradley, "Total Abstinence: India's Goal," 66.

349

Tyrrell, Woman's world/Woman's empire : the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in international perspective, 1800-1930: 166. Anderson D.D. Gordon, Our Indian Mission: A Thirty Years' History of the Indian Mission of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, Together with Personal Reminiscences (Philadelphia: Andrew Gordon, 1886), 494-496.
351

350

130 in 1884 to do missionary work for the American Presbyterian Church, but over the next 20 years her activities began to shift more in the direction of temperance than of evangelism. She also built a Christian girls school in Pathankot called Avalon. This shift in focus was not entirely unproblematic. Agnes Slack worried that Campbells multi-sectarian work for temperance was becoming too divorced from the Christian mission.352 Nevertheless, as a paid temperance organizer for all India her job was to aid Indians, both Christian and non-Christian in the fight against drink.353 Campbells work is illustrative of Ian Tyrrells assertion that, the linking of the prohibition cause with democratic themes of American progressivism was implicitly corrosive to British rule.354 The crown jewel of Campbells work in India was the building of a temperance hall in Pathankot, a Punjabi city north of Delhi. Built with donations from Christian missionaries, Hindu gentlemen, well-to-do Muslims, and at least one sympathetic British colonial official, one Indian gentleman praised it as worth far more to Indias ultimate good than that dream of marble on the banks of the Jumna by Shah Jehan.355 The Presbyterian Church of North America celebrated its completion with a book entitled The

Tyrrell, Woman's world/Woman's empire : the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in international perspective, 1800-1930: 167. Aurthur T. Pierson, "News From Many Lands: Blue Ribbon Army," The Missionary Review of the World XXXIII, no. 3 (1920): 271.
354 353

352

Tyrrell, Woman's world/Woman's empire : the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in international perspective, 1800-1930: 167. Campbell, The Power-House at Pathankot: What Some Girls of India Wrought by Prayer: 18. The dream of marble refers to the Taj Mahal.

355

131 Powerhouse at Pathankot: What Some Girls of India Wrought by Prayer, printed in English and at least one Indian language in 1918.356 Temperance Halls were important structures as local community centers and for material evidence of the efficacy of the labors of temperance activists. The temperance hall acted as a community center for Pathankot and as a beacon for temperance. Campbell wrote of her achievement, in villages near and remote the news of the wonderful work in Pathankot spread, and it was not long until requests came, to help organize new temperance organizations.357 A deputation from Sujanpur, some four miles from Pathankot, was among the first. Campbell came to their aid, organizing a boys school there and founding a new temperance organization there. Characteristic of the multi-sectarian nature of Indian temperance, the meeting began with Christian prayer but the leadership of the new organization was populated by Hindus and Muslims as well.358 Finally, temperance halls stood as brick and mortar evidence of unity in the temperance cause. They made a claim to public space, an assertion that these public buildings were bastions of pan-religious respectability. Temperance organizations vociferously protested plans to allow liquor shops in the vicinity of their temperance halls.359

International Temperance

The Delhi Branch of the Womens Christian Temperance Union owns a copy of The Powerhouse at Pathankot printed in Urdu.
357

356

Campbell, The Power-House at Pathankot: What Some Girls of India Wrought by Prayer: 66. Ibid, 67. Syed Shamsuddin Kadri, "Native Newspaper Reports," (Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1907), 32.

358

359

132 Temperance organizations, both those operating solely within a given nation and those working internationally, remained in close contact with each other. Their journals often contained notes regarding the progress of sister temperance organizations in other countries. For instance, Frederick Grubb of the AITA made regular contributions to journals for the WCTU, the AITA, and later, to the Prohibition League of India (PLI). Moreover, organizations that might otherwise have been too obscure to garner international notice came to the attention of temperance workers in distant lands. Recording the successes of the Kayastha Temperance Association, Babu Prasad Saxena boasted in 1911 that several foreign newspapershave published encouraging reviews on the reports of the Kayastha Temperance Reform in India and the famous quarterly magazine Abkari of London has often dwelt on the valuable services of this mission.360 There were also regular world conferences at which delegates from numerous countries informed colleagues about their local activities. Events regarding alcohol, even in small Indian villages, fell under the gaze of Indians at a national level, of Britons at an imperial level, and of numerous countries as far flung as Japan and Sweden. The existence of the global temperance community and its interest in events in India would become increasingly important over time. By 1931, at least one nationalist favored a raid on a government distillery in the hope that deadly violence might be used against the raiders, thereby creating martyrs for the cause. Such an event, he believed, would bring international condemnation of state/imperial violence in the defense of demon drink.361 The Indian National Social Conference appreciated

360

Saxena, Short History of Temperance Reform in the Kayastha Community, vi. See chapter 5 for a more detailed discussion of this raid. Fortunately, not such event took place.

361

133 efforts to grant Indians the right to choose whether or not to allow drink in their localities. Such a goal could not be secured without the cooperation of the English and American Temperance Societies. 362 The INC and the Politics of Purity in Poona On August 20th, 1907, the Poona Temperance Association (PTA) was formed. G.K. Gokhale, the famous reformer who would eventually be known as Gandhis guru, was elected chair of the organization, aided by other leaders like Lokamanya Tilak ally, N.C. Kelkar, and the missionary, A. Robinson.363 The organization had the support of B.G. Tilak and many other prominent men in the city [and of] all missionaries in its efforts to educate public opinion and to secure a more restrictive administration of abkari laws. 364 The PTA was a coalition of Congressmen of both extremist and conservative stripes, Christians, and conservative, high-caste Hindus. For the first several months of its existence, the PTA seems to have done little. They sent a petition to the commissioner of excise for Bombay complaining that there were far too many liquor shops in Poona and that the shops represented a danger to children who were served liquor there.365 Yet the petition-writing phase of the PTAs work was soon to come to a close. The formation of the PTA roughly coincided with another key event in the nationalist movement. Just four months after the founding of the PTA, the INC, the

Conference, "Report of the Tenth National Social Conference Held in Calcutta on 1st January 1897," Appendix K.
363

362

ed., "Cuttings from the Press." Ibid.

364

ed. Frederick Grubb, "Poona Temperance Society," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 72 (1908).

365

134 foremost organization for Indian nationalists of the early 20th century, split into two factions at an annual meeting in Surat. Moderates and extremists differed on the fate of British rule in India. Moderates were willing to fight for constitutional reform under the aegis of imperial Britain, while extremists demanded autonomy and home-rule. Extremists accused moderates of weakness and vacillation, while moderate accused extremists of dangerous radicalism. The INC split was devastating to its political effectiveness. Congresswallas of both camps sought reconciliation to no avail. Continued debate seemed only to widen the rift but temperance agitation would provide an opportunity to mitigate nationalist factionalism. In addition to the INCs plenary, national meetings such as the one in Surat in December 1907, the Congress held meetings at the district level. Many of the key players in the Congress split lived in the Bombay presidency, so the March 23rd meeting of the Poona District Conference in 1908 promised to bring face to face longtime foes like Gokhale and Tilak. The nearly 300 also attendees included extremists like Tilak, and Kelkar, and editors of moderate newspapers along with several professors from the local Furgusson Collegea demographic that closely resembled that of the AITA.366 The Poona District Conference afforded the two Congress camps an opportunity to repair the rift. The conference passed a unanimous resolution urging the two Congress factions to settle their differences and reunite, but differences continued under the surface and moderates associated with the Bombay Presidency Association continued to hold the resolution suspect.367 Despite the hopes of Congress supporters, the two factions did not

Gordon Johnson, Provincial Politics and Indian Nationalism: Bombay and the Indian National Congress, 1880-1915 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973). 178.
367

366

Ibid., 179.

135 reach a true accord at the 1908 Poona conference and, in the end, the resolution failed to convince. For all their differences, however, there remained one cause that could depend on the steadfast support of both moderates and radicals. Very soon, events in Poona would still serve to mitigate, to some degree, the animus between leaders of the two factions, Gokhale and Tilaktemperance. After all, Congress was not the only organization in Poona capable of uniting nationalists in common cause. The Poona Temperance Association (PTA) provided a second opportunity to heal the rift and give fillip to Indian nationalism more broadly. Even if reconciliation proved elusive within the Congress, the diversity of the PTA demonstrated that union remained possible. As The India Social Reformer would later observe, when men like the Honourable Dr. Bhandarkar, the Honourable Mr. Gokhale, Mr. Tilak and the Rev. N. MacNicol unite in a common protest, it follows that the cause is just.368 Less than one year after its founding, the PTA found itself confronted by a colonial government increasingly suspicious of the merits of the Indian temperance movement. Meanwhile, the coalition of missionaries, nationalists of all stripes, and conservative, high-caste Hindus endure the first test, described below, of what would prove to become a central plank of the freedom movement-temperance advocacy. All the while, both temperance advocates and colonial officials claimed to speak for low-caste drinkers. The 1908 clash described below pitted upper-caste activists against lower-caste drinkers, nationalists against the bureaucrats, and revealed bitter divides among colonial administrators. The coalitions and conflicts that appeared in the 1908 Poona temperance

Syed Shamsuddin Kadri, "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay," (Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1908).

368

136 riot in embryonic form culminated three decades with the introduction of prohibition in limited areas in 1939.369 Mere days after the Poona District Conference, a temperance meeting was held in the John Small Memorial Institute. The meeting was addressed by a European gentleman whom the Free Church of Scotland missionary, Nicol Macnicol observed, was outside the influence of Mr. Tilak and the politicians.370 The meeting was attended by a large number of dependable allies of both Indian nationalism and temperance reform, including, students belonging to Fergusson and other Colleges.371 Energized by the meeting, a considerable number of the young men expressed an earnest desire to do some practical Temperance work.372 Those young men were assisted by the Poona Temperance Association, which helped to arrange for a temperance address to be given to a larger audience, complete with magic lantern illustrations. The young men themselves promoted the event by inviting the people in from the street, by singing temperance songs in bands, and by preaching in the vicinity of liquor shops.373 The college students then became yet more eager, and began to organize the systematic work of picketing.374 Macnicol recounted that it was only after the students themselves

369

See chapter five.

370

Rev. Nicol Macnicol, "The Temperance Movement in Poona," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 73 (1908): 100. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 110. Ibid.

371

372

373

374

137 had begun picketing that Mr. Tilak and the [Poona] Temperance Association [PTA] began to lay hands on the movement.375 The PTA laid hands on the movement on April 2nd, passing a resolution that the agitation for temperance should now be pushed in the city to its utmost limits within the law, seeing the cooperation of temperance workers of all classes and creeds.376 Like the AITA with which they were affiliated, they hoped to capture of the energy of the student picketers while guiding them to avoid breaches of the law.377 To that end the PTA appointed a subcommittee consisting of Dr. Mann, Mr. Tilak, Mr. Manicol, R.S.V.A. Patwardham, Mr. Khadilkarfor the above object, [and] also to draw up rules to guide temperance volunteers in the city.378 To balance the decidedly Hindu and Christian tilt of Poonas temperance movement they resolved to send a deputation consisting of Mr. Gokhale, Mr. Tilak, and Dr. Mann to the leaders of the Mohammedan community and request them to interest themselves.379 There is little evidence documenting how successful they were in this endeavor, but they did manage to recruit two Maulvis (Islamic religious scholars) to address temperance audiences in Muslim

375

Ibid.

ed. Frederick Grubb, "Cuttings from the Press," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 73 (1908): 102. Frederick Grubb, "The Poona Episode," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 74 (1908).
378 377

376

Frederick Grubb, "Temperance Movement in Poona," 102. Ibid.

379

138 areas.380 The Maulvis held at least two temperance meetings under the auspices of the PTA for Muslim audiences.381 Macnicol knew Poona quite well. He worked as western India missionary for the Free Church of Scotland, having moved to Poona in 1900 where he entered into a heritage of goodwill among both Christians and non-Christians.382 Macnicol cultivated a close relationship with Poona Brahmins. He believed that evangelism was most effective when one had a clearer understanding of the faith from which he hoped to win converts. An active member of the Royal Asiatic Society and a learned intellectual who knew Indian languages; his 1915 book Indian Theism: From the Vedic to the Mohammedan Period was widely read and favorably reviewed, as were his translations of the Upanishads and The Psalms of the Maratha Saints.383 While it is impossible to know what, exactly, Macnicol thought about the temperance movement in India, it seems unlikely that the nationalist hue of the movement in Poona escaped his notice. Beginning on April 2nd, temperance volunteers began to picket liquor shops in Poona under the auspices of the PTA. The picketing was remarkably effective, and liquor shops that once sold as much as 25-30 gallons per day saw their sales plummet to a mere one or two gallons, and even that sold only during the early morning or when the volunteers were temporarily absent.384 The successful picketing of liquor shops drew the attention of the Assistant Collector for Poona, F.G.H. Anderson. He saw it as

380

Ibid., 103. Syed Shamsuddin Kadri, "Native Newspaper Reports," (Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1908). E.G., "Nicol Macnicol," International Review of Missions 41, no. 3 (1952): 353. Kadri, "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." Anderson, "Report on Poona Disturbances."

381

382

383

384

139 impossible that a sane man maintain that such an effect can only be produced by mere moral conviction of the religious and ethical evil of drink and the self-denial of sudden converts.385 He was certain that such results could only be borne of forcible prevention, to fear of abuse and insult, and to fear of the social obloquy of being publicly upbraided for their resort to the shop.386 Despite widespread support for the Poona temperance agitation, some Indians questioned what they saw as the sudden concern of Brahmins for the plight of low-caste drinkers. Anderson did enjoy support from one group of Indians, albeit unenthusiastically. Parsis, more numerous in the Bombay Presidency than anywhere else in India, had long been associated with alcohol sales. Parsi-edited newspapers such as Jame Jamshed, Akhbar-e-Soudagar, Rast Goftar, and The Poona Observer lauded the rectitude of the movement but questioned its tactics, particularly picketing. Jame Jamshed lamented the participation of moderate scholar and medical historian, Sir Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar, a former Vice Chancellor of Bombay University, in the movement and suggested that government were perfectly justified in taking up the cudgels against picketing.387 At least one Mahrathi paper, Dinbandhu, noted that the majority of the volunteers are Brahmins who were only able to picket because they were well-off.388 What is more, it suggested that at least one temperance meeting was as a matter of facta Brahmin meeting, for all its proceedings were carried on by

385

Ibid. Ibid. Kadri, "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." Ibid.

386

387

388

140 Brahmins.389 Bombays government shared that conclusion, noting that nearly all of the volunteers were Brahmin youths.390 In any event, Anderson became aware of the pickets and their impact on sales on the 3rd of April.391 Anderson would later claim that picketers at any given shop typically numbered ten Brahmin students who were conspicuously acting at the head of the movement picketing before a crowd of 100 or more.392 On April 5th, Anderson resolved to break up the pickets and scatter[ed] the groups without using force, or more than a mere gesture, possibly with a light push.393 Much to Andersons surprise, the picketers closed in again behind usconsidering the propriety of resistance.394 Hearing some commotion, Anderson turned to see one of the students engaged in a tussle with a sepoy and another man, who seemed so far as I could tell at a glance to be assisting the Police and the shop-keeper.395 Anderson, went up at once and saying (in English this time as he was plainly a College student) 'you must move on as I have ordered.' I laid hold of his upper arm and thrust him along; but he was in the midst of a group and seemed to have the intention of obeying, but rather his demeanour was that of a man who meant to fight. I then took him by the scruff of the neck and almost simultaneously he laid hold of me by the coat just by the collar bone; as I had no intention of being pulled about by him, I immediately let drive at his face to compel him to let go and at the same time said to the Constable and to the Chief Constable and others who had naturally come up during the second or two that this
389

Ibid.

Bombay Secretary to Government, "Letter regarding Poona Disturbances to the Secretary of the Home Department, India," in Judicial, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1908).
391

390

G. Esq. Charmichael, District Magistrate, Poona "Report," in Judicial, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1908). Anderson, "Report on Poona Disturbances." Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

392

393

394

395

141 incident required 'he must be arrested.' I still had him by the fore-arm and now instead of thrusting him away from the shop, hauled him out and put him formally under arrest.396 The response of the crowd alarmed Anderson all the more. He recounted that the attitude of several of the volunteers was aggressive and even pugnacious. I saw walking sticks brandished; and one or two others of the crowd, volunteers or not I cannot say, tried to interpose and prevent me dispersing the group. On my first visit to the shop, one of them had asked my name and tried to prevent me from dispelling the gathering.397 Recognizing the precariousness of his situation, Anderson decided that it would be desirable to get more force before further dispersing the crowd.398 The local police force was short 41 men that day, with that number assigned to escort prisoners and treasure.399 Moreover, word reached him that the much-feared local nationalist firebrand, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, planned to address the crowd.400 With only six sowars and one detachment of armed Police available to quell the disturbance, Anderson decided to give word to the military to assemble forces.401 Accused later of precipitating the very riot he wanted to avoid, he responded that there would have been no battle at Thermopylae if the Spartans had gone home.402 Andersons grandiosity did

396

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Charmichael, "Report."

397

398

399

H.O. Quin, "Letter to the Secretar to the Government of India, Home Department," in India Office Collection (London: British Library, 1908).
401

400

Anderson, "Report on Poona Disturbances." Ibid.

402

142 not go unnoticed by his critics, one of whom sarcastically praised the formers heroics.403 Official opinion did not entirely support Andersons zeal. His supervisor, G. Carmichael, returned the next morning to find no further disorder and volunteers assisted in preventing crowds of other youths from assembling.404 Unlike Andersons condemnation of all Poona temperance agitation as politicalread nationalist Carmichael was much more charitable. He, like virtually all colonial officials, held Tilaks motives suspect; nevertheless, he differed with his subordinate on the movement more broadly, averring that a number of people are supporting the movement from purely honourable and conscientious motives, and he [Anderson] is in my belief mistaken in his view that those who were engineering the movements for political reasons were prepared to risk an open conflict with authority.405 Carmichaels view of the Poona disturbancesquestioning the motives of some participants while praising the beneficence of othersfound support among his supervisors. Acting Secretary to the Government of India, H.O. Quin, agreed with Anderson that there is every reason to believe that Mr. B.G. Tilak and a number of his followers lent their support with the object of creating trouble, and, if possible, bringing discredit upon Government.406 But he too differed from Anderson in some important ways. While Anderson believed the missionaries were mere dupes, and Indian activists

403

Kadri, "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." Quin, "Letter to the Secretar to the Government of India, Home Department."

404

405

G. Esq. Carmichael, District Magistrate, Poona "Report," in Judicial, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1908). Quin, "Letter to the Secretar to the Government of India, Home Department."

406

143 were political, Quin praised the movements support by a number of respectable gentlemen, such as the Honourable Dr. R.G. Bhandarkar, C.I.E., and the Rev. Mr. R. Macnicol, [who acted] from conscientious motives.407 Regardless of the laudable motives of some temperance agitators in Poona, Carmichael outlawed picketing of all kinds on April 18th because it was found that the pickets acted in co-operation with other persons who obstructed and annoyed customers after leaving the shops.408 A secretary for the PTA responded to the district magistrate that they had, under protest, given orders to their mento cease work [picketing] and withdraw.409 One of the few Indian publications to praise the magistrates decision was the Parsi-run Jama Jamshed. It lamented the mischievous nature of picketing and praised the action of the Poona authorities in putting down rowdyism and protecting the frequenters of the liquor-shops against undue interference with their liberty of action.410 Most magistrates in the Bombay presidency followed Carmichaels lead, voluntarily outlawing picketing altogether. Yet this repression was far from universal, even among colonial officialdom. The collector of Nasik, A.M.T. Jackson, some days after most Bombay districts had criminalized picketing, released a circular stating that So long as Advocates of Temperance confine themselves to peaceful persuasion, or to the Lawful enforcement of

407

Ibid.

408

W. Esq. Commisioner Doderet, C.D., "Poona Picketing," in Judicial, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1908).

"Report of a disturbance which took place in Poona on the 5th April 1908 in consequence of certain boys attempting to dissuade customers from going to liquor shops," in Judicial, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1908).
410

409

Kadri, "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." English was the original language for this article.

144 religious tenets or Caste Rules, they should not be interfered with.411 To ensure that no illegalities arose from the picketing, Jackson ordered that a Constable should be posted at the place to see that no force or intimidation is used and that the traffic is not obstructed by the assembling of crowds in the roadway.412 Jacksons perceived leniency drew the ire of many of his colleagues. Although he continued to allow picketing, he noted that there had been some intimidation earlier. Temperance agitation occurred in only two towns under his supervisionMalegaon and Yeola. The methods employed in the two towns varied. The methods of picketers in Malegaon was to post persons in a house opposite to the liquor shop in order to note the names of customers, which are then reported to their caste Panchayats who inflict fines.413 He also reported that in Malegaon the only reported case of criminal intimidation had been prosecuted in court. Yeolas agitators initially employed wrestlers to intimidate the customers, but as soon as evidence could be obtained, two of these men were prosecuted, and since their conviction the agitators have confined themselves to lecturing, and the temperance agitation in Yeola is now dead.414 Jackson maintained that picketing itself was only dangerous insofar as it could lead to criminality. If that criminality was prosecuted, then it would be infrequent. He defended his position thusly: The temperance agitation appeared and still appears to me to have been organized, so far as it has a political origin, for the purpose of driving government into such a position and
411

A.M.T. Jackson, Collector of Nasik, "Circular," in Revenue, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1908). 412 Ibid. "Letter to the Secretary to Government, Revenue Department, Bombay," in Revenue, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1908).
414 413

Ibid.

145 such notion, that the agitators might be able to say that government was forcing liquor on the people. From all I have heard, they did attain their object in some districts; but they did not do so in Nasik.415 That is to say, if the temperance movement was truly political as its critics maintained, government was playing right into their hands. If official opinion was divided on the issue of picketing, nationalists and temperance advocates were decidedly less so. G.K. Gokhale, a Congress moderate and mentor to Gandhi, averred that it was impossible to dissociate the Temperance cause from politics.416 He argued further that arrest of picketers in Poona proved that temperance would become more of a political question than it was a financial, moral, or a social question.417 Tilak, Gokhales political adversary in the 1907 Congress split, prophesied that the history of the temperance movement will serve as a nice objectlesson in the present relations between the rulers and the ruled.418 Nationalists enjoyed a great deal of support on the matter from temperance activists. Abkari reported that the young men who watched the liquor shops refrained from all acts of violence, and confined themselves to persuasive methods [but were] neverthelessarrested and fined.419 Reprinted in Abkari, Madras The Hindu saw the criminalization of picketing as a manifest perversion of the law, and if permitted, would allow of a dangerous extension of official repression and a deprivation of the elementary rights of free

415

Ibid.

C.K. Gokhale, "Mr. R.C. Dutt, C.I.E., and the Hon. G.K. Gokhale, C.I.E., on Temperance Reform," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 73 (1908): 91.
417

416

Ibid. Kadri, "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." Frederick Grubb, "Temperance Movement in Poona," 102.

418

419

146 citizens.420 Despite its criminalization, many nationalists considered the Poona picketing a great success. After all, the Poona temperance volunteers accomplished in one week by peaceful persuasion what hundreds of letters and leaflets failed to achieve in the course of years.421 Thus, seven years before Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1915, the picketing of liquor shops by high-caste activists was proving an effective method to protest the colonial government and promote temperance. Indian newspapers expressed the same outrage found in temperance journals. Poonas Marathi-language Kesari, edited by none other than Tilak, made the ambitious claim that but for the fact that the temperance workers were clapped up in prison the active workers in the cause on some pretext or another, India might already be dry.422 Tilaks English language newspaper, The Mahratta, lamented that the Poona Police seem to have taken the temperance crusade ill.423 This, the paper argued, stemmed from the fact that picketing, was against the interests of the dealers in liquor and especially Government who get the lion's share of the profits of this traffic.424 A week later, Kesari called out Anderson personally, tying his high-handedness in dealing with the pickets to the fate of the British Empire more broadly; given a few more Magistrates of the type of Mr. Anderson, and the fabric of the British Empire is sure to collapse in no time.425 Poonas Marathi language newspaper, Kal, noted that only under British

420

Grubb, "The Poona Episode," 109. Kadri, "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." "Native Newspaper Reports." Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

421

422

423

424

425

147 Government can drinking be called a right and moral persuasion to abstain from drink stigmatised as an offence, implying that the contrary could be realized only without British rule.426 Another local Marathi language paper went so far as to express the view that British Government is as much to be condemned for its Abkari policy as the father who induced his daughter to become a prostitute in order to increase his income."427 Condemnation of the outlawing of picketing was swift and severe within the temperance community as well. Macnicol gave a spirited defense of the Poona picketing that was reprinted for Abkari. Macnicol believed that the governments intransigence on the matter boiled down to the fact that for many in colonial government, the presence of Mr. Tilak in any movement at once condemns it, apart altogether from its merits.428 Macnicol further highlighted the hypocrisy of anti-picketing legislation, noting the recent raids on public houses by the Bishop of London himself as part of a great roundup of drunkards, organized by the Church Army.429 Poona temperance activists protested the criminalization of picketing vehemently. At the request of R.G. Bhandarkar, Sir George Clarke, the Governor of Bombay agreed to receive a temperance deputation on the subject. Bhandarkar was joined on the deputation by MacNicol, L.R. Gokhale, and Tilak ally, N.C. Kelkar.430 The deputation urged the Governor to rescind his support for picketing criminalization. Clarke responded by

426

Ibid. Ibid. Macnicol, "The Temperance Movement in Poona." Ibid. Grubb, "The Poona Episode."

427

428

429

430

148 explaining that although picketing itself was not strictly illegal, due to human nature it would inevitably lead to illegalities. Thus local magistrates still had the right to outlaw picketing based on local circumstances. If Clarke proved unmovable on the subject of picketing, he was careful to provide encouraging words to the deputation endorsing their efforts. He averred that the protests were not reducible to mere politics but rather reflected the noble intentions of social reformers.431 Finally, he granted that there were too many liquor shops in Poona, promising to convene a local committee to determine which liquor shops that would not be relicensed for the following year. Recourse to local option seemed a good way to placate both western missionaries and high-caste Indians agitating for decreased access to drink. Clarkes resolve on picketing was deeply unpopular with temperance activists, though they appreciated his concessions on the closing of local shops based on local option. Clarkes statement gave fillip to extant local option committees which were now encouraged by official sanction to close more, though certainly far from all, liquor shops. Little protest is recorded of this move save from one colonial official, the recalcitrant A.M.T. Jackson, collector for Nasik. He did not favor greater use of local option committees because of the fact that the native members will not belong to the drinking class.432 For Jackson, local option committees acted as a method for imposing the values of high castes on the lives of the low. Jackson was an enigmatic bureaucrat;

431

Ibid., 130.

A.C. Commissioner of Customs Logan, Salt, Opium and Abkari, Bombay, "Accompaniments to Government Resolution, Revenue Department, No. 10439, Dated October 1908," in Judicial, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1908).

432

149 unlike his colleagues, he opposed the criminalization of picketing and, also unlike his colleagues, had the gall to argue against the governor of Bombay on the merits of local option committees. In any event, Jacksons approach to local administration proved short-lived. On the 21st of December, 1909, Jackson was gunned down by a young Brahmin student, much to the consternation of Indian nationalists and government officialdom alike.433 The moment picketing was outlawed, liquor sales in Poona began to recover.434 While impossible to prove conclusively, this rebound in sales supports the idea that intimidation, implicit or explicit was at least partly to blame for the dramatic reduction in sales during picketing. Secretary for the Bombay department of Finance, R.A. Lamb reported that with picketing outlawed, the traffic of the liquor shops returned to its ordinary conditions. The movement therefore cannot be regarded as having effectually promoted the cause of temperance.435 Reflecting on the effects of the movement two years later, the Government of Bombay reported to the Government of India that there was some reduction in the sale of country liquor, due to the temperance movement, picketing, and sinhast [a marriageless year].436 Nevertheless, the same report noted that the consumption of toddy rose by over 113,000 gallons, and there appears to have been some tendency for the cheaper drink,
433

Shabnum Tejani, Indian secularism : a social and intellectual history, 1890-1950 (Bloomington, Ind. Chesham: Indiana University Press, 2008). 100-02.

Doderet, "Report of a disturbance which took place in Poona on the 5th April 1908 in consequence of certain boys attempting to dissuade customers from going to liquor shops." R.A. Lamb, "Letter from Chief Secretary to Government, Bombay to Secretary to the Government of India, Financial Department," ed. Fincancial (Bombay: unpublished, 1908). Government of India, "Reports on the Administration of the Excise Department in the Bombay Presidency, Sind and Aden for the year 1908-09," ed. Deparate Revenue A Finance Department (Calcutta: Government of India, 1910).
436 435

434

150 toddy, to replace the more costly country spirit.437 Moreover, it appeared that drinking among the upper classes continued to rise as evidenced by increased sales of foreign liquor. [It] is consumed more by the well-to-do and educated classes than by the mass of the population, are in striking contrast with the fall in the consumption of country spirit which is the drink of the common people. It seems probable that the tendency of the former classes to indulge in European liquors increased, while the drinking propensities of the latter were checked by the observance of the religious traditions of Sinhast last year.438 With some exceptions, it appeared that the lower castes continued to drink as usual, while educated, high-caste students and bureaucrats drank yet moreperhaps explaining both the vehemence and inefficacy of the movement in terms of reducing drinking. On April 30th, 1908, less than two weeks after picketing was outlawed in Poona, two Bengali youths attempted to kill a district judge with a bomb, killing several bystanders, including two British women. The colonial government responded on the other side of the subcontinent on the 24th of June, by arresting Tilak on the charge of sedition.439 According to an Anglo-Indian correspondent, likely Macnicol, the city of Poona represented a city of the dead. Every shop was closed out of sympathy for Mr. Tilak and the streets were for the most part deserted. It was a scene of desolation to which the worst days of the plague in the city bore but a faint resemblance. The schools in the city and the Ferusson College were practically closed. The feeling in the city had a bye-product in the shape of two prosecutions which resulted in the conviction of two Brahmin gentlemen who were summarily sentenced by the City Magistrate [for picketing] to a fine of Rs. 35 each.440
437

Ibid. Ibid. Sinhast, a marriageless year, implied fewer celebrations involving liquor.

438

439

N.C. Kelkar, ed. Full and Authentic Report of the Tilak Trial, Being the Only Authorized Verbatim Account of the Whole Proceedings with Introduction and Biographical Sketch of Bal Gangadhar Tilak Together with Press Opinion (Bombay: Indu-Prakash Steam Press, 1908), 11. Kadri, "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay."

440

151

With Tilaks arrest, temperance, as a movement with a claim towards being apolitical died. The worst fears of the late A.M.T. Jackson were realized; temperance had truly become a political movement. It had become clear as well that the moral force, or perhaps intimidation, of temperance activists would not be tolerated by the colonial state. Yet this was not hardly the end of the Indian temperance movement in Poona or elsewhere. It would continue to live on beneath the umbrella of Indian nationalism. From the very beginning, the AITA had recruited nationalists to join their organization. The AITAs powerful friends in the British Parliament provided some measure of protection from the caprice of local magistrates and police. This made temperance organizations more resilient in the face of government attack but not entirely so. Individual temperance activists could be and were arrested, jailed, and given fines. A patriotic gentleman of Poona offered to pay the fines for all nine temperance volunteers; however, all but one declined, resolving instead to suffer imprisonment instead of paying the penalty.441 The Indian temperance movement, particularly those organizations associated with the AITA, had been nationalistic since the 1890s. Congress members and those of similar educated, high-caste backgrounds were the backbone of the movement. The 1908 Poona disturbances represented the first test for what might have appeared at first glance to have been a very unstable coalitiona union of missionaries, Hindu conservatives, British philanthropists, Members of Parliament, and Indian nationalists. Although temperance advocates failed to win all they had hoped from a reluctant colonial government, they did win an acknowledgment of the justice of their cause. From this
441

Ibid.

152 point it could no longer be argued that nationalism was solely a political issue devoid of moral content any more than it could be argued that temperance was solely a moral issue devoid of political content. The moral content of nationalism made it more difficult for colonial administrators to dismiss nationalist agitation as merely seditious. It served a higher purpose, imbuing temperance with patriotism and nationalism with rectitude particularly valuable for high-caste nationalists who had interests in both defending their Indian-ness and advancing moral and political reform. The stage was set for a significant escalation in the radicalism of temperance and nationalist rhetoric in the 1920s.

153 CHAPTER IV: EMPIRE OF DRINK: THE NATIONALIZATION OF TEMPERANCE IN THE 1920S Introduction

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, temperance activists sought out nationalists to enlist their support in the fight against alcohol. As shown in the previous chapter, there were signs of change as Lokamanya Tilak and others began to use the rhetoric and tools of the temperance movement to further the nationalist cause as early as 1908, foreshadowing a new turn in Indian temperance. By 1920, Indian nationalists were larger in number and highly organized. The political landscape of India was shifting, particularly during the non-cooperation movement of 1920-1922. The scale of Indian nationalism surpassed temperance in energy and numerical involvement. No longer did temperance activists seek out the support of nationalists; nationalists now sought the support of temperance organizations and called on temperance activists to make a choice between siding with the political moderates or the radicals. European or American led parent organizations like the AITA and the WCTU tried to remain above the fray with limited success, as even the attempt to avoid commentary on political matters was itself a political statement. Indians were now firmly in the drivers seat, leaving western temperance workers with the stark choice of bailing out or coming along for a ride that would eventually culminate in Indian freedom. The growing popularity and political strength of Indian nationalism either imbued temperance activists with anticolonial sentiment or made them irrelevant. Organizations like the AITA, which tried to remain above the political fray, lost popular support. At the same time, Indian nationalism came to mean temperance as well. The American

154 Temperance crusader, William Pussyfoot Johnson toured India in 1921. Chronicles of his visit demonstrate the impossibility of non-political temperance work. The anticolonial struggles of the 1920s effectively fused the nationalist and temperance movements. Temperance workers in India had to address the problem of nationalism. When giving lectures in the United States, temperance workers from India could not but refer to the colonial rule slowing progress towards prohibition there. When it came to Indians and drink, the question of Indian self-rule was inescapable. Chapter Overview and Organization This chapter argues that nationalism had gained so much traction that the discourse surrounding temperance became completely suffused with it, rendering it all but impossible to do non-political temperance work. Some western temperance workers found this disconcerting, either arguing against more radical nationalists and their tactics, or trying to avoid them altogether. Others did not shy away from them. Some were ardent nationalists themselves while others found their temperance message hitched to the wagon of nationalism regardless of their own wishes. The time when a single person like W.S. Caine could tour India as a large-scale organizer had come to a close. Temperance workers of the 1920s found themselves adrift as different factions of nationalists struggled to include them in their camps. Complete neutrality on the question of colonial rule was no longer an option. I begin the chapter with a brief look at the successes of western-organized temperance organizations at the beginning of the 1920s, particularly the Anglo Indian Temperance Association (AITA). I will show that the very success of the organization in terms of winning the cooperation and support of nationalists from an early stage would

155 prove to be its undoing. I will then move on to the political situation in the early 1920s, paying particular attention to the non-cooperation and khilafat movements, as well as the implementation of the 1919 Government of India Act. I will argue that the faith the AITA placed in dyarchy in the context of growing radicalism rendered the organization all but irrelevant. Then I will discuss some early examples of caste-based violence related to alcohol use, showing how radical nationalists began to impose an emerging Indian national identity on recalcitrant drinkers. The second half of the chapter will examine the 1921 trip of the American temperance leader, William E. Pussyfoot Johnson, to India at the height of the noncooperation movement. Johnsons visit was riddled with conflict. As an anxious colonial administration looked on, competing groups of Indians fought for Johnson as a totema visual endorsement of their ideas from a world-famous firebrand temperance man with an agenda of his own. Johnsons India tour unequivocally demonstrated the impossibility of doing temperance work in India without engaging with the future of colonialism. I will then move on to show how this questioning of imperial rule reverberated as far as the Americas, where Indian colleagues of Johnson made tours of their own, posing the inextricably linked questions of liquor and empire to new audiences. Changing of the Guard in Indian Temperance For western temperance workers the hard work of organizing temperance societies and defending them against attacks from colonial government paid large dividends in India. One Indian-born British Methodist missionary appraised the results of this work, averring that

156 probably nowhere in the Orient is the temperance movement larger or better organized than in India. The Anglo-Indian Temperance Association has two hundred temperance societies affiliated with it. In addition there are various caste and village organizations in the land. There are seven city temperance federations that exercise great influence in the chief cities of the Empire. It supports several temperance lecturers, who give their whole time to the work. The Womens Christian Temperance Union has done a notable work through public meetings, medal contests, suitable literature and efforts to bring about better legislation. The Union is fully organized with national, provincial, and local bodies, guided mostly by capable and enthusiastic American women who are not afraid to take a long look ahead and stand for conditions that cannot be expected except by winning great victories against tremendous odds. They have set themselves to do a work through education that will make great transformations in due time. The Union has recently secured the appointment of Miss Mary J. Campbell, of Pathankot fame, to work under its auspices throughout India. The All-India Temperance Conference at its annual meetings brings together on a common platform some of the strongest representatives of all three religions-Hindu, Moslem, and Christian-which makes not only for the best possible interests of the cause of temperance, but also for the wider influence of Christian leaders throughout the great non-Christian communities.442 There was much to praise. Christian missionaries had united with both Hindu and Muslim religious groups in common cause. Indian excise policies were increasingly under the surveillance of temperance activists in India, Britain, and in the larger world. Moreover, the 1919 Government of India Act formally established dyarchy (discussed in greater detail below) which would transfer excise policy to nominally Indian-run provincial governments. Arguably it was the very success of the Indian temperance movement and the promise of dyarchy that made the radicalism of 1920s Indian temperance all but inevitable. As discussed in chapter two, temperance organizations like the AITA had from their inception tailored their message to Indias unique political and cultural

442

Brenton Thoburn Badley, "Total Abstinence: India's Goal," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the AngloIndian Temperance Association I, no. 118 (1919): 7.

157 circumstances. Temperance propaganda was originally merely translated from EnglishEnglish language propaganda. By t the he 1920s temperance propaganda was increasingly translated not only into Indic language but also into local idioms. Lantern slides, long a favorite of missionaries working in India, featured images that would resonate with an Indian audience. The slides below follow the standard progression seen in English-language English lantern slides to demonstrate the gradual degradation of men in response to alcohol, but with some important changes.443 The story begins with a healthy husband and wife well and happy. The husband sband is prosperous and dignified with servants and other trappings of wealth and respectability. He is kind to his family and respectful to his elders.

Figure 5 Source: Various, "Lantern Slides," ed. Women's Christian Temperance Union (Delhi1925). The date is approximate.

443

Various, "Lantern Slides," ed. Women's Christian Temperance Union (Delhi1925). The Womens Christian Temperance Union of Delhi was kind enough to loan me the above slides for scanning and copy. The date is approximate.

158 Figure 6 Source: Various, "Lantern Slides," ed. Women's Christian Temperance Union (Delhi1925). The date is approximate.

Figure 7 Source: Various, "Lantern Slides," ed. Women's Christian Temperance Union (Delhi1925). The date is approximate.

As the slides below demonstrate, the mans prosperity and happiness is doomed when he makes the fateful decision to take alcohol. He becomes increasingly violent, abusing his children, threatening to his servants, rude to his elders and to respectable men who attempt to point out the errors of his ways. Soon his health fails and he lies dead.

Figure 8

159

Source: Various, "Lantern Slides," ed. Women's Christian Temperance Union (Delhi1925). The date is approximate.

Figure 9 Source: Various, Lantern Slides, ed. Womens Christian Temperance Union (Delhi1925). The date is approximate.

Figure 10 Source: Various, "Lantern Slides," ed. Women's Christian Temperance Union (Delhi1925). The date is approximate.

160

Figure 11 Source: Various, "Lantern Slides," ed. Women's Christian Temperance Union (Delhi1925). The date is approximate.

Although the above images share the general theme of alcohols dangers, they are distinctly Indian. The models are Indian, as are the symbols such as the white clothes of the grieving widow. Much like these slides, by 1920 the temperance propaganda was distinctly Indian. Once temperance became naturalized in Indian culture it drifted away predilections of European temperance activists. One effect of this dynamic was that, more than ever before, the temperance movement was influenced by the overarching concerns of Indians in the 1920sespecially the desire to win greater concessions, if not outright freedom, from Britain. The 1920s witnessed a dramatic shift in both the tone of temperance reform and in the organizations dedicated to fighting against drink. As discussed in the previous chapter, the AITA had enjoyed a great deal of success, raising the profile of Indian temperance activism in Britain and in founding associated organizations in India. But events like the 1908 Poona temperance riot and increasing radicalization of Indian nationalists changed the social and political context for temperance activism in India. As the prominent Indians promoting temperance became more nationalist, so too did

161 temperance discourse itself. As a result, it became increasingly problematic for temperance organizations to remain nominally neutral on the question of colonial rule. No organization suffered from this radicalization more than the AITA. From the time of its founding in 1889 through the early years of the 1900s, the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association could boast of having nearly 300 affiliates across India. By 1916, the number of affiliated organizations had dropped by one third.444 On the eve of the non-cooperation movement, although the AITA remained the preeminent temperance organization working at an all-India level, trouble was brewing. As we will see below, the AITA was woefully ill-equipped to act as an organ for the coordination of activism. With the rise of the noncooperation movement, Kilafat movement, and the growing strength of kisan sabhas, purity, and social reform organizations, the 1920s was marked by a significant increase in activism of all stripes. The AITA had been founded with two goals in mindfirstly to impress on the Government of Britain the importance of excise policies promoting temperance and, secondly, to organize and vitalize temperance organizations in India. In terms of alcohol policy, the early success of the AITA in Parliament proved short-lived as the center of gravity for policy changes shifted to India. The Government of India (GOI) had successfully stonewalled parliament regarding the latters resolution ordering the promotion of temperance.445 And in India, ham-fisted efforts by the GOI to crush the nationalist movement made it much harder to advocate for temperance in India while defending empire.
444

Frederick Grubb, "A Fishermen's Temperance Society," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the AngloIndian Temperance Association I, no. 105 (1916): 57. See also Fifty Years Work in India: My Temperance Jubilee, 1st ed. (London: H.J. Rowling and Sons, 1942). 6.

See chapter three for a more detailed discussion of the 1889 Parliamentary resolution on excise policy in India.

445

162 As the political climate in India shifted towards activism, the AITA looked increasingly unfit to rise to the occasion. Temperance crusader Tarini Prasad Sinha described the organization as entirely out of touch with India and at least five or six years behind in information. The fact that the Government of India is in Simla, not in Delhi, in the month of September, did not seem to have arrived in the London Office of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association.446 Despite Sinhas stated gratitude for the AITAs work, he said of its journal, Abkari, coming once in every three months, as the Abkari does, it is more like an excellent attempt to record ancient history than to record current news."447 In India, the AITA largely ceased to be a prime mover, shifting towards reporting extant temperance activism rather than helping to initiate it. The worst flaw of the AITA in the 1920s was a fundamental one. Although it courted nationalists and students in India, it also attracted a far more conservative, proempire membership in Britain.448 For these British members of the AITA, many of whom were retired Indian Civil Service officers and missionaries from an era before the rise of the more radical 1920s brand of nationalism, the anti-imperial shift in temperance rhetoric was disconcerting. While Indian temperance organizations, some still nominally affiliated with the AITA, moved towards political radicalism, the AITA itself called for restraint and respect for the rule of law. Frederick Grubb, Honorary Secretary of the AITA acknowledged that the growing prominence of temperance in the national discourse of India could be credited to Gandhi but insisted in Abkari that with the
446

Tarini Prasad Sinha, "Pussyfoot" Johnson and his campaign in Hindustan (Madras: Ganesh, 1922). 87. Ibid., 88.

447

See chapter two for more information on the founding of the AITA and the populations from which its leader, W.S. Caine drew on for its membership.

448

163 political aspects of his propaganda we have nothing to do.449 The Empire of Christ and the Empire of Britain did not always share the same imperatives.450 This put British temperance organizations in a difficult position. Particularly after the noncooperation movement (discussed in further detail below) the AITA attempted to follow a middle, apolitical course, brushing aside acute political differences and asserting that temperance has held its place as an issue of common interest to all sections. It remains as true today as ever it was that the one platform on which all parties in India are united is that of Temperance reform.451 The AITA Wager on Dyarchy The AITA, particularly its members in London, saw in the 1919 Government of India Act good reason to hope for positive change in the near future. This act, intended to placate nationalists, transferred control of some aspects of governance in the provinces to Indians. However, key aspects of administration like defense and foreign affairs remained firmly in the grasp of Britons. Grubb hailed the coming of dyarchy, noting that Indiais moving in the right direction, and we are convinced that her enfranchised people will take full advantage of their new opportunities.452 Dyarchy represented the fruition of years of political agitation in Britain to see control over liquor policy passed over to temperate, Indian hands. Yet this perceived success of the AITAs activism
Frederick Grubb, "The Anglo Indian Temperance Association Annual Report, 1920-1921," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 125 (1921): 340.
450 449

Jeffrey Cox, Imperial fault lines : Christianity and colonial power in India, 1818-1940 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002). 27.

Frederick Grubb, "Annual Report, 1922-1923 of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association, no. 133 (1923): 41-48. "New India," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 119 (1920): 3.
452

451

164 carried an existential threat to the organizations existence. Lord Clwyd, lifelong temperance activist and president of the AITA, reported being asked this question: Now that powers and responsibilities in regard to Excise have been transferred to the people of India, what is the use for such an organization as this working in England for India?453 Clwyd answered emphatically in the negative that he was absolutely opposed to this notion, and that through continued activism the AITA could serve as an instrument for cementing a bond between England and India.454 Unfortunately for the AITA, this was not to be. Unlike their British counterparts, Indian AITA members saw little to celebrate. The 1919 Government of India Act dramatically weakened the influence of the AITA on excise policy from London. Colonial officials would never again suffer the humiliation of parliamentary resolutions condemning Indian excise policies.455 With excise a transferred department and excise policy in India effectively divorced from Westminster, the AITA was now a largely irrelevant organization from the perspective of activism. As later events would prove, dyarchy did not so much transfer questions of excise to Indians as much as it transferred all related questions from Parliament to British colonial administrators and their Indian allies. The AITA also found its political effectiveness in India impaired. True, the AITA had been responsible for the founding of its hundreds of affiliates in India which were now agitating for both temperance and nationalism as a single cause. However, the

Lord Clwyd, "President's Address," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 125 (1921): 41.
454

453

Ibid. See chapter two.

455

165 activities of these organizations had always been locally organized. Indian temperance organizations had full use of a nationally distributed network of cooperating likeminded organizations. More importantly, they also had the benefit of nationalist organizations, most notably the INC, which had officially included temperance as one of its key tenets. The AITAs stated support for the 1919 Act as an opportunity for Indians to affect alcohol policy, while withholding support for non-cooperation and politics more generally proved damning. As non-cooperation began its sweep across North India, the AITA hailed the establishment of dyarchy as a step towards a temperate India. The AITA reminded Indian temperance activists concerned with Indias national status and political liberties that under the Constitutional changes recently inaugurated the responsibility for the solution of this problem has been substantially transferred to Indian control.456 In the AITAs report to its London-based members, Grubb emphasized that as a Temperance organization we are not concerned with the adequacy, or inadequacy, of the Government of India Act from a political standpoint, but it does undoubtedly afford to the Indian people an opportunity to work out their own salvation from the growing evils of the drink traffic.457 Almost as an aside, Frederick Grubb reluctantly added that this new power for self-determination with regard to drink policy was, subject to certain admitted limitations.458 Yet in this, as in so many cases, the devil is in the details. The AITAs view on the 1919 Government of India Act was at odds with the opinion of much of its Indian membership, many of whom were also members of the
456

Grubb, "The Anglo Indian Temperance Association Annual Report, 1920-1921," 34. Ibid. Ibid.

457

458

166 INC, an organization whose views on the 1919 act were decidedly less sanguine. Dyarchy indeed promised that some seats on legislative councils would be granted to Indians elected by a narrow franchise. However, measures approved in the provincial legislatures could be, and would be, swept aside with vetoes at the whim of provincial governors. If some nationalists were prepared to place faith in dyarchy, the Government of India soon proved them wrong, rejecting measure after measure relating to temperance. By 1928, even voluntary organizations not focusing solely on temperance noted that despite the excise departments status as a transferred subjecthere also we find a similar negligence to the popular agitation for launching a campaign for total prohibition.459 The failure of dyarchy to achieve prohibition was an important part of the process by which, as Rajni Kothari described, the urge for social and political reform was transformed into a desire for independence.460 Dyarchy made manifest the hollow promises of colonial rulers to extend political power to nationalists in their quest for moral reform. The moral issue of temperance was now inextricably linked to politics. The failure of substantive temperance reform under dyarchy proved colonial governance to be systematically unable or unwilling to act for the moral betterment of the Indian people. That is to say, what was once a moral question, particularly for western temperance organizations, had clearly become a political question. Local option, theoretically strengthened with dyarchy, was another official avenue through which temperance activists hoped to reduce access to drink. Local option

459

J.F. Edwards, Rev., "A Non-Brahman Leader on Peasants' Drinking Habits," The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XXII, no. 5 & 6 (1928): 2. Rajni Kothari, Politics in India (Boston,: Little, 1970). 47-48.

460

167 committees, or excise advisory committees, had been in operation in some localities since the early 1900s. However, their composition was determined by local collectors, who for the most part were Britons. These collectors appointed official members to the committee, usually those who supported the collectors position on liquor sales. Non official members of the committees were drawn from prominent local temperance associations. While some collectors appear to have taken the advice of its non-official members into consideration, it was far more common for the excise advisory committees to be prohibited from substantive changes by influencing committee votes or by ignoring their votes altogether. By 1929 the Bombay Temperance Conference condemned these committees as a farce, that did not serve the purpose for which they were intended, viz: the determination of the number and location of liquor shops in accordance with the wishes of the residents of the locality.461 Non-Cooperation and the Khilafat Movement While the AITA attempted to remain above the fray on the matter of Indian nationalism, the noncooperation movement of 1920-1922 made this all but impossible. The noncooperation movement is held in most nationalist histories to be the product of several causes. First and foremost was the violence of the colonial state as it struggled to quash dissent. The Jallianwalla Bagh massacre in Amritsar and martial law in the Punjab that followed turned many towards radicalism.462 Adding insult to injury was that the

Eighth Bombay Temperance Conference, "Resolutions passed at the Eighth Bombay Temperance Conference," (Bombay: Eighth Bombay Temperance Conference, 1929). During the period of martial law immediately following the massacre, humiliation ensued. Indians were forced to crawl on all fours on a street where a British woman had been assaulted. See Vithal Rajan, "The Natives Continue to Be Restless," Economic and Political Weekly 44, no. 2 (2009).
462

461

168 perpetrator of the mass murder in Amritsar, General Dyer enjoyed widespread support in England, with 30,000 raised in his support.463 A second reason for the movement lies the treatment of Turkey in the wake of the First World War. Prominent Indian Muslims expressed concerns to the GOI regarding its postwar treatment of the Khalif of Turkey, for many Muslims a figurehead of global Islam. Despite GOI assurances to the contrary, the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire led many Indian Muslims to launch the Khilafat movement in protest. Gandhi saw in this discontent an opportunity to widen the nationalist movement by making an appeal to already-motivated Indian Muslims along communalist lines.464 Gandhis own anger over the betrayal of British promises to keep Turkey intact won over many Muslims, particularly on the Khilafat committee which appointed him to lead a nonviolent, non-cooperation movement on their behalf.465 Gandhi thus began the noncooperation movement under the auspices of the Khilafat committee. The Indian National Conferences working committee followed two months later in August of 1920, launching its own non-cooperation movement, also placed under the leadership of Gandhi.466 Reasons for the appearance of liquor shop picketing in the non-cooperation movement are obscure. Congress plan for non-cooperation included from the outset the boycott of foreign goods, particularly cloth, the picketing of stores selling foreign goods,
463 464

Bipan Chandra, India's struggle for independence, 1857-1947 ([New Delhi, India]: Viking, 1988). 184. Irfan Habib, "Gandhi and the National Movement," Social Scientist 23, no. 4/6 (1995): 12. Chandra, India's struggle for independence, 1857-1947: 185.

465

466

This occurred on the same day of Lokamanya Tilaks death. Tilak had played a large role in the controversial Poona temperance riots of 1908, proving for many British officials the political nature of temperance activism in India more generally. See chapter 3 for more information regarding Tilak and the Poona temperance riot.

169 refusal to participate in government, the law courts, and government schools. Curiously, the original plan did not include the picketing of toddy shops.467 Gandhi himself opposed the drinking of alcohol long before his involvement in the nationalist movement. His parents, both Banias of Vaishnava sects that forswore the use of alcohol and the Jains, an influential minority in his natal Gujarat, influenced Gandhi in this regard.468 Yet despite Gandhis passion for temperance, one shared by influential nationalists like Gokhale and Tilak, the picketing of toddy shops emerged spontaneously, and was only retroactively included in Congress non-cooperation program. Yet the picketing of liquor shops by temperance and purity organizations that had been going on intermittently since 1908 persisted. Perhaps because to the fact that organizations affiliated with the AITA had been peopled by nationalistsa stated goal of W.S. Caine, founder of the AITA Congresswallas merely continued their anti-alcohol agitation now under the aegis of noncooperation. This transformed the diffuse and loosely-organized picketing of liquor shops, long suspected by some British administrators as a thinly veiled political movement, into explicitly political movement. As the British resident for Tonk explained to his superior, the non-co-operators are booming temperance with the idea of depriving Government of its excise revenue, a move obviously more political than genuine.469 Non-Cooperation and Anti-Liquor Violence

467

Chandra, India's struggle for independence, 1857-1947: 188.

468

David Fahey & Padma Manian, "Poverty and Purification: The Politics of Gandhi's Campaign for Prohibition," Historian 67, no. 3 (2005): 492.

469

Unknown, "Letter to H.R. Lawrence, Political Agent, Haraoti and Tonk," in Central Provinces (Delhi: National Archives, 1921).

170 In the temperance-related aspect of non-cooperation, there was much to cause alarm among colonial administrators. Alcohol-related picketing during non-cooperation occurred in two contexts. The first was the routine picketing of liquor shops. After having visited about 75 shops, J. Talyarkhan, Chief Excise Inspector for Bombay, described how the pickets were conducted: Picketing at all these shops generally begins from 7 p.m. and goes on till the closing hours. In a very few shops only, generally toddy, pickets are found during the day. The way in which picketing is carried on at present is such as to give one an idea that we are not at present living under the protection of British Government, but in a place where vagabondage had full sway without the least fear of law or order. The number of pickets at each shop varies from one to even seven or eight. Whatever be the object of the persons who have started this movement, the way in which the picketing is carried out by those so called volunteers (most of whom are mere paid hirelings) is enough to make the blood boil of any respectable man and I only wonder how most serious breaches of the peace have not as yet taken place by the highly objectionable methods employed. This I attribute to the natural timidity of the Indian population who visit these shops. The men or even small boys of 10 and 12 who picket these shops have either a round paper badge with a number hung on their chests or have a cloth cross belt over their shoulders. Sometimes I have observed a picket coming to a shop only for a few minutes and making as much noise as he possibly can by constantly repeating the same advice, in the course of which he sometimes makes use of very filthy language. These pickets are relieved by one another when the relieved man hands over his badge or belt and clears away either to some other shop or anywhere else. I have given below a few samples of the actual words used by these men and noted down by me there on the spot. It is however not these pickets with badge or belt of whom the consumers are so afraid but they fear more, the other loafers and bad characters in Bombay, who generally accompany the pickets and who have no distinguishing badge on their persons but who quietly lurk near the shops and come out only to assist the volunteers when a more daring customer than the others defies a picket and has his drink. It is when he comes out of the shop that the pickets surround him and greet him in such choice language such as whether he had been into the shop to drink his mother's or wife's urine or if the customer is a Hindoo whether he had been there to drink cow's blood or in case of a Mahomadan pig's blood. Naturally when such a scene is going on in front of the shop, a crowd collects. It is then that the innocent looking badmashes, helpers of the volunteers referred to above, also surround him, abuse him in most filthy language and some of them follow him a little distance from the shop,

171 assault him and clear away. I have personally seen half a dozen instances of this kind during the few days that I have been moving about in different localities.470

As much a part of the uniform as the badges and belts Talyarkhan mentions, is the male gender. Although it is clear that some women participated in the picketing of liquor shops, conservative picket organizers believed it, not advisable to allow any burden of the picketing movement to fall upon them.471 Participation of women in liquor shop picketing during the Noncooperation movement was uneven. In Lahore from 1920-1921 women participated in processions and the burning of foreign cloth but did not picket liquor shops.472 Gandhi, leader of the noncooperation movement, did not agree did not approve of women picketers and did not reverse his position until the late 1920s.473 Despite the reservations of key nationalist leaders, enough women participated against the wishes of conservative Indian men that one pamphlet warned liquor dealers to take note of the daily growing awakening of the nation and especially of the women.474 The notion that Indian women represented and were responsible for the purity of domestic space, justified public activism in defense of that space. Female participation in liquor picketing placed different patriarchal ideas in conflict with each other. For Indian

J. Chief Excise Inspector Talyarkhan, Bombay, "Letter to Superintendent of Salt and Excise, Bombay," in Home Department, Special, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1921). Sheikh Yakub Vazir Mohamed, "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay," (Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1922). Radha Kumar, A History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women's Rights and Feminism in India, 1800-1990 (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1993). 64. Ibid., 85. This situation changed in the early 1930s during the Civil Disobedience movement when nationalist leaders began to officially encourage female participation in liquor picketing.
474 473 472 471

470

Vallabbhai Jhaverbhai Patel, "Leaflet issued by the President of the Gujarat Prantic Samiti," in Home Department, Special, Bombay (Bombay: Maharashtra State Archive, 1922).

172 women operating as protectors of domestic space, the polluting nature of alcohol in the home provided impetus and justification for public action like picketing.475 Yet this public action belied the very notion of separate spheres. Female drink activism in India reveals how the separate spheres of socially sanctioned activities did not always conform to separate spaces.476 It should be noted here that Talyarkhan was hardly a disinterested observer. As a chief excise inspector for Bombay, he was professionally invested in the continued authority of the Government of India and its abkari policy. That said, his views find support from other observers of picketing, including those by nationalists who were no strangers to anxiety regarding the conduct of picketers. The collector for Byculla similarly reported that at the beginning picketing was done, either by intimidating customers from entering a toddy or a country liquor shop, or by persuasion or by foul abuse.477 Another collector reported his descriptions of the pickets, noting that a picket was on duty near each shop, the captain of the band on duty very quickly put in an appearance, and was followed shortly by a crowd of some 15 apparent sympathisers.478 He reported individual breaches of the law as follows: a) A purchaser pursued by a man on horseback and threatened. b) A picket pulled the licensee's driver forcibly off his carriage.
Western temperance workers reinforced praise of Indian femininity and its inevitable conflict with alcohol. Women are natural teachers [of] the lessons of purity and abstinence. See Emma Price, Women in the Temperance Movement in India (Lucknow: Women's Christian Temperance Union, 1925). 3.
476 475

Sara Mills, "Gender and colonial space," Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 3, no. 2 (1996).

477

V.E. Xavier, Inspector of Salt and Excise, Byculla, "Letter," in Home Department, Special, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1921).

H.L. Fox, "Letter to Commissioner, Northern Division, Ahmedabad on Picketing of liquor-shops," in Home Department, Special, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1921).

478

173 c) The clothes of a Baroda Police Patel burnt, his face blackened, he himself paraded round the town in a ghari-he having absolutely refused to be taken on a donkey d) A bottle of liquor snatched from a Bhil. e) A Talavia woman searched for liquor by another man at the instigation of the pickets. f) A Parsi threatened by a known bad character (not a picket) that if he bought liquor, the Parsi would be set on fire. g) A Dakshini woman had her face blackened for drinking liquor. h) A Darzi customer was abused and forcibly turned out of the street by the local Congress Committee Chairman. i) A Parsi gin-owner's Hindu employee was forcibly prevented from approaching the liquor shop by a picket.479 Foxs list of infractions above reveals another side to the picketing of liquor shops marked less by benign paternalism than it was by the reinforcement of extant social hierarchies and the enforcement of religious orthodoxy. The men pulled from their carriages and pursued on horseback were most likely of low social status, otherwise the violence against them would have been answered in kind. The Bhil from whom a bottle of liquor was snatched was most certainly of low social status. The theft and destruction of his bottle would have fit in with other indignities he had to suffer as a consequence of his status as a Bhil. The only new aspect of his treatment was that it could now be claimed by his assailants that they were acting for his benefit rather than in the interest of reinforcing extant social hierarchies. The search or assault of the Talavia woman is particularly telling. The Talavia caste was of extremely low social status, considered by British administrators in Baroda as a criminal caste.480 Being searched by a strange man was a gross insult, revealing some of the less-noble motivations underlying this new concern for the habits of the drinking classes. Searching her for liquor was tantamount to a right to determine the

479

Ibid. Jamshedi Ardeshir Dalal, Census of India, 1901 (Bombay: Times of India Press, 1902). 580.

480

174 consumption habits of a woman of low social stature. Where once the private behavior of low-status Indian woman was a concern for low-status men in her family and caste, it was now also a concern for the upper castes as well. Now the policing of public behavior extended even to those whose status was very low. This was the case with the blackening of a Dakshini woman for drinking. Once merely drinking in public would have been sufficient evidence of extant social degradationsomething frowned upon but that merely reinforced standard hierarchies of purity. Now it required the further public humiliation associated with having ones face blackened and paraded around the neighborhood. Another interesting underlying factor comes to the fore in the case of the treatment of Parsis. Parsis, an influential and fairly wealthy minority in Bombay suffered much at the hands of those protesting the liquor trade. The Bombay riots of late November in 1921 began as a response to the warm welcome they gave the Prince of Wales during his tour, a welcome pointedly denied by Indian nationalists. While the prince was greeted with hartals and deserted bazaars in many places, he was greeted enthusiastically by the Parsis of Bombay, precipitating a riot. Yet this explanation for the beginning of the violence against Parsis leaves unaddressed the relationship between Parsis and the sale of liquor. The Parsis of Bombay had long been associated with the production and sale of liquor. As Zoroastrians, their religion had no strict injunctions against the use of liquor. Indeed, one reason for their considerable commercial success was their willingness to engage in the trade. They had benefited from the decisions of colonial administrators in

175 the 1880s that drove Hindu Bhandaris from trading in liquor in favor of larger-scale operations, often run by Parsis. This provoked the drink strikes of the early 1880s.481

Anti-liquor violence was particularly widespread in Bombay, culminating with the anti-Parsi riots of 1921. The Collector for Bombay reported to the Secretary of the Home Department that The picketers had gone beyond all bounds in their intimidation and systematic violence to innocent customers...the Bombay riots have fully proved this. From 50 to 70 liquor shops have been destroyed, clearly out of plan and set purpose.482 Many remaining Parsi-owned liquor shops closed the next day as rioters continued to damage and destroy them.483 The collector of Bombay warned of the consequence of inaction; the general popular impression is that Government have abdicated their powers out of fear of the non-cooperators. This is clearly a most humiliating position for any government to be in.484 Parsis in particular suffered the brunt of these attacks against liquor shops. From November 18th through November 20th of 1921, the city of Bombay found itself beset by riots. On the first day of the riots, the main featurewas the persistent attack on liquor shops.485 Of the approximately 600 licensed liquor-vendors in the city of Bombay, 139 were attacked.486 In seeking out causes for the riots, it is unsurprising that the colonial
481

See chapter two for more on Parsis and the drink strikes of the 1880s.

J.P. Brander, Collector of Bombay, "Letter to Secretary to Government, Home Department, Bombay," in Home Department, Special, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1921).
483

482

Uknown, "The Writing on the Wall," The Leader, 21st November 1921, 6. Brander, "Letter to Secretary to Government, Home Department, Bombay."

484

Government of Bombay, "The Bombay Disturbances. Govt. Press Note, Effect of Immoderate Propaganda, Govt.'s Determination," Leader, 17th December 1921.
486

485

Ibid.

176 government noted the non-cooperation and khilafat movements. Interestingly, temperance organizations escaped any blame for precipitating the riots. Little remains to indicate whether colonial administrators wanted to avoid criticism for condemning temperance workers or if the connection between anti-liquor violence and nationalism was so widely acknowledged that it required no further comment. The Bombay riots in late November 1921, marked by violence against AngloIndians and Parsis, has been a woefully unexamined topic. The violence perpetrated against Anglo-Indians is easily reducible to their actual or perceived connection to colonial rule. More problematic is the reason why Parsis were targeted by the rioters as well. It is important to bear in mind that with large numbers of Bhandaris driven from the liquor trade in the 1880s, the selling of alcohol in 1920s Bombay had never been more dominated by Parsis.487 A second issue to bear in mind is the effectiveness of temperance propaganda. Temperance organizations, increasingly radical in nature, had long been proclaiming the foreign-ness of alcohol to India. Since the late 1890s, these organizations reminded would-be drinkers and the pure alike that alcohol was forbidden by both Islam and Hinduism.488 Parsis were different in this regard. As the Parsi Panchayat wrote to the Government of India in 1939 in protest of prohibition, apart from the use of wine or liquor in religious ceremonies, the Parsis have been accustomed to take wine and liquor

The replacement of small-scale liquor dealers with larger scale brewers and dealers was coincident with an increase in the price and decrease in availability, and perhaps quality, of alcohol. Although it is impossible to say with certainty, some of the anger directed at Parsis in the 1921 riots could be attributable to these changes. See chapter two. While the prohibition of alcohol in the Quran is fairly specific and direct, such injunctions within Hinduism are much more narrow. See chapter two for a brief discussion of the religious tenets of Hinduism and Islam with regard to alcohol use.
488

487

177 for centuries past and it has come to be regarded as an innocuous social habit by them.489 As temperance organizations entreated Indians towards abstention, the INC continued to use abkari revenue as evidence that the colonial government sought only to extract wealth from India, even at the cost of the welfare of Indians themselves. The 1920s was a heyday for voluntary organizations in North IndiaChristian missions, social reform organizations, temperance organizations, kisan sabhas, and purity organizations. Selling alcohol during this period placed Parsis in the sights of nearly all of them. For its part, the AITA reported on both the peaceful picketing upon which it heaped its blessings and on cases of clear violence and intimidation they hoped to forestall. Abkari reported on the novel techniques of picketers who caught hold of their co-religionists exiting drink shops and blackened the faces of those under the influence of liquor and took them round through the streets crying shame on them.490 The AITA had long used caste organizations to further the temperance cause, finding that whatever general objections may be urged against the caste system, it can undoubtedly be utilized, and has been utilized.491 Explicitly caste-based temperance violence occurred in Gujarat as well. A man belonging to the sweeper caste was caught drunk. His caste fellows, numbering about 200, seized him, garlanded him with old shoes and marched him in procession through bazaars with beating of empty oil tins.492 Even

489

Sapur Feredun Desai, History of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet, 1860-1960 (Bombay: Trustees of the Parsi Punchayet Funds and Properties, 1977). 308.

Frederick Grubb, "Press Comment," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 124 (1921): 24-25.
491

490

"The Anglo Indian Temperance Association Annual Report, 1920-1921," 37. "Press Comment."

492

178 fervent supporters of non-cooperation and temperance noted caste-related violence. Tarini Prasad Sinha, traveling companion to Pussyfoot Johnson on his India tour, observed that violators of the caste rules against drink were handled roughly, their heads half shaven, and some were escorted through the streets with old boots hung about their necks--the most deadly humiliation possible to imagine.493 As early as 1921 violence, intimidation, and public humiliation were key methods for imposing abstention on otherwise unrepentant drinkers. Taken in aggregate, some themes occur with regard to these incidents of violence associated with the picketing of liquor shops. One of these concerns the wearing of uniforms. Most colonial officials noted differences in the behavior of those wearing official uniforms as opposed to those who did not. Although there were some exceptions, those people who wore uniforms were unlikely to engage in physical violence. Interventions by uniformed volunteers were typically verbal in nature, running the gamut from polite entreaty and recitation of religious injunctions to foul and abusive language. The official badges, caps, ribbons, and sashes of uniforms played an important role. First, uniforms represented a form of officialdom that lent itself to easy juxtaposition with the uniformed agents of the colonial government. Liquor pickets in this sense could be viewed as a battle of uniforms with police fighting for the sale of alcohol and uniformed volunteers fighting against it. In a culture where the upper castes had long associated drink with debasement, volunteer uniforms represented purity, while police uniforms represented debauchery. The Indian public had a choice between two uniforms or symbols of authorityone of the nationalists and one of the colonists.

493

Sinha, "Pussyfoot" Johnson and his campaign in Hindustan: 203.

179 Secondly, when acts of violence occurred, they were typically perpetrated by nonuniformed observers sympathetic to the volunteers. Thus the uniform of the volunteers provided a small degree of distance from acts of violence perpetrated by un-uniformed civilians. Incidents of violence could then be attributed, not to picketers, but to the public gathering outside the liquor shop. Despite the fact that perpetrators of violence were acting in clear sympathy with picketers, their acts could be (and were) blamed on the rabble rather than on any cohesive stratagem of the picketers themselves. Uniforms and the observance of picketing rules by those who wore them afforded non-cooperators a small measure of protection against police harassment in a way that reinforced the authority of the Congress. A small subset of the populationdrinkers who demanded access to liquor made manifest their dislike of those wearing either uniform. Caste-related violence against abkari officials and temperance workers were far less frequently reported. Temperance journals had little to gain from reporting the collective action by low status Indians to maintain access to alcohol. One such incident was reported in the Bombay presidency in a village near Poona in 1926. A group of excise officers on the trail of suspected illicit still-operators was chased to the river by a crowd of men and women.494 The situation became deadly as the Excise Inspectorfired one shot (12 bore buckshot) to frighten the crowd; two girls thereupon seized his gun but failed to get it away.495 The excise officers made a narrow escape shortly thereafter. In the future, excise officers had to visit the villages of Mauchis and Kathodis in force.

494

H.F. Knight, District Magistrate, West Khandesh, "Letter to Commissioner, Central Division, Poona," in Home Department, Special, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1926). Ibid.

495

180 The non-cooperation movement was strikingly effective, particularly with regard to the picketing of liquor shops. One collector informed Minister of Excise for the Central Provinces in 1921 that auctions failed in about a dozen districts- partly because of non-cooperation.496 Not all districts and areas could match this success. The princely state of Jodhpur reported that the wave of non-co-operation now passing over the country regarding the use of liquor hasmade little impression on Mewar.497 Similarly, excise revenue in the United Provinces remained strong. Violence associated with the anti-alcohol agitation as a component of noncooperation eventually proved the movements undoing. Gandhi was troubled that despite his injunctions to the contrary, violence persisted. Gandhi himself was witness to the aftermath of one violent attack on a liquor shop during the aforementioned Bombay riots of 1921 writing, As I reached the Two Tanks I found a liquor shop smashed, two policemen badly wounded and lying unconscious on cots without anyone caring for them. I rebuked them [the rioters] and they were silent. We went further on and on retracing our steps found to our horror a liquor shop on fire. Even the fire brigade was obstructed in its work. Thanks to the efforts of Pandit Nekiram Sharma and others, the inmates of the shop were able to come out.498 The intermittent violence against liquor shops culminated with an attack that left 23 policemen from Chauri Chaura, a small town in Uttar Pradesh, burned to death, locked inside their police station by an angry mob that set fire to the building. Less frequently reported was that although the incident ended with a violent conflict at a police station, it
Unknown, "Letter to J.H. Cox, Excise Commissioner for Central India," in Central Provinces, Revenue (Delhi: National Archives, 1921). Zalim Singh, "Letter to J.H. Cox, Commissioner of Excise, Central Provinces," in Central Provinces, Revenue (Delhi: National Archives, 1921).
498 497 496

M.K. Gandhi, "A Deep Stain," in Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, ed. GandhiServ Foundation (Berlin: GandhiServ Foundation, 1921), 126.

181 began with an organized protest at the local bazaar against liquor sales and high food prices.499 English-Minded and Vernacular-Minded Temperance Temperance activism had long provided westerners with an outlet for their philanthropy in a context within which they could use their race, prestige, and occasionally their colonial connections, to great benefit. This was particularly true of western women who found that their work in India provided them with more social capital that would have been possible at home due to gender. Mary Campbell, discussed in chapter two, became a very influential woman in Indian politics and on the global temperance scene. Annie Besant explained to another temperance reformer that she never donned the veil or hesitated to speak to all-male audiences, because Indians considered her above her sex.500 Agnes Slack, a prominent WCTU member who travelled to India and other distant lands, earned the praise of WCTU members. One American woman in Topeka, Kansas who had just won the right to vote was inspired by Slacks travels to pen the following verse referring to the white ribbon, a symbol of the WCTU, Wear it in the work-shop Wear it in the street, Wear it in the parlour When your friends you greet. Wear it when you're going out, When you're coming back-Here and there and everywhere, Just like Agnes Slack."

Sumit Sarkar, Modern India : 1885-1947, 2nd ed., Cambridge commonwealth series (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1989), 224-225. Aelfrida Tillyard, Agnes E. Slack: Two Hundred Thousand Miles Travel for Temperance in Four Continents (Cambridge, England: W. Heffer & Sons Ltd, 1926), Biography. 92.
500

499

182 This admiration of Slack was hardly surprising. Slack liked to share titillating stories of her travels abroad, emphasizing her brushes with danger in defense of a higher cause. Slacks biography recounts a brush with danger when, after making a pilgrimage to the memorial for the Indian mutiny, a swarthy Indian man dressed in a dirty white robe began following her.501 Slacks life was saved at the last minute by an Englishman arriving on the scene. The biography features another tale of oriental danger as Slack, invited to stay in the palace of a local maharaja, heard the voices of Indian men from outside her roommen who never opened her door. After relating the incident to a clergyman at Agra, he responded that 'I would not have occupied that room, even with a revolver under my pillow!'"502 Slacks harrowing adventures in the exotic East resonated with temperance activists living in the United States and England, who admired her intrepid crusading. They would have been less warmly received in India itself, where the sound of Indian voices behind closed doors was hardly panic-inducing. Slacks orienatialist conceptions of India fit well with her generally pro-empire perspective.503 The changing political landscape of 1920s India rendered Slack somewhat anachronistic. Western temperance activists in the 1920s increasingly found India a difficult place to fight for both prohibition of alcohol and colonial rule. The timbre of nationalist politics in the 1920s favored a new kind of western temperance activist, much more in the mold of Nicol Macnicol and Mary Campbell than

501

Ibid., 86. Ibid., 88. See chapter 3.

502

503

183 that of Slack. Another exemplar of the former, C.F. Andrews, described the division among temperance activists in India thusly: There was one English gentleman, who knew far more about the subject than anyone else in the room. He spoke English fluently, but it happened to be what I might call, for want of a better name, vernacular-minded. That is to say, he thought with his own Indian mind, in the original manner, and not always with an English tendency. There were there, on the committee, also two or three Indians, who were English minded. I mean, they had dropped to a great extent their Indian mode of life and Indian way of thinking, and had become so cut off from their own people as to think on these Indian questions in an English manner.504 The 1920s represented the last burst of activism from western temperance workers who were Englishthat is to saycolonially minded. Particularly in the early 1920s western temperance activists who favored colonialism argued against nationalism more broadly and against non-cooperation in particular. Although many AITA members my privately have felt otherwise, the organization was careful to officially state its opposition to the noncooperation movement. Grubb wrote that the AITA, may not be able to approve of Mr. Gandhis economic and political programme, but in recommending non-cooperation with the drink traffic his words will command the assent of the great majority of the Indian people.505 The AITA walked a narrow tightrope, reporting the successes of noncooperation with regard to temperance but, without, of course, condoning any methods of propaganda which are not strictly peaceful and constitutional.506 Despite Grubbs efforts, there remained in the pages of the AITAs Abkari a palpable tension between the
C.F. Andrews, "The India Problem," in British Library, ed. Christian Literature Society for India (Madras: G.A. Natesan, 1923), 89. Frederick Grubb, "Mr. W.E. Johnson's Tour in India," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the AngloIndian Temperance Association I, no. 125 (1921): 46.
506 505 504

"Press Comment," 24-25.

184 organizations stated opposition to non-cooperation and the praise it heaped on its antialcohol elements. Even while insisting on peaceful and constitutional activism alone, Grubb filled the pages of Abkari with accounts of illegal and occasionally violent temperance work. Grubb recounted the picketing of liquor shops, the blackening of drinkers faces, drinkers forced to wear garlands of shoes and marched through the city.507 Grubb prefaced this list with a reminder of the importance of the rule of [colonial] law, but the mere act of listing these events in a journal dedicated to the cause of temperance reveals the ambivalence of British AITA leaders. At the AITAs annual meeting in 1923, after the Congress had called off the movement, Grubb saw the end of non-cooperation as a vindication of the less political methods by constitutional means such as through education andthe promotion of legislation, methods that the AITA had long employed.508 Grubb was not alone among western temperance workers attempting to draw a distinction between anti-alcohol agitation practiced by non-cooperators and the larger political aims of the movement. Slack wrote of what she hoped to accomplish in her travels on the subcontinent, learning not only Indian life, but British rule in a way that allowed her to keep both ends in view.509 Slacks organization, the WCTUs India journal, The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbons first edition of 1922 greeted its readers with the following poem: If you would boost the game along cooperate! Even though your plans go wrong,
507

Ibid. "Annual Report, 1922-1923 of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association," 41-48. Tillyard, Agnes E. Slack: Two Hundred Thousand Miles Travel for Temperance in Four Continents: 82.

508

509

185 cooperate! If perchance another man wants to work his plan work his way, surely you can, cooperate! There's just one way to advertise; cooperate! Don't take time to criticize; cooperate! When things go the other way After you have had your say, If you are in the game to stay, cooperate! Let's make success our common plan! Cooperate! Let's be sports and play the game Cooperate! If someone gives you a slap, Laugh it off--don't give a rap-Boost the game all over the map! Cooperate!510 The intent of these verses, published at the height of the non-cooperation movement, is unambiguous. Although the WCTU supported, in theory, the temperance-related aspects of the freedom movement, non-cooperation with the colonial state was a bridge too far. As the May, 1922 cover of The India Temperance Record would remind its readers, remember that he who violates the laws of the land tramples in the blood of the fathers, and tears in sunder the charter of his own and his children's liberties.511

The Battle for Pussyfoot

510

Frances K. Willard, The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XVI, no. 3 (1922). Mabel E. Archibald, The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XVI, no. 5 (1922).

511

186 Despite the efforts of temperance organizations to remain neutral on political matters, Indians did not allow them to do so successfully. Nothing makes this clearer than the 1921 tour of William Eugene Pussyfoot Johnson. Johnson would become the epitome of a vernacular-minded temperance man. Johnson was born to a family with a long history of social activism from working as missionaries to Arkansas Cherokees to participation in the Underground Railroad and the abolitionist movement.512 Johnson himself continued in the progressive traditions of his family, beginning his own temperance work as a newspaperman in Nebraska in 1889.513 By 1900 his prominence within the American temperance movement had grown so much that he became a truly international figure, drawing the attention of concerned American progressives to prostitution in the Philippines, then a territory of the United States.514 He also travelled to Sweden, where he found much to criticize. In the interest of temperance, Sweden had enacted the Gothenburg System which attempted to weaken private interests in the liquor trade by assigning municipal licensing companies.515 Johnson found that despite the good intentions of its authors, the Gothenburg System failed to make a sufficient dent in the drinking problem.516 In 1906, after Johnson gained notoriety for his shrewd work for temperance both publically and behind the scenes, President Roosevelt offered him a government position
Fred Arthur McKenzie, "Pussyfoot Johnson, Crusader--Reformer--A Man Among Men (London: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1920). 18-19.
513 512

Ibid., 34.

514

Ian R. Tyrrell, Reforming the World: The Creation of America's Moral Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). 138-39.

Ian R. Tyrrell, David M. Fahey, and Jack S. Blocker, Alcohol and temperance in modern history : an international encyclopedia, 2 vols. (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2003). 340.
516

515

McKenzie, "Pussyfoot Johnson, Crusader--Reformer--A Man Among Men: 55-56.

187 as special officer to work against the illicit liquor trade in Indian Territory.517 It was his work against illegal liquor sales in Indian Territory that won Johnson his fame and his name. Cracking down on illegal saloons, a highly dangerous proposition in the late 19th century American west, required scores of lawmen willing to use deadly force. Johnson changed all this. Eschewing armed escorts in favor of moxie and guile, Johnson developed the habit of sauntering into saloons alone at night and asking for a drink. Once the drink was poured he drew his revolver on the seller and on any other drinking patrons and single-handedly marched them outside for arrest. His ability to carry off these arrests alone earned him a $3,000 bounty on his head from illegal liquor traders and the nickname Pussyfoot for his ability and willingness to use any means necessary to stop illegal liquor sales.518 Although Johnson was known for his zeal in engaging highly dangerous liquor vendors alone, he also worked in concert with trusted lieutenants. Juan Cruz, one of these trusted lieutenants, was a Pueblo Native American. Cruz was quite a political actor in his own right and quickly drew the ire of the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) for his vociferous protests against the illegal use of Indian land by Anglo cattle barons for grazing. Despite warnings from Washington to the contrary, Johnson persisted in his dogged support of Cruz in his case against the cattlemen. Johnson humanized Cruz, lauding him in print as a young Indian Sir Galahad...Cruz had the spirit of a crusader.
In his early days as a temperance newspaper man, Johnson famously sent a letter to brewing associations on the East coast to find out how best to defend the liquor trade against attacks from prohibitionists. Some of his correspondents were quite happy to send back advice to the man whose letterhead identified him as a representative of Johnsons Pale Ale. Johnsons Pale Ale proved to be a bitter draft; Johnson printed the text of this advice letters from anti-prohibitionists on how to sustain the liquor trade, creating quite a public stir over the calculating defense of demon drink. See ibid., 36. See also Sinha, "Pussyfoot" Johnson and his campaign in Hindustan.
518 517

McKenzie, "Pussyfoot Johnson, Crusader--Reformer--A Man Among Men: 88.

188 He was devoted to his church, to his young wife, Dolorita, and to their baby, Jose.519 This image of a Native American crusading for temperance, the law, and his own property rights was at odds with what the OIA wanted to seethe image of Native Americans typified by criminality and alcoholism.520 Tensions between Johnson and his OIA employers came to a head in dramatic fashion when Cruz attempted to make a routine arrest of a group of four Native Americans in possession of illegal whiskey. The group responded by beating Cruz severely, but Cruz managed to grab his pistol and shoot one of his assailants, killing him. Cruz was arrested for his murder and there was every reason to believe that he would be promptly punished after the briefest of trials. Johnson quickly rose to the defense of his friend and lieutenant, despite orders from authorities in Washington to desist.521 Finding the government unwilling to help Cruz, Johnson shrugged off Washingtons warnings and sought out the WCTU to help organize Cruzs legal defense. The WCTUs intervention created such a public stir that the government reversed its position, ordering Johnson to do all he could to help Cruz.522 Cruz was subsequently exonerated and released, but the U.S. government did not forget Johnsons earlier intransigence or his continued protest against the expropriation of Native American lands, resulting in a condition of almost open war between Johnson and the Washington Department.523 By

519

Ibid., 122.

Jeffrey Ian Ross and Larry Allen Gould, "Native Americans and the criminal justice system," (Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm Publishers, 2006), 87-101.
521

520

McKenzie, "Pussyfoot Johnson, Crusader--Reformer--A Man Among Men: 123. Ibid., 124. Ibid.

522

523

189 1913 it became clear that Johnsons days of working with Native Americans on behalf of the government were numbered. Johnson, charged with insubordination, resigned his post to become a full-time crusader for national prohibition.524 After leaving government service Johnson went to work for the Anti-Saloon League (ASL), the most politically powerful temperance organization in the United States at that time. He put his journalistic experience to good use, editing the ASLs official newsletter, New Republic.525 The ASL was revolutionary in its methods and success, acting as one of the first modern pressure groups.526 A constitutional amendment enacting prohibition was no easy feat, and it was the ASL, more than any other single organization, that was responsible for the political wrangling necessary to move the Volstead Act through Congress with enough support to survive President Woodrow Wilsons veto.527 In addition to his work on behalf of American prohibitionists at the ASL, Johnson also travelled widely from 1912-1918. He visited England, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia during this period, writing a book on the vodka industry that received high acclaim in temperance circles.528 In 1919 he returned to invade England and Scotland

524

Ibid., 127.

525

Tyrrell, Fahey, and Blocker, Alcohol and temperance in modern history : an international encyclopedia: 340.

K. Austin Kerr, "Organizing for Reform: The Anti-Saloon League and Innovation in Politics," American Quarterly 32, no. 1 (1980): 37-53. Daniel Okrent, Last call : the rise and fall of Prohibition, First Scribner hardcover ed. (New York: Scribner, 2010). 109.
528 527

526

Sinha, "Pussyfoot" Johnson and his campaign in Hindustan: 53.

190 and brought the British and European [liquor] trade interests their first vivid realization of what an American dry organizer, supplied with American expense money, could do.529 The involvement of Americans in the domestic affairs of other states provoked a good deal of outrage. Johnson himself ended up lending his name to a newly-coined word to describe the meddling of American citizens globally, pussyfootism.530 Closely related to anti-American sentiment, the charge of pussyfootism amounted to foreign participation in domestic political discourse. The fact that pussyfootism was not entirely free of imperialist impulses was not lost on those who themselves benefited from colonial rule. One Briton captured this anti-pussyfootism feeling with the following verses, How are you, who are you, Pussyfoot? Don't you know we hear your meow, Why don't you stay in the U.S.A. And wail in your own backyard? Through you've got the public puzzled The Bull-Dog isn't muzzled, Keep away, keep away, Pussyfoot!531 One enterprising company, Haig & Haig Five Stars Scots Whiskey, went so far as print the below advertisement in the conservative Times of India to use anti-Pussyfootism rhetoric to increase sales.532 Ironically, individuals who benefited from colonialism, the ultimate foreign involvement in domestic affairs, proved some of the harshest critics of the much more benign yet still intrusive pussyfootism, as we will see below.

529

Frazier Hunt, "The World War on Booze," XLII, no. 4 (1922). Tyrrell, Reforming the World: The Creation of America's Moral Empire: 234. Unknown, "How London has Viewed Pussyfoot Johnson," New York Times, 23rd November 1919. "India Beware," The Times of India, 19th October 1921, 2.

530

531

532

191

Figure 12 Source: "India Beware," The Times of India, 19th October 1921, 2.

During Johnsons 1919 visit to Britain, students were particularly critical of Johnsons commentary on British alcohol policies. At one of Johnsons speaking engagements, one student shouted over the chants of his peers inviting Johnson to take a drink that if Britain wants to be wet or drythat is a thing for Britishers to decide. We dont want Americans coming over here with elaborate and ornate speeches telling us

192 what we want to do.533 In a foreshadowing of events to come, the students physically seized Johnson and paraded him involuntarily through the West End of London. One of the students told a reporter of Johnson that hes got a horrible accent, so we told him to shut up.534 As his student tormentor would soon discover, Johnson was not a man who was easily cowed. The above violence against Johnson during his November, 1919 tour of Britain had one very important casualty. Struck with a bag of flour during the ragging, Johnson suffered a significant injury to his right eye. Despite the injury, Johnson lived up to his reputation for American-west toughness, lighting a cigarette and smiling amiably while his captors debated whether or not to dunk him in one of the fountains of Trafalgar Square.535 Johnson was nothing if not a man who knew how to use the press to the advantage of his cause. Eventually, Johnson met a co-captive of the students, F.A. McKenzie, who would become an ally and wrote a flattering biographical treatment of Johnsons many adventures in the cause of temperance. Both were released when police arrived to break up the riot.536 Despite the efforts of British doctors, the optic lens of Mr. Johnson's eye had been broken, andthere was little hope of saving it. And so, in view of the great pain that Mr. Johnson was suffering, and which could not be relieved, the surgeon

"Mr. Pussyfoot Johnson 'Ragged': Platform Stormed by Students, Carried by his Captors Through West End," The Manchester Guardian, 14th November, 1919 1919.
534

533

Ibid. Ibid.

535

Ibid. The students who initiated the riot and attacked Johnson insisted on shaking hands with the police, who, they said, behaved splendidly.

536

193 removed the eye."537 Despite Johnsons minimizing of his injury, there was no doubt that the eye had been lost for the cause of prohibition in Imperial Britain, far from Nebraska, where he had initially won acclaim. The next morning after his eye was removed, an anxious housemaid awoke Johnson, telling him that a band of reporters had gathered outside, demanding to interview him. Johnson was an affable man according to those who knew him, and he was certainly no stranger to the world of propaganda, so he agreed. The reporters found him smiling despite the pain of his bandaged eye.538 He had a message for his attackers, tell the boys there is no ill will on my side, not a grain."539 After posing for a photograph with a wide grin and bandaged eye, he told the reporters that he was only interested in one form of reparation, that the press tell the truth about him and give him fair play in his columns.540 Britons outraged at Johnsons treatment clamored to raise money by subscription for Johnson. When he learned that some money had been raised for him by subscription without his knowledge he requested the editor to send whatever money was collected to Sir Arthur Pearson's great work for blinded soldiers at St. Dunstan's House in London.541 Johnson proved himself as skilled in the world of the British press as he was in his days as newspaperman and representative of the Johnson Pale Ale Company in Lincoln, Nebraska.

537

Sinha, "Pussyfoot" Johnson and his campaign in Hindustan: 71. Ibid., 69. Ibid.

538

539

540

Unknown, "'Pussyfoot' on the Eyes Drinking Puts Out: Eager to Resume Fight, Financial Testimonial not Desired," Manchester Guardian, 2nd December 1919. Sinha, "Pussyfoot" Johnson and his campaign in Hindustan: 72.

541

194 With his reputation in Britain greatly improved after the loss of his eye, Johnson began getting much more favorable press and cooled the once hostile disposition of great numbers of Britons against his work. He insisted publically, as he always had, that neither the Anti-Saloon League [n]or any other American organization sought to impose either its agents or its methods on any other country.542 While some Britons might have let out a sigh of relief at this point, others had reason to wince at how Johnson saw the future of the liquor trade and his role in the fight against it. Asked how he saw the world through his glass eye, Johnson responded that he envisioned a dry universe. Moreover, he saw a role for himself in this transition; we want to arouse interest in prohibition and then those in their countries who would banish the drink evil will organize and they will fight with their own weapons in their own way, and we will help them fight.543 Johnsons view of the future was a prescient one with regard to India, a colonial context in which helping people fight with their own weapons in their own way was fraught with multiple meanings. In 1920, Pussyfoot Johnson had earned a reputation for his courage, his guile and willingness to challenge any person or organization offending his moral sensibilities. He had a proven track record as a reporter, bureaucrat, agitator, and organizer with close ties to both the ALS and the World League against Alcoholism, (WLAA). Representatives of ASL, flushed with success after the passage of the Volstead Act, found themselves in great demand for speaking tours abroad. In the winter of 1920, some organizations

Unknown, "Sees Dry Universe through Glass Eye: 'Pussyfoot' Johnson Returns to America--Considers Trip to Europe Successful," The New York Times, 23rd April 1920.
543

542

Ibid.

195 from India approached Johnson, inviting him to take a tour of India.544 These organizations also petitioned the aid of the AITA to help them convince Johnson to tour India. The AITA, with their typical caution, advised him to postpone his visit until the following September owing to the political situation in India.545 Johnson obliged, saying my business is to create trouble for the liquor interest. If not this year, well next year I am quite game.546 The AITA was pleased as well, agreeing to make all the necessary arrangements for Johnsons tour and doubtless hoping that the political situation would cool in the next year. In 1920 Johnson prepared for his impending India trip, stopping first in England. Although his reception was warmer than the previous one in which he had lost his eye, Johnson was still treated to harsh newspaper articles and editorial cartoons wary of his purpose in London. Newspapers carried editorial cartoons with such titles as Pussyfoot Nosey Parker from across the sea, Dollars for dirty work in England, Shall he proboss us?"547 Even observers enamored of his record in the Wild West, dealing with gangs of ruffians, card-sharpers, and incorrigible swindlerswho could only be dealt with by forcible means were quick to note a key difference between Britons and

544

Sinha, "Pussyfoot" Johnson and his campaign in Hindustan: 87. The organizations that approached W.E. Johnson are left frustratingly unidentified in the sources used for this dissertation thus far. Knowing the political platforms of these organizations would shed a great deal of light on the reasons why Indians were particularly interested in being visited by Johnson. I suspect that the organizations inviting Johnson to India were somewhat radical in nature. Anyone familiar with Johnson would know his somewhat radical past. Johnson would be a poor fit for constitutionalists and incrementalists. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 62.

545

546

547

196 AmericansBritons were a mature race and the whip has gone out of fashion among us.548 W.E. Pussyfoot Johnson in India Johnson arrived in Bombay in August of 1921. Despite the hopes of the AITA which organized his trip, the political landscape of India was heating up; the noncooperation movement was in full swing. A keen political observer, Johnson was well aware of non-cooperation in India and praised the inclusion of the liquor traffic in its program. Johnson said of this inclusion that Mr. Gandhi has done a shrewd thing. Non-co-operation in the manufacture, sale, and use of alcoholic beverages is for India's unconditional good. Missionaries, philanthropists, educators, and even business men can all join gladly in this type of non-co-operation. Without respect of race, class, or creed, residents of India can wholeheartedly support any effort on the part of India's leaders to get rid of the drink traffic. No amount of financial embarrassment should stand in the way of this land freeing itself from the bondage of strong drink.549

In no less than Abkari, the key journal of the Indian temperance movement, Johnson had praised Gandhi, the face of the nationalist movement in the 1920s. Johnson wisely confined his comments to the temperance aspects of non-cooperation rather than praising the movement more broadly, but his message was clear. Johnson was unprepared to condemn the political aims of the nationalist movement provided they worked in the service of temperance. The AITA, with its divided loyalty in terms of Indias future, had reason to worry.

548

F. Heath, "Pussyfoot," The Bookman 59, no. 349 (1920): 38.

Brenton Badley, T., "Pussyfoot," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 125 (1921).

549

197 The AITA was a progressive organization working for positive change in India, but was only able to do so by virtue of a colonial context in which organizations operated by white British subjects could operate with freer rein. The growth and increasing radicalization of the Indian nationalist movement revealed schisms within the AITA. Under the influence of its founder, W.S. Caine, the AITA had drawn its Indian membership from nationalist Indians. In the age of constitutionalist nationalists who were content with incremental change this was not a problem.550 But in the 1920s balancing the tone of temperance discourse to please both more radical nationalists and their paternalist well-wishers in Britain became much more precarious. British AITA members made a habit of distancing themselves from the sedulous methods of Gandhi, urging other temperance workers to dissociate themselves from all methods of agitation which are not strictly peaceful and constitutional.551 While admonishing colonial administrators for their failure to acknowledge that what is morally wrong [alcohol sales] cannot be politically right, the AITA maintained all loyalty to the Government.552 Johnsons visit to India threatened to upset this delicate balance. By agreeing to facilitate Johnsons visit, the AITA had the tiger by the tail. Known as a smooth political operator with the courage to take on both the outlaws of the American West and his own

See chapter three for more information on the founding of the AITA and Caines efforts to build an Indian membership.
551

550

Grubb, "The Anglo Indian Temperance Association Annual Report, 1920-1921," 34.

Ibid., 40. Here Grubb echoes the sentiment of Hugh Price Hughes, the Methodist minister outraged at Liberal cooperation with Irish home rule advocate, Charles Stewart Parnell, a convicted adulterer and perjurer. He said of working with Parnell, what is morally wrong can never be politically right. See John F. Glaser, "English Nonconformity and the Decline of Liberalism," The American Historical Review 63, no. 2 (1958).

552

198 government when it collaborated in theft of lands from indigenous peoples, Pussyfoot Johnson could not be allowed to shatter what remained of the wall between temperance work and Indian nationalism. Johnson, who had agreed to delay his trip by one year already, would not be put off from his work yet again. Under the circumstances, mitigating the damage of Johnsons Indian tour was the best the AITA could hope for. Speaking at the AITAs annual conference in London, Lord Clwyd made note of the dark clouds which had risen between Indians and Britons but only just referred to the coming visit of Johnson to India.553 The applause greeting this announcement were likely more anxious than ecstatic. The great irony of Johnsons trip to India was that it was formally arranged by an organization that did not want him there and was chaperoned by Indian temperance workers, many of whom also opposed the trip. The GOI was no more enthusiastic. Sinha wrote, certain high circles in Bombay had tried their best to prevent Mr. Johnson's coming to India, but they were overruled in London.554 Yet Johnson was not a man to be put off forever, and so the AITA arranged for him to be guided by the staid hands of the Bombay Temperance Federation (BTF). As a further precaution, the AITA attempted to curtail Johnsons access to its own affiliates by writing directly to the various

553

Clwyd, "President's Address," 41.

554

Sinha, "Pussyfoot" Johnson and his campaign in Hindustan: 91. Sinhas writing reveals the author as a sardonic wit. This accusation against certain high circles could have applied to conservative Indian temperance workers or to colonial administrators. The ambiguity of this statement regarding opposition to Johnsons trip suggests that, perhaps, Sinha himself did not discriminate between these two camps. Sinha stood clearly on the side of Indian independence and appeared to have little patience for those who did not, whatever the reason.

199 temperance organisations in other towns of the Bombay Presidency, and that virtually restricted Mr. Gilder's activities [Johnsons tour] to the city of Bombay alone.555 Accompanying Johnson on his tour of India was Tarini Prasad Sinha. A personal friend of C.F. Andrews associated with the World League Against Alcoholism (WLAA), Sinha was unconstrained by the AITAs timidity and was thus in a unique position to help guide Johnson through the minefield of colonial politics in India.556 Sinha was an ideal travelling companion for Johnson, a former newspaper man who had studied at Benares Hindu University, the University of Washington in Seattle, the University of London, and the Graduate Institute for International Studies at Geneva.557 Like Johnson, Sinha was no stranger to violence, having served with distinction in the British army.558 As will become clear below, although Sinha never explicitly endorsed any political faction in India, he had a great deal of sympathy for more radical nationalists and little patience for incrementalists. In short, Sinha and Johnson had a great deal in common. Both were educated, brave men with experience working in a variety of cultural contexts and unafraid to confront injustice, whether perpetrated by criminals or government. Sinha was a very well-connected person, both in India and internationally. Sinha counted among his friends several luminaries of the nationalist movement: Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, C.F. Andrews, and Annie Besant. He was no stranger to the INC, and would later serve as its secretary for its London post. Sinha had his finger on the pulse of international politics and, made several tours through England, France,
555

Ibid., 163. Frederick Fisher, B., "Tarini Prasad Sinha," ed. University of Iowa (1950). Ibid.

556

557

Frederick Grubb, "India and America," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 130 (1922): 70.

558

200 Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Austria on the behalf of the INC and various temperance organizations 559 He had a track record of working internationally for social reform and was appointed Secretariat to the League of Nations committee on Social Questions and Opium Trafficking.560 Sinha was likely one of the few people with more hard-won political experience than Johnson himself. He would prove adept at steering Johnson through the maze of Indian politics. In the 1920s there was a great deal of temperance activity in and around the city of Bombay, but not all of it was equally laudable in Sinhas view. He described the lay of the land there, describing quite a good few organizations whose members sometimes meet.561 Yet there was another kind of organization inaugurated some years ago whose elected office bearers merely continued the organization rather than do much actual temperance work.562 Many of these [latter] organizations joined together in 1896 under the name of the Bombay Temperance Federation, chaired by Sir Bhalchandra Krishna with Dhanjibhai Dorabji Gilder as General Secretary. Sinha, who held the AITAs current work in low regard, noted of the BTF that it was of course affiliated with the AITA.563 The techniques of Indian temperance organizations increasingly mirrored those employed by nationalists of the 1920s. In the late 19th century when the AITA was

559

Fisher, "Tarini Prasad Sinha." Ibid. Sinha, "Pussyfoot" Johnson and his campaign in Hindustan: 91.

560

561

Ibid. See also John Granville & William Eugene Johnson Woolley, Temperance Progress in the Century (London: Linscott Publishing Company, 1903). 440.
563

562

Sinha, "Pussyfoot" Johnson and his campaign in Hindustan: 163.

201 founded, activism typically took the form of collecting information on alcohol consumption rates and then sending petitions to colonial officials or to metropolitan government officials.564 Indian nationalists of that period employed these same methods in their efforts towards constitutional reform. But by the 1920s, nationalists began to move from these techniques to more direct action, typified by the non-cooperation movement. Many temperance organizations mirrored this change, but not so the BTF. Summing up his assessment of the BTF, Sinha wrote in his inimitably wry style: The Bombay Temperance Federation is a very dignified reform body. This reform body never had a programme, nor did it ever do any popular propaganda work. For it has always believed in using its power to influence the Government to the best possible advantage to the people, and so it presents petitions and offers suggestions to the Government whenever opportunities present themselves. And indeed whenever something unforeseen has happened that has bestirred the Federation into unusual activity, the General Secretary has sat down and written a petition. Thus it has presented a good few petitions during the years of its existence565 With this rather low opinion of the dignified BTF, it likely came as no surprise to Sinha to find the BTF entrusted with the care and, arguably, the isolation of Johnson in India. Johnsons handlers tried desperately to steer him away from political controversy, solemnly advis[ing him] not to have anything to do with 'these Gandhi people' and never to address any of their meetings for that would encourage them in their wrong thought, wrong aspirations and wrong actions.566 These efforts brought mixed results. At Johnsons second address in Bombay Non-co-operators had shaken off their proposed

See chapter two for a more detailed discussion of the early techniques of the AITA and similar organizations.
565

564

Sinha, "Pussyfoot" Johnson and his campaign in Hindustan: 164. Ibid., 171.

566

202 indifference and were present in big numbers.567 Sinha wrote that Johnson managed to win over initially-suspicious non-cooperators with his frank and straightforward oratory. After the meeting several non-cooperators approached Johnson, asking him to address a meeting under their auspices.568 Sinha described the ensuing exchange in vivid detail: Before Mr. Johnson could reply, the General Secretary of the Bombay Temperance Federation [D.D. Gilder] stepped up to say that Mr. Johnson was leaving for Poona early next morning. They therefore requested Mr. Johnson to address their meeting on the following Sunday on his return from Poona. Mr. Johnson said he would certainly like to address their meeting, but that they must arrange for the time with the General Secretary of the Federation, who was in charge of all arrangements for Mr. Johnson's meetings. The General Secretary, it seems, informed the Non-co-operators that there would be no time on Mr. Johnson's return from Poona, and that it would, therefore, not be possible for him to arrange any meeting for them. But the Non-co-operators would not be Non-cooperators if they merely took such denials from such General Secretaries. They kept quiet and were sharp on the watch.569 Sinha reported that the above incident did not sit well with Johnson. He was worried and thoughtful that night until he came to a defiant decision, rousing Sinha from sleep to inform him.570 Johnson wrote to ASL headquarters expressing his determination to avoid being run by any one particular [political] section as opposed to another.571 He met with the Governor of Bombay, George Lloyd, informing him of his plans to meet with political groups and attempted to allay Lloyds fears over the

567

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 171-72. Ibid., 172. Ibid., 173.

568

569

570

571

203 possibility of my starting an insurrection on this side of the world.572 Despite the plans of the AITA and the BTF, Johnson had already decided to engage with non-cooperators. All that remained to be determined was how to break away from his staid hosts. Johnsons AITA-made schedule left the 4th of September open for a day of rest in Poona. Sinha accused Gilder of the BTF of arranging a meeting with some Poona students, wishing to give Mr. Johnson sufficient reason not to go down to Bombay and get mixed up with those Gandhi people.573 Although it is difficult to know for sure, Sinha might have been too hard on Gilder because the students he would meet with in Poona attended Fergusson Collegethe site of the 1908 temperance riot. Thirteen years later the student body was no less enamored of temperance work nor of nationalism. Johnson soon found himself guided by the students on a tour of picketing activities in Poona. On leaving the city he was treated to cry of Johnson Maharaja ki Jai!574 Tensions escalated on Johnsons visit to Ahmedabad, future home of one of the earliest prohibition zones in 1930.575 Approaching the venue, Johnson was greeted with shouts of Mahatma Gandhi ki jai and Vande Mataram and it became immediately clear that the small hall could not accommodate the swelling crowd outside.576 Throngs of non-cooperationists had come to hear the American temperance man speak. Keeping Johnson isolated from radicals was a tall order in 1921 Ahmedabad. His handlers had
572

Ibid. Ibid., 184. Ibid., 190. This means Victory to King Johnson. See chapter 5 for more information on the Ahmedabad prohibition zone.

573

574

575

576

Sinha, "Pussyfoot" Johnson and his campaign in Hindustan: 193. The first phrase translates as Victory to Mahatma Gandhi. Vande Mataram is a nationalist song composed in 1896 that would later become Independent Indias national anthem.

204 taken special care to keep Mr. Johnson a close prisoner in their camp andtried to keep the Non-co-operationist leaders off their programme, were kept constantly being moved about by some Parsee and European and Missionary ladies coming late and going up to the front seats.577 A politically moderate Indian temperance advocate who spoke after Johnson was jeered by the audience. The fight for Johnson between competing groups of temperance workers was becoming explicit. Matters came to a head with Johnsons visit to Bankipore, Bihar. A large crowd of white-capped volunteers greeted Johnson and his retainers as he left the train station. The noise of the crowd was deafening after Johnson took his seat in a horse-driven carriage and he was again literally captured by the crowd; but this time events would unfold very differently from his unfortunate experience in London. The crowd of Nonco-operation volunteers, with surprising quickness, unharnessed the horses, and before anybody was aware of it, began dragging the carriage. The huge procession gaily displaying bunting and flags, and shouting 'Mahatma Gandhi-ki-jai' and 'Pussyfoot Johnson-ki-jai,' passed through the town578 The scene captured below pictures a bemused Johnson, doubtless surprised to find himself the grand marshal of a nationalist parade.

577

Ibid. Ibid., 300.

578

205

Figure 13 Source: Tarini Sinha, Arrival at Bankipore, Pussyfoot Johnson and his Campaign in Hindustan, Madras: Ganesh, 1922, 300.

By virtue of his interactions with the non-cooperationists and through his public praise of Gandhi, the American temperance worker was becoming an important symbol for Indian nationalists. As one Delhi social service organization wrote to Johnson, we quite appreciate your desire not to meddle in any way with the present political situation in India. But still we feel that you are, even if unconsciously, rendering us a great political service.579 Since temperance was a fundamental aspect of nationalism in India, Johnsons work in India implied endorsement of nationalism; as a result his utility as a

579

Ibid., 225.

206 symbol was not entirely unlike that of Gandhi himself. The two propaganda posters of the period, reproduced in Sinhas book below, bear out this similarity.580

Figure X Source: Tarini Sinha, Mahatma Gandhi Driving Liquor from India, Pussyfoot Johnson and his Campaign in Hindustan, Madras: Ganesh, 1922, 225-226

580

Ibid.

207

Sinha also used his commemoration of Johnsons visit to make subtle criticism of imperial rule. Sinha was struck by the effect that viewing the site of the Jallainwalla Bagh massacre in Amritsar had on Johnson. After passing through the gruesome doorway into the baugh proper, the ever-lingering famous smile of Mr. Johnson completely deserted him. So did his general cheerfulness. Suddenly this great American seemed to be transfigured into a solemn personality. Indeed he looked so solemn and thoughtful as to make very one present feel the presence of Death that through the muzzles of British guns played havoc on the lives of innocent men, women and children in April, 1919.581 It is noteworthy that Sinhas book chronicling Johnsons temperance work in India contains 25 plates, three of which are haunting scenes at the site of Jallainwalla Bagh, an event that ostensibly had little to do with temperance. In 1920s India, the distinction between temperance work and nationalist criticism of despotic imperial rule was a blurry one indeed. This growing lack of distinction between temperance work and Indian nationalism made some British temperance workers quite uncomfortable. One response was to insist that the distinction was still a clear one despite all evidence to the contrary. The AITA summarized Johnsons tour of India under a heading titled, politics avoided.582 The AITAs Abkari credited Johnsons aloofness from political controversies as key to his success in avoiding the alienation of more advanced reformers or sympathetic administrators.583 This report of the completely apolitical nature of Johnsons trip is very much at odds with the much more detailed recounting of Sinha, but of course, the
581

Ibid., 242.

582

Frederick Grubb, "Mr. Pussyfoot's Tour: A Remarkable Campaign," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 127 (1922): 2. Ibid.

583

208 AITA had much to lose from political involvement. If politics could not be avoided in the context of Indian temperance work, then what role could there be for men like Grubb who had made their paternalist struggle to improve India their lifes work? To report the heavily political nature, either as a product of Johnsons volition or as a product of his being used by competing factions of nationalists, would undermine the increasingly tenuous position of the AITA. Other temperance workers proved far less reluctant to publicize and condemn what they saw as interloping in the domestic affairs of the empire. On being invited to a garden party at which Johnson was to be present, one of these men responded that he would come wearing thick, heavy ammunition boots, so that he could kick Mr. Johnson across the waters back to his own country, where he could do all the mischief that he was capable of doing.584 Reverend Cape, the vernacular-minded missionary who sent the invitation, wrote back told to him he could wear what he liked, provided he would take it cheerfully if the Indians used the same method and the same language towards him, and send the Englishman back to his own country.585 Matters became particularly heated with the Canadian Baptist missionary, I.C. Archibald, who urged Johnson to avoid Gandhis nefarious activities before leading an unenthusiastic temperance audience in a chorus of God Save the King so that the meeting would not appear seditious.586 Johnson agreed to meet privately with the non-

584

Sinha, "Pussyfoot" Johnson and his campaign in Hindustan: 185-86. Ibid., 186.

585

Ibid., 344. Sinha lists the religious denomination of the Archibalds as Methodist but this appears erroneous. They were Canadian Baptists. See Anne Innis Dagg, The Feminine Gaze: A Canadian Compendium of Non-Fiction Women Authors and Their Books, 1836-1945 (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001).

586

209 cooperators in attendance after the meeting and before a dinner with Archibald and his daughter, none other than Mabel E. Archibald, editor of the WCTUs India journal, The Indian Temperance Record and the White Ribbon. Johnson would later receive a message from Mabel Archibald asking him if it was true, as she had heard, that he had met with non-cooperationists who were doing much harm and leading to destruction and loss of life.587 She had some additional advice for a fellow western temperance worker in India: Until they [non-cooperationists] give up their senseless campaign against the Government I do not see how we can publicly join them in the campaign against drink and honour those who are stirring up the ignorant masses to such outrageous deeds.588 Johnson responded to Archibalds letter, saying that he had steadfastly avoided becoming the tool of either Mr. Gandhi or the Government.589 Yet after averring his commitment to remaining above the political fray, Johnson underlined the reason why apolitical temperance work in 1920s India had become all but impossible. It should be remembered that all the drink shops in India are established by the Government, and as long as the Government follows this policy of using its power to shield the traffic, it must expect attacks at its weakest spot, at the hands of its enemies. If the Government would withdraw its protection from the drink business, it would automatically remove the best weapon that that Gandhi people have. For Johnson and the new generation of western temperance workers in India, the colonial government of India had allied itself so closely with the sale of liquor that temperance work necessarily implied government criticism. Mabel Archibald had lived in India for 35 years, working primarily with Telugu-speakers in the south, but her views on the Indian freedom movement were increasingly putting her out of touch with other
587

Sinha, "Pussyfoot" Johnson and his campaign in Hindustan: 347. Ibid. Ibid., 350.

588

589

210 temperance activists in India. It likely comes as no surprise that within a mere ten years the head of Indias WCTU, Ruth Robinson, would all but publically endorse Indian nationalism.590 Indian Nationalism on the Global Temperance Stage Indian nationalists and temperance activists, increasingly one and the same, also took their message outside of India, appealing to a global audience of temperance workers. In the 1920s Indias temperance movement was increasingly represented at international conferences by Indians themselves. The first congress of the WLAA met in Toronto in 1922. Three Indian men represented the Indian temperance movement at the congress. Their opinions regarding the state of Indian temperance and institutional resistance to it would lead to pointed criticism of the colonial state on the global temperance stage. Indians at the conference were careful to note Indias history of aversion to intoxicating drinks, casting Indias alcohol problem as a direct result of British rule. J.H. Hussein noted that temperance advocates were routinely imprisoned and otherwise persecuted because, they have to contend with the state.591 Indian temperance advocates repeatedly drew the attention of global temperance activists to the relationship between alcohol distribution and the colonial state. Tarini Prasad Sinha informed the congress that, the man who is engaged either in brewing or distillery work is a government servant, he gets his salary paid from the revenue of the people and when he

See chapter five for more information on Ruth Robinson, particularly with regard to her temporary leadership of the Prohibition League of India in 1931. Ben H. Spence, World League Against Alcoholism: 1st Congress, Toronto (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Press, 1922). 335.
591

590

211 retires from business he gets a pension from the state.592 The effects of these statesponsored alcohol sales were far-reaching. Sinha noted that, there are also now many million people who are receding from the old traditions and becoming victims of the liquors and the drugs which under the state law are being sold everywhere.593 Because of the link between alcohol and the state, temperance activities are regarded as activities directed against the state.594 Having established the link between the imperial regime and the drink menace, the Indian representatives at the WLAA congress were able to launch an argument against colonialism. One of these representatives was Jnananjan Niyogi. Born in 1891to Brahmo Samajist parents, Niyogi formed his first temperance organization, Band of Hope, in 1916. He was famous for his magic lantern lectures on temperance and morality one of which was described by the popular Bengali writer, Bimal Mitra, described Niyogis lectures in the novel, Kori Diye Kinlam: It was not just an ordinary lecture; it was a lantern lecture. The pictures started appearing on a white screen. It seemed that movie pictures had come to a stand still. The images were not moving but once the lecture started everything could be understood. How English soldiers came and occupied India, how the Englishmen cut off the fingers of the weaversPictures were being shown on the screen and Jnananjan Niyogi was delivering the lecture. What a lecture! Everybody was listening in silence. The British occupied India with one tyranny after the other. Picture after picture there were displays about how bad the English were, how tyrannous they were.595

Tarini Prasad Sinha, "The New Movement for Prohibition in India," in World League Against Alcoholism: 1st Congress, Toronto, ed. Ben H. Spence (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Press, 1922), 171. 593 Sinha, 171.
594

592

Ibid.

Subodh Chandra & Anjali Bose Sengupta, ed. Sansad Bangali Charitabhidhan (Bengali Biographical Dictionary), vol. I (Kolkata: Sahitya Samsad, 1998), 114-16.

595

212 Niyogi averred that, India has determined to follow dry America.596 What remained unspoken yet painfully obvious was that India could not of her own accord follow dry America. The Government of India stood firmly in this path. Niyogi would later assure his audience that Indians would, fight with you with all our strength and resources to make India free.597 The exact nature of this freedom was left open to the imagination. It seems probable that this freedom entailed freedom from both alcohol and Britain. Indeed, having won deliverance from the drink menace, Niyogi promises that India will, fling high the flag of Prohibition and [that] it will flutter in the breeze till victory comes to our land.598 Indian speakers at the congress delicately crafted their speeches to appeal to Christian sentiments while maintaining a great deal of pride in indigenous Indian religion. Tugging at the heartstrings of the largely Christian audience of the congress, Sinha warned that, my people find it extremely difficult to distinguish between one activity of yours which teaches [Indians] the religion of Jesus Christ, and the other activity which is monopolizing the entire sale of liquor and opium and forcing it down the throats of my people.599 Sinha further advised his listeners that Indians, have had total abstinence taught us through our religion.600 For Sinhas listeners there could be

596

J Niyogi, "Report on Asian Temperance," in World League Against Alcoholism: 1st Congress, Toronto, ed. Ben H. Spence (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Press, 1922), 60. Ibid, 61. Ibid, 237. Ibid, 171. Sinha 171.

597

598

599

600

213 no mistaking that Britons were singularly responsible for placing abstemious India adrift in a sea of booze. After speaking at the 1922 Toronto conference of the WLAA, the organization sponsored Sinha and Niyogi on a six month tour of the United States. Abkari continued to insist on the entirely apolitical nature of their work. Indeed, despite the caveat that detailed reports of their lectures have not yet come to hand, the AITA reported that many influential audiences have been addressed.601 Most frequently, Sinha and Niyogi were hosted by American protestant churches which advertised their talks as community mass meeting[s] in the interests of world temperance.602 As an added draw, advertisements also appealed to exoticism of American audiences, promising that Niyogi speaks English fluently and always appears in native costume.603 Newspaper reports suggest that the lectures Niyogi gave in the United States were similar, if not identical to, the speech he gave at the WLAAs Toronto conference earlier that year. With his addresses billed as concerned with temperance, his audience was doubtless self-selecting to a degree. That is to say, he did not have to sell his listeners on the idea that far-away Indians needed to eschew alcohol. He had another message, however, regarding the justice of British rule in India. He told his large and interested audiences of sufferings the people in that far away land have endured since liquor was introduced.604

601

Grubb, "India and America," 70. Unknown, "Bellwood," The Altoona Mirror, 6th December, 1922 1922. Ibid.

602

603

"Evils of Drink in Far-Off India: Native Missionary Describes them to a Media Audience," Chester Times, 16th December, 1922 1922.

604

214 Eight years after Niyogis return to India, he found himself charged with the crime of vilifying the British by contrast.605 Niyogi responded, We do not still believe that the whole world has really admitted that the English are carrying on the administration of our country against our consent. We want to convince the world that the English carry us along against our consent. We want to convince it that we do not accept their unfair administration and ordinance.606 During his travels abroad on the behalf of the World League against Alcoholism in 1922, Niyogi had been doing just that; convincing the world that English rule was against the consent of the Indian people, one temperance audience at a time. The abstemious Indian, a trope invented and promoted by missionaries and high-caste Indians in a colonial context had now come full-circle. Niyogi and Sinha themselves became living, breathing evidence of a timeless, abstemious East suffering under the besotted hand of imperial rule before the wide eyes of American temperance audiences. Niyogi praised Great constructive America as a land of wonders, imploring its citizens to assist his country in getting rid of the curse and help his country, poor and weak and the hearts of its people bleeding.607 American audiences were praised for their modernity, strength and moral courage for achieving prohibition. Appealing to their paternalism and their concern for Indias downtrodden in the language of temperance, it was not inconceivable that Niyogis work might bring hundreds more Pussyfooted Americans to turn the tide in India. Any doubts regarding Niyogis nationalist bona fides were dispelled with his 1925 book entitled, India. With India, Niyogi earned the distinction of having written a
605

Criminal Appeal, Jnananjan Niyogi- Accused- Appellant v. Emperor, Criminal Appeal No. 909 of 1929, Decided on 6th February, 1930, 6-2-1930 1930. Ibid. "Evils of Drink in Far-Off India: Native Missionary Describes them to a Media Audience."

606

607

215 book that would be banned by the Government of India for its anti-English sentiment. This was a curious charge in light of the fact that Niyogi did not write a word in the book himself. Rather, he constructed it entirely from the quotes of European, primarily British, people, including Government of India administrators and thinkers as divergent as Karl Marx and J.S. Burke. Despite its being banned, Niyogi doubtless relished in one small victory; the Government of India was forced to deem a book of quotes from British officials and thinkers as anti-English. Conclusion The methods contributing to the early success of the AITA and its sister organization, the WCTU, became increasingly untenable after the beginning of the noncooperation movement in 1920. Although the WCTU managed to change course by the early 1930s, the AITA did not. The AITA continued to limp along through the 1920s, but it had become all but irrelevant. The time when western activists could singlehandedly influence temperance discourse in India had long passed. It was now far more likely that western activists would be influenced by Indians. This effect on temperance discourse was not limited to India alone. Individuals like Sinha and Niyogi took their message to the global temperance community, placing Indian nationalism on the radar of concerned activists. The 1920s saw temperance now firmly wedded to nationalism, a trend that would persist and accelerate through the 1930s, culminating in INC-initiated prohibition zones. Another trend first established in the 1920s began to accelerate as well. Systematic violence against drinkers that began to treble during non-cooperation would spike in the 1930s. The question of the Indian-ness of drinking, once confined largely to temperance

216 discourse, erupted into nationalist discourse. Over the 1920s, drinking alcohol in India became a political statementwhether voluntarily made or not. The stage was set for the realization of an idealized past in a new era. With temperance now a fundamental aspect of Indian nationalism, dealing with recalcitrant drinkers was all that remained.

217 CHAPTER V DRUNKARDS BEWARE!: TEMPERANCE AND NATIONALIST POLITICS IN THE 1930S Introduction There was evidence everywhere of universal rejoicings in the city. The city's roads, bazaars, shops, markets and houses were decorated with buntings and floral arches. Two motor cars equipped with loud speakers moved from place to place announcing the programme of the Prohibition Day. Accompanied by music, a procession of motor lorries decorated with pictures, posters and placards moved through all parts of the city and suburbs. An effigy measuring 20' by 5' symbolizing the Monster of Drink was specially prepared for the occasion. [It] was mounted on a motor lorry and paraded through the city.608 On the morning of July 20th, 1938, the people of Ahmedabad, an urban city in the Bombay Presidency, awoke to a radically altered world. Prohibition Day marked the first day of a temperate future. Minister of Health for the Bombay Presidency, David Gilder, and Indian National Congress (INC) leader, Sardar Patel, both dedicated temperance advocates, prepared their speeches calling for a celebration of Prohibition and the requisite vigilance to ensure its success. Ahmedabads dry future represented the fruition of nearly 50 years of temperance activism by a wide array of social reformers including temperance workers from India and abroad, and nationalists of all classes, jatis, religions, and political ideologies. One might be forgiven for proclaiming, as did Kailas Nath Katju, United Provinces Excise Minister, that no one [in India] is against the promotion of temperance.609 Temperance journals in India, Britain, and the United States breathlessly praised the actions of the
608

Prohibition Department, Bombay. "Report of the Prohibition Department." In A.I.C.C. Bombay: JN Library & Archive, 1938. It is noteworthy that the burning of the drink effigy is almost identical to the Dashara festival during which the rakshasa, Ravana, is burned, symbolizing the triumph of good over evil.
609

Katju, Kailas Nath. "The Hon'ble Minister of Excise on Prohibition." Public Information, United Provinces, Lucknow II, no. 9 (1938): 7.

218 Congress Ministries for setting new a standard for moral governance, in the fight against demon drink. Yet beneath this veneer of unanimity, a much more complicated picture threatened to undermine not only victory against alcohol, but the very future of the Indian nation. Chapter Overview This chapter examines alcohol and the discourse surrounding it from the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930 to the end of Congress-led provincial governments in 1939. It argues that the tensions between nationalists devoted to the prohibition of drink and the liquor men and their clients increased dramatically during this period. The growing anger between the nationalists and a colonial government who fought tooth and nail against them manifested itself in debates regarding access to drink. These tensions led to watershed that forced drinkers to decide whether to support the nation or continue in their habit. Those who persisted in drinking and selling drink found themselves, to their surprise, on the side of an increasingly violent government while temperance advocates found themselves at once fighting both colonial rule and drinkers. When Congress joined government in the provincial assemblies in 1938 it used the power of the state to begin the long fight of eradicating the drink menace from India. In the process of doing so, drinkers found themselves subject to the moral criticism of nationalist leaders and to the full might of Congress-led provincial governments. Impending Indian freedom held out a promise but also a threat to the drinking classes. An Independent India appeared poised to destroy the existing drinkproducing industry and to force drinkers to conform to the social mores of the upper castes.

219 I will begin by describing the continued widespread culture of drinking that persisted even through the end of the nationalist movement. I will then move on to discuss the centrality of temperance propaganda and picketing campaigns to the Civil Disobedience movement, showing how class influenced the prohibition campaign. The energy with which Congress prosecuted these campaigns provoked occasionally violent hostility from drink sellers and their patrons. The colonial governments crackdown on nationalists during the Civil Disobedience movement compelled leaders to entrust the stewardship of temperance organizations to non-Indians. I will then discuss the role of race, nationality, and gender in the choice of leaders for the marquee temperance organization of the 1930s. With the 1931 Gandhi-Irwin Pact, the technical distinction between legal anti-alcohol agitation and illegal nationalist demonstrations grew in importance and Congress leaders exercised control over the actions of their workers and other temperance organizations to emphasize that distinction. Finally, I will examine the brief period during which the Congress used its power in Provincial Assemblies to enact prohibition. The form of prohibition, the style of its implementation, and the rhetoric of its propaganda reveal elite nationalist attitudes regarding class, social status, nationality, and the use of state power to effect social change.

The Drinking Classes Alcohol use in South Asia was much more widespread than commonly recognized. Drinkers were legion and sometimes vocal. In the 1890s, many of the drinking classes in Western India united to protest increased taxes levied on alcohol, forcing both the Colonial Government and befuddled European temperance advocates to

220 acknowledge the high rates of alcohol use associated with some communities.610 The revenue needs of the colonial government and of some later independent Indian state governments, depended on large-scale alcohol production and consumption.611 So widespread was the use of alcohol that its taxation provided as much as 38 percent of total revenue for Madras Presidency in the south.612 Though many Indians conceived of their nation as abstemious, great numbers of their fellows were drinking quite a bit of alcohol. Prohibition was as much a matter of social status as it was about drink. Despite the close relationship between temperance and the nationalist movement, many Indian drinkers persisted in their habit despite its condemnation and eventual criminalization in some areas by the Congress Provincial Governments of 1937-1939. Indian social reformers and European activists operating in India noted the traditional association of alcohol use with low social status. Middle class drinkers occasionally alarmed of nationalists and temperance activists on occasion but they were not mentioned with anything approaching the frequency of lower class drinkers. Elite Indians associated with both nationalism and the temperance cause increasingly saw the drinking habits of the poor as a threat to the nation at large.

Civil Disobedience and Drink

610

See Chapter 2.

Rajaji described the drinking classes as Almost all the castes comprising the three groups of Backward classes and more than one-fifth of the total population. See Rajagopalachari, C. "Dr. Ambedkar and Drink Evil." In C. Rajagopalachari, 2. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. Grubb, Frederick. Fifty Years Work in India: My Temperance Jubilee. 1st ed. London: H.J. Rowling and Sons, 1942.
612

611

221 With the increasing violence and scale of the freedom movement, tempers flared against liquor-men and their patrons. Drinkers found themselves on the wrong side of the growing dichotomy between those who favored British rule and those who did not. Drink increasingly represented, not just degradation, but political apathy in a struggle that called for unity and sacrifice. The tone of moral suasion, essential to temperance work through the 1920s, changed by the 1930s. The stubborn resistance of drinkers was met with gradually ebbing patience on the part of nationalists and their volunteers. The colonial government had a stake in the revenue-flow from those drinkers but also found them as potential allies, a low-status complement to generally pro-British rulers of the princely states. As a result, nationalist discourse and imperial reactions to it were marked by a struggle to determine who had the right to speak in the interests of Indias subaltern, largely drinking, population. In 1930, imperial administrators again frustrated the hopes of nationalists associated with the Congress Party, by allowing a December, 1929 deadline to pass without pledging to award India dominion status, and thus effective autonomy. In response to this decision, the Congress launched the Civil Disobedience Movement, lasting from 1930-1931. A key aspect of Civil Disobedience was the picketing of liquor shops.613 Although the picketing of liquor shops was technically legal under tightly controlled circumstances, district collectors and magistrates routinely arrested picketers for violating the strict rules for picketing.614 Thousands of Congress volunteers spoke in

613

Sumit Sarkar, Modern India 1885-1947 (Delhi: Macmillan India, 1983), 294. More on the rules for picketing can be found below.

614

222 the bazaars, picketed, and visited the homes of drinkers in a concerted effort to rid India of drink. In the early weeks of the Civil Disobedience campaign, picketers gathered around liquor shops in great numbers, ensuring the confrontation of all customers with their sinful and putatively pro-empire/anti-Indian behavior. After Congress ratcheted up liquor shop picketing in 1930, some of these interactions could become heated, even violent. Adding to the frustration of picketers, British-administered government increasingly overlooked abkari violations. Sales occurred outside of licensed shops and after legal hours of operation. Some liquor sellers hired men to attack picketers who dared to disrupt illegal sales or giveaways. In July of 1931 The Hindu reported that a liquor contractor announced a free distribution of toddy and hired rowdys [sic] from a neighbouring village and created a disturbance in front of the liquor shop.615 Although the wishes of Congress in 1931 were not the law of the land, the effect of Congress widespread influence and enormous volunteer corps provoked liquor sellers to continue alcohol sales by hook or by crook. The problem of illegal sales was ubiquitous. Tamil Nadus famous nationalist, Rajagopalachari, or Rajaji, complained that toddy pots are carried about on the head and sold like curds and buttermilk in the streets.616 Where illegal sales might once have cost Government revenue, the dramatic reduction in legal alcohol sales associated with picketing changed the dynamic. Markedly lower sales left abkari contractors without the

C. Rajagopalachari, "Picketing in Madras Presidency, a Few Experiences," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).
616

615

Rajagopalachari, C. "Picketing: Our Experiences." In C. Rajagopalachari, 6. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931.

223 means to pay their annual fees to the district collectors. Illegal sales were now a lifeline for liquor dealers, one that colonial bureaucrats were only too happy to provide. One worker described to Rajaji one of these instances of illegality as follows: Two of the people who bought toddy were known to me and I went with them to the Sub Inspectors house and told him about the shop being opened beyond lawful hours. The Sub Inspector himself came with me to the shop to verify. The shop was open. But the vendor had concealed himself somewhere. Then a car came belonging to a big Abkari contractor. There were some gentlemen in it. One of them got out and inspected the shop. From his behaviour and from the evasive answers he gave me, I think he was a high officer of the Abkari department. The Sub Inspector told me that he will enquire into the sales outside lawful hours. I have not yet heard anything about it...617 The same reporter complained of one particular Sub-Inspector who, at a shop distributing free toddy, not only allowed the illegal activity to continue but, marched into the shop and ordered the men in a loud voice to get in and drink. From that day a police constable and two salt peons are posted in front of the shop who are directly inviting people to drink and threaten the [picketing] volunteers.618 Rajaji explained the misguided actions of the police, writing that, the Indian policeman feels it is his duty to help the business of the drink shops and looks upon the place as holding the sacred Majesty of the British Sircar [Government] in spite of vulgar surroundings.619 Failure on the part of police to crack down on illegal sales could not be attributed to a lack of personnel. Indeed, with global economic depression in tandem with increased political

617

C. Rajagopalachari, "Picketing: Our Experiences," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931). Ibid.

618

619

C. Rajagopalachari, "Anti Drink Movement, a Report from South India," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).

224 agitation in India, recruitment into the Indian police force was even more effective than it had been historically.620 Occasionally the relationship between Government and liquor-men was more than mere political sympathy. Volunteers in one South Indian village complained that an Indian official in the employ of the collectors office was the maternal uncle of a local liquor dealer.621 The actions, or myriad inactions, of Government confirmed Rajajis position that state-enforced legal prohibition was a necessary prerequisite for national temperance, because social and unofficial prohibition cannot last more than a limited period of time.622 There were no easy solutions for the colonial government. There was truth in the observation that when abkari taxes were too high, illicit manufacture burgeoned. Prohibition seemed likely to provoke the same response. Reducing taxes on drink produced yet another set of problems. For example, in 1935, the Excise Department of Madras cut taxes on arrack because the drinking public cannot in the prevailing economic condition afford to pay the high price for licit arrack charged by the licensed vendor, leading to illicit distillation.623 Temperance activists saw this reduction as yet more evidence that Government was more concerned with increasing sales of licit alcohol than in checking consumptionthe stated goal of the Abkari Department.
620

D. A. Low, Congress and the Raj : Facets of the Indian Struggle, 1917-47 (London, Eng.: ArnoldHeinemann, 1977).

621

D. Mirpurkhas, Secretary Congress Committee, "Press Telegram," in All India Congress Committee Papers (JN Memorial Library, 1931).

Rajagopalachari, C. "Letter to Mary Campbell." In C. Rajagopalachari, 2. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931.
623

622

Government of Madras, "Excise--Arrack--Administration--Proposals for 1935-36--Orders Passed," ed. Revenue (Madras1935).

225 Colonial administrators eagerly investigated all instances of alleged violence during picketing to discredit the nationalist and temperance movements more generally. Congress leaders worried particularly that administrators would arrest their volunteers on trumped up charges. Rajaji wrote of a case in September of 1931 in which volunteers compelled an illegal liquor seller to report to the magistrate along with her pot of illegal toddy. She did so, but Rajaji considered this a narrow miss, with the volunteers fortunate that the pot was not broken and a charge brought against them under sections 143, 147 and all other sections, on the allegation that they waylaid and assaulted the renters servants lawfully carrying a pot of toddy.624 Picket organizers foresaw inevitable conflicts with drinkers. As Ambedkar put it, Naturally, when people are denied the luxury of a vice to which they are used to indulge...they will rebel for a time.625 To protect the viability of picketing, the Congress issued detailed rules for volunteers. These picketing rules included an explicit disavowal of coercion, direct or indirect, a limit of five picketers at any one location, proscription of the physical blocking of customers or goods going in or out of the shops, and the admonishment that interventions with drinkers should be based on nothing more than courteous entreaty.626 Gandhi added to these guidelines the suggestion that picketers penetrate into the home[s] of the drinkers.627

624

C. Rajagopalachari, "Illegal Sales- a Narrow Escape," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).

Rajagopalachari, C. "Dr. Ambedkar and Drink Evil." In C. Rajagopalachari, 2. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. Ambedkar generally urged Dalits to, abandon customs and practices associated with the stereotype of the untouchable. Drinking alcohol was one of these practices. See H.C. Sadangi, Emancipation of Dalits and the Freedom Struggle (Delhi: Isha Books, 2008), 274. Rajagopalachari, C. "Instructions for Picketing." In C. Rajagopalachari, 2. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. These rules were published in key newspapers and periodicals like The Hindu and Gandhis Young India. They were also sent to state and local Congress Committees.
626

625

226 Drinkers Agency Despite Congress anti-drink campaign, many Indians continued to imbibe during Civil Disobedience. Ambedkar estimated that almost all the castes comprising the three groups of Backward classes and more than one-fifth of the total population continued to populate the drinking classes.628 This estimation contrasts starkly with that of Rajaji, who averred that all shades of public opinion in India (except those actually interested in drink) are agreed to the desirability of Prohibition at the earliest possible date.629 The Indians dismissed as those actually interested in drink comprised a large portion of the population. Ambedkars estimation was more accurate than Rajajis: a large segment of the Indian population necessarily opposed a key aspect of the Congress platform. Congress sidestepped the deliberate agency of drinkers in favor of recasting them as put upon victims who needed to be kept away from liquor shops.630 At best, drinkers needed to be protected from danger as a child is by her parent. At worst, drinkers were aping the conqueror, rendering India a nation of drunks and brutes.631 Indian temperance reformers, most of them ardent nationalists, found themselves simultaneously arguing against the colonial state on the basis that their own agency was denied even as they sought to ensure by force of law that the wishes of drinkers would be

Rajagopalachari, C. "Instructions for Picketing. Gandhiji's Instructions." In R. Rajagopalachari, 2. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931.
628

627

C. Rajagopalachari, "Dr. Ambedkar and Drink Evil," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931). , "On Prohibition," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, C. 1931). Rajagopalachari, "Anti Drink Movement, a Report from South India."

629

630

, "On Prohibition." The worst of these offenders were from the higher classes, who tended to ape the manners of the rulers.

631

227 checked. This discrepancy was mitigated by the assertion made again and again that drinkers fundamentally could not be agents. Drinkers were victims. When they persisted in their stubborn opposition to righteous picketers, activists referred to them as hardened victims.632 These hardened victims lacked true volition, lending themselves to be used as tools by interested parties.633 Reformers characterized the continued resistance of drinkers as an expression of the agency of anthropomorphized drink itself or of British rule and the liquor interests. Temperance reformers and nationalists pitied drinkers, hoping that through social pressure and physical removal of the temptation, they might be freed of their slavery to alcohol. This was a difficult situation requiring the Congress to start quietly and to get the other side habituated gradually to the interference on [their] part.634 Gandhi argued that drinking was like a disease and the sufferer must be protected against himself. It is not coercion to give him treatment for his own good nor is it coercion for the State to save its people from the disease of drink by driving it out.635 The right of individuals to make and sell toddy, a position common among early nationalists like D.E. Wacha (see chapter two) was completely abandoned by 1931. Where in the late 19th century and the very early 20th century nationalists praised the nutritive properties of toddy and its low alcohol content, Congress leaders of the 1930s disavowed any benefit associated with it. A report in the Manchester Guardian
632

C. Rajagopalachari, "Advice to Picketers," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).

, "Letter To "Mr. Raja," Local Congressman," in C. Rajagopalacharia (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).
634

633

Rajagopalachari, C. "Letter to Vaidyanathier." In C. Rajagopalachari, 3. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Libarary, 1931. 635 Rajagopalachari, "On Prohibition."

228 forwarded to Rajaji provoked the unequivocal response that toddy contains more evil than vitamin B.636 The evil of alcohol in all its forms outweighed any good it could possibly work on the bodies of drinkers. The truth of the above statements is debatable. As explained in chapter two, toddy was considered a food by many and doubtlessly contained some nutritional benefit, particularly for the poor whose caloric intake was so low that virtually any food source was an improvement. This was immaterial to Rajaji, however, as the evil that toddy inflicted on the nation at large outweighed any nutritional content it might have provided for drinkers. The drinking classes could not be allowed the right to poison the Indian nation. Liquor Men Dealers in the liquor trade did not fare as well as their customers in the eyes of temperance activists and nationalists in the early 1930s. Dealers were traitors, not victims. Sensitive to these condemnations, one repentant liquor dealer begged Rajaji to intervene and stop the picketing of his liquor shop until he could divest himself of interest in it at the close of his annual contract. He acknowledged that drink was among the five deadly sins and that continuing in the trade would render him a traitor to the country.637 This link between drinking and treason was no accident. Teams of volunteers picketing liquor shops found that standing [near the shop] with the National Flag in hand is enough to stop all the business.638 In August of 1931 the Bangalore

636 637

C. Rajagopalachari, "Untitled," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931). Rajagopalachari, C. "An Arrack Shop-Keeper's Penitence in Nagapatam." In C. Rajagopalachari, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. Government of India, "Report of Native Newspapers, Bombay," (Bombay: Bombay Presidency, 1878).

638

229 district magistrate prohibited the hoisting of the national flag within 100 yards of a liquor shop, in a clear attempt to drive a wedge between nationalism and temperance.639 Colonial administrators complained of the increasing tendency on the part of local [temperance] bodies to indulge in activities designed to support or show sympathy with the disloyal movement promoted by the advocates of civil disobedience.640 Temperance activists and nationalists consistently made the link between their two causes evident by working within both camps for the realization of both ideals. This association was cemented by the use of powerful symbols such as the hoisting of the national flag to emphasize temperance as a goal of the coming sovereign state. Despite the efforts of administrators to cleave the issue of Indian freedom from that of alcohol policy, it remained clear to leading nationalists that the liquor dealer worked on behalf of the Government, and was an agent of the British Sircar.641 Rajaji argued that ostensibly well-intended arguments in favor of access to alcohol were necessarily disingenuous, as he has not found a single place where there has been really agitation against prohibition except when it is manufactured and financed by outside forces.642 In the face of such harsh criticism for moral dissolution and treason, it is not surprising that interactions between liquor dealers and temperance men carried the threat of violence. At the commencement of Civil Disobedience in 1930, Chauri Chaura (see chapter four) was only eight years gone, and violence, even if isolated at this point,

639

Unknown, "Ban on Picketing in Mysore from the Hindu," in C. Rajagopalacharia (Madras: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).

Charles Henderson, "Flag Hoisting on Dt. Board Office- E. Godavari Collector's Letter to President," in C. Rajagopalacharia (Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).
641 642

640

Rajagopalachari, "Anti Drink Movement, a Report from South India." , "On Prohibition."

230 threatened to forestall picketing across India.643 The Government of Indias Home Department Secretary, H.W. Emerson, solicited reports documenting instances of violence, coercion, destruction of property, and other objectionable methods in the picketing of shops.644 Picketers also accused liquor dealers of violence. Reports that picketers had been assaulted with lathis, kicks and foul abusive language were common.645 One volunteer in Hyderabad, Sindh reported in a telegram to Vallabbhai Patel that one picketer at liquor shop Mirpurkhas followed Muslim servant Guteval carrying liquor bottle. Picketer very severely beaten with lathi by servant at lonely place outside the town. Picketers beaten six times before also. Policy of beating seems determined upon.646 The secretary of the local Congress Committee described the escalating violence surrounding the pickets in 1931: Since a month Ghuhermal Gutewal country liquor shops of Mirpurkhas has [sic] been regularly assaulting with lathis kicks and using foul abusive language volunteers picketing his shop. 15 days back kept two hired Mussalman Gondas Osman and Dostmohomed and through them has been trying to dispose of liquor by various illegal and unfustified ways. Being unsuccessful got a Basarmal volunteer beat with iron mounted lathi in the outskirt disabling him by Osman Gonda 10 days back. 3 days back he sent for Gulo butcher and two other Mussalmans Gondas from Hyderabad. It is reported that Gulo butcher has recently been challenged under section 109 or 110 I.P.C. Trouble was forecasted and it came out true yesterday evening when Gutewal in his frenzy assaulted brutally and mercilessly six chief workers Messrs Santdas President Haji Mohamed Assandas Vice President Hardawas Secretary and Bhai Jethanand citizen Treasurer Congress Committee with handle of the hunter with its metal nob in front. Each injured has several contusions all over the body measuring the longest four inches and the smallest two inches by half inch specially on the back front of the eyebrow, near
643

See Chapter 2.

Emerson, H.W., Secretary to the Government of India (Home). "Letter to Home Secretary to the Government of Bombay." In Home Department, Special, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1931. Mirpurkhas, D., Secretary Congress Committee. "Press Telegram." In All India Congress Committee Papers, 2: JN Memorial Library, 1931.
646 645

644

Ghanashyam, 1931.

231 temple, neck and cheeks. Contusions and echimosis appear on head. While assaulting used freely foul abusive language kicked shouldered volunteers through away their chairs. Hired Gondas rendered services required of them. Immediately public gathered to witness the scene.647

Yet, unlike the behavior of temperance workers, the violence of liquor-shop men was, in all but the most egregious cases, ignored by police. It was due to these hostile circumstances that the Congress conducted liquor shop picketing under tightly controlled circumstances. As growing number of liquor men migrated from (or were forced out) of the trade, those who remained became a focal point for the disapproval of nationalists. The era of politely entreating liquor men to give up the trade had ended back in the 1920s. Having been fully warned of the social ramifications of dealing in liquor, licensees in the next decade would be spared no quarter within legal means. Rajaji admitted that despite the hectic activities during the auction sales, hardened dealers could not be swayed from the low-hanging fruit of cut-rate licenses.648 Even in the 1930s, the zenith of the antialcohol movement in India, liquor dealers continued to do a brisk trade. One particularly lucrative but illegal practice was to disguise Indian-made foreign liquor as being of European origin. Coloring agents and additives disguised the liquor that was then poured into bottles indicating European origin.649

647

Mirpurkhas, "Press Telegram."

C. Rajagopalachari, "Encouraging Results," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931). Government of India, "Illicit Traffic-Liquor (Cheap Spirit)-Shipment of, Alleged as Scotch Whisky, from Calcutta to Dairen-Excise Conspiracy Case, Gariahat-Apportionment of Cost of Prosecution," ed. Excise and Opium Central Board of Revenue (Delhi1934).
649

648

232 Nevertheless, many liquor sellers ceased or significantly scaled back their enterprises in response to losses incurred during Civil Disobedience. One liquor shop owner in the Madras Presidency petitioned Congress to stop picketing his shop until 1st January, 1932 on the grounds that by that time, his license would expire. He needed to continue selling liquor because he still owed Government money on the existing license, money he could only earn through sales. The seller pleaded, I support the Congress movement sincerely. I do not like to carry on the liquor traffic. It is due to my ignorance that I have got myself involved in this business.650 The liquor man added that he

would not again take lease of any Arrack shop.651 Rajaji frustrated the hopes of his petitioner, releasing a press statement that said picketing would not be stopped, because no reform is possible without this kind of suffering on the part of some people.652 The message was a public warning: those who placed themselves in alliance with the colonial state and the liquor upon which it depended could expect no quarter from the Congress. The firm link between the liquor trade and British government, pitting them against the temperance-crusading nationalists, nearly led to a crisis as far back as 1908, as discussed in chapter three. In 1931 there was a similar clash between officialdom and protesting temperance advocates. Yet, unlike the events in Poona, this new clash revealed divisions between highly-respected Congress leaders and Congress volunteers at the local level. In the event, the All-India Congress Working Committee tried to exert more control over local events than was possible with such a widespread phenomenon as

C. Rajagopalachari, "An Arrack Shop-Keeper's Penitence in Nagapatam," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).
651

650

Ibid. Ibid.

652

233 liquor store picketing. The time had come for a comprehensive plan and strict hierarchy of leadership right down to the village level. Controlling Picketers The Congress Working Committee, in conjunction with Congresss Prohibition Committee, chaired by Rajaji, established a tightly regimented system to control picketers along several fronts. One of these fronts involved the coordination of picketing organizations, be they nationalist organizations or nominal temperance organizations. Picketing that involved any Congress-wallas required the supervision of the local Congress Committee. These local Congress Committees were supervised by Provincial Congress Committees which were, in turn, supervised by Congress Prohibition and Working Committees. Recognizing that with regard to the pickets, the stricter we are, the greater will be our prestige and strength, Congress issued the following rules applicable to all picketers: 1. There should be no coercion, direct or indirect 2. There should be no show of intimidation, hence not more than any five pickets should work at one and the same place at a time. 3. There should be no more than courteous entreaty and distribution of literature. 4. There should be no fine levied by Congress Committee for breach of promise. 5. There should be no hooting of purchasers. 6. There should be no cordon formed to surround the purchasers. 7. There should be no lying down to block the passage of customers or goods.653 Congress anticipated continued government accusations that picketers strove to initiate violence. In response to this, Rajaji argued that athletic men be precluded from picketing liquor shops. Volunteers were to be mere lads. The people that gather to drink or the men in the employ of the venders could easily give a thorough beating to them. We have limited the lads to such small numbers that they could be attacked and
653

, "Instructions for Picketing," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).

234 badly assaulted by the liquor-shop men even if they had been big sturdy soldiers instead of being boys.654 During periods of exceptional violence, local Congress leaders made public speeches, the texts of which often appeared in the press, calling for calm and exhorting volunteers to follow Mahatmas principle of non-violence and sufferance.655 Hoping to mitigate further violence, ladies and girls volunteered to picket as well.656 Other Methods: Pickets, Plays, and Pressure Tactics Since British administrators continued to sell toddy and arrack shop licenses by auction of tenders, these auctions became an important target for Congress picketers. Auctions were particularly contentious, bringing high-ranking liquor men and government officials together but once per year. Tenders were the one time annually during which temperance volunteers could confront the very heart of the liquor menace in India. Since selling tenders was a major revenue source for government, even ordinarily complacent magistrates and officials were at their most severe. The Excise Commissioner of Madras made a failed attempt at outlawing auction pickets altogether.657 Congress issued strict rules for the picketing the auction of tenders to prevent violence: 1. Picketing should be absolutely peaceful. There should be no coercion direct or indirect. 2. The most influential persons should form the picketing party. 3. Leaders may enter the compound of the offices where auctions take place. But the volunteer party shall do the picketing from outside the compound only.
, "Mr. Cox's Durbar Speech, C.R.'S Indictment," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).
655 654

Mirpurkhas, "Press Telegram." Ibid.

656

657

Secretary to the Government of Madras, "Letter Exchange with C. Rajagopalachari," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).

235 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Volunteers should be limited in numbernot more than six for each entrance. Picketers should not touch or obstruct or fall across the passage. They will accost could-be-renters and entreat them not to participate in the auctions. They will distribute hand-bills to the intending bidders. As far as possible, it should be seen that crowds do not gather at the places of

picketing.658 To this the Congress added that processions with suitable Anti-drink placards and Bhajana [hymn-singing] may be organized.659 Tenders could continue with little internal disturbance, but six picketers per entrance guaranteed that bidders would fall under the gaze of Congressmen and that the bidding might have been scored by the distant notes of devotional music.660 The campaign against license tenders was moderately effective. By September of 1931, thirty percent of existing liquor shops in Madras Presidency had not been relicensed for the following year.661 Administrators were forced to hold secret tenders to avoid protesters and to accept far lower bids for the ensuing years.662 In an ironic turn, the relative success of tender picketers meant that those who stubbornly persisted in the liquor trade despite social pressure to desist could earn more profit due to lower cost licenses. As successful bidders made yet more income, they increasingly depended on

C. Rajagopalachari, "Peaceful Picketing of Toddy and Arrack Shop Auctions," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).
659

658

Ibid.

A hint of what these activities may have involved can be found in the text of a ban on picketing in Bangalore. The Magistrate explicitly forbade the public utterance of cries, singing of songs, playing music, delivery of harangues and use of gestures or mimetic representations, and the preparation, exhibition or dissemination of pictures, symbols and placards. See Unknown, "Ban on Picketing in Mysore from the Hindu."
661

660

Rajagopalachari, "Encouraging Results." Ibid.

662

236 the support of administrators and police to enforce picketing rulesmore money, more lathis, more social pressure, and more anger. Temperance workers under the direction of Congress used pledges to further isolate those who chose the liquor trade over independent India. Volunteers entreated Indians to sign pledges to the effect that they supported complete and immediate prohibition of alcohol.663 Pledge books functioned as yet another form of social coercion, compelling literate Indians to firmly commit themselves on the side of prohibition. Anyone who was approached with the pledge, whether they signed it or not, was subject to personal surveillance by temperance workers and nationalists. Pledges thus facilitated the creation of a dichotomy characterized by a strict division between those who favored drink and those who favored empire. Pledges had long been a key technique for American and British temperance advocates at home. In India temperance pledges took on new meanings due to the colonial context within which they were signed. Those who signed the pledges allied themselves not only with temperance, but also with the nationalist movement more generally and with the elite social mores that eschewed drink. Picketing and pledging were a tried and true forms of protest in Britain that also found great success on the subcontinent, but Indias unique culture offered other means to further the goal of prohibition. For instance, caste proscriptions against the use of alcohol first enacted in the late 19th century (for an entirely different end) continued, and some local authorities continued to closely monitor caste organizations in the 1930s. Most local administrators wisely refrained from attacking organizations that enacted prohibitions against alcohol use. The South Indian cities of Chittoor and Salem were

663

, "On Prohibition."

237 exceptions to this restraint. Local administrators launched prosecutions against caste leaders who proscribed the use of alcohol in Chittoor and they suspended a village munsif for supporting caste-based prohibition.664 The latter case was particularly disturbing to administrators, because it tied the social authority of the caste leaders to the nominal legal authority of the village munsif. The Indian revenue divisional officer reported that the munsif proclaimed in the village by the beat of tom tom to the effect that the villagers should stop drinking toddy, etc. with effect from 17-8-31 failing which they would render themselves liable to be fined Rs. 10 each by the caste Panchayat besides being deprived of the services of dobhi, barber, exc.665 British administrators suspended the munsif and rescinded the legal imprimatur given to the caste proscriptions. The Congress-led prohibition campaign aimed at the control of both public and private spaces. In the public space, local congress committees organized public processions on the second Sunday of every month on thoroughfares with drink-shops. 666 These processions marked an assertion of elite ideal regarding drink on the greater population of India. Drink stalls on and near public thoroughfares had long drawn the ire of temperance workers. Counter-attractions were also established at such places and hours...suitable in order to divert people from the drink-habit. This meant that counterattractions specifically targeted the spaces within which drinking took place. Processions and counter-attractions represented an overt attempt to reclaim the public space of drink shops. The chants and bhajans of those marching in processions were at once appeals
C. Rajagopalachari, "Letter to Un-Named Member of the Press," in C. Rajagopalacharia (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).
665 664

, "Revenue Divisional Officer Namakkal Order," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931). Rajagopalachari, "On Prohibition."

666

238 and warnings. Just beneath the horizon a free India was emergingone that would not brook drink sellers and their patrons. The social pressure directed at liquor men changed the economic world within which they operated. Rajaji boasted that tree owners in many areas have pledged themselves not to give their trees for toddy tapping.667 This pledge did not happen spontaneously but was the product of a concerted effort by Congress to induce anti-drink sabhas [societies] to exercise their influence to prevent landholders and lessees [from] letting out their trees for tapping.668 Elites who facilitated the drink trade by leasing out their toddy trees had long enjoyed a degree of separation from the socially degrading manufacture and trade. Congress and anti-drink sabhas worked to remove that degree of separation, painting toddy tree owners with the brush of social degradation and treason against the nation. Many owners of toddy trees who had long leased out their toddy trees to tappers simply cut them down, as Periyar famously did. Nationalist histories continue to treat the cutting of toddy trees as a popular movement.669 That may be so, but it certainly was not popular with those who depended on toddy trees for their livelihood. Temples similarly changed their practice of letting out toddy trees on templeowned land. Thus, for toddy tappers, the moral epiphany earnestly desired by activists became less important.670 After all, without toddy trees how could there be toddy

667

, "Anti Drink Movement, a Report from South India." , "On Prohibition." Bipan Chandra, India's Struggle for Independence, 1857-1947 ([New Delhi, India]: Viking, 1988).

668

669

This conclusion is at odds with popular interpretations of toddy-tree cutting. Chandra et al describe it as obviously connected with the popular tradition of regarding abstinence as a virtue and symbol of respectability. See Ibid.

670

239 tapping?671 Despite the legality of alcohol production during this period, the Congress pressure succeeded in making it an impossibility for many would-be brewers. Finding space for the opening of liquor shops also grew increasingly problematic. Many licensees in the rural area are unable to start their business because people refuse to let premises for the purpose [of selling liquor.]672 When moral suasion failed to dissuade drinkers, elites simply denied access to the means to make or sell liquor. Nationalist leaders occasionally had to check the zeal of temperance activists, discouraging them from such initiatives as the boycott of Adi-Dravida, or Dalit, women vegetable carriers, because the money is utilized for drink later on.673 Congress had to tread carefully here. One local congressman reported to Rajaji that officials and renters of shops are trying to organize Adi-Dravidas to oppose the Congress movement against drink.674 The nationalist movement simply could not afford to alienate the entire population of low-caste drinkers. They certainly did not want caste-based and classbased aspects of the prohibition movement to come to the fore. If they could not manage to get drinking classes fully behind the movement, then at least Congress could hope for was ambivalence. The issue could not be pushed further until the creation of prohibition zones in 1939 discussed below.

671

Some scattered evidence for resistance against this economic pressure is discernable in nationalist celebrations of their successes. Rajaji complained that reports are coming from many places that Excise officials mark trees for making fermented toddy without the permission of the owners. See Rajagopalachari, Anti Drink Movement, a Report from South India. Rajagopalachari, "Anti Drink Movement, a Report from South India."

672

C. Rajagopalachari, "Letter to Santhanam," in C. Rajagopalacharia (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).

674

673

Rajagopalachari, "Letter To "Mr. Raja," Local Congressman."

240 Congress also had to contend with Indians within the nationalist movement who were willing to use violence to fight demon drink. W. Devraj of the Hoorkee Tehsil Congress Committee implored the All-India Working committee to endorse his idea of raiding a local distillery. After reminding his Congress superiors of the violence used by liquor men and their police allies against the volunteers, he argued that his hoped-for raid to me it seems on par with raids on salt depot. Salt is national property. It must be made available for all on account of its utility. Hence a raid in a non-violent spirit, including cutting of barbed wires was advised and encouraged by Mahatmaji. Liquor is a source of utter dis-utility hence stopping its use means, in other words, increasing tremendously the utility of the nation. In both there is an increase of utility. It is nothing but the two aspects of the same problem, one positive, the other negative. If raid is not violence, there is no plausible reason that preventing the shop from being opened is an act of violence, taking it for granted that it will be done in a non-violent spirit.675 Some volunteers, many of whom had been subjected to violence were keen to respond in kind. Endorsing Devrajs plan, Madhavji Thaker went so far as to begin planning the attack. He wrote, On behalf of our party (the first batch of volunteers who accompanied Bapuji to Dandi) I had been to Nasik for investigation as to the possibilities of the raid. I was there about a fortnight. I have been inside the distillery itself and had the opportunities to have several meetings and personal talks with the labourers (including the prisoners, who are supplied for labour in the distillery from the Central Prison and also had an occasion to have an hour's discussion with the Superintendent of the distillery, Mr. Dalal, and also with the Superintendent of the Prison, Major Bhandare, in the matter. Based on the information thus and otherwise gained I have reason to believe that a properly organized raid would compel the Government to stop the distillery with obvious help and advantage to the prohibition movement, thus relieving large number of sister and brother volunteers and avoid the daily sufferings of these picketters (lathi charge by male and the female police in Gujarat on the picketters at the liquor shops is a daily occurrence nowadays). That the Government would take strong measures against such a raid, including shooting and the willing sacrifice that might thus be involved in the action and the force of international public opinion created thereby is bound to bring Swaraj here quickly.676
W. Devraj, Secretary, Hoorkee Tehsil Congress Committee, Hardwar, "Letter," in All India Congress Committee I (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1930). 676 Madhavji V. Thacker, "Letter to Govind Malaviya, Secretary All India Congress Committee, Allahabad," in Home Department, Special, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1930).
675

241

The All-India Congress Committee never committed to the idea. In any case, the letters were intercepted by the colonial government which increased security around the distillery and enough barbed wire to function as a wire apron round the Nasik Road Government Distillery.677 Although the Congress used extant power structures to further the goal of prohibition, the message of temperance was occasionally couched in class terms that resonated with the lower strata of society. Temperance dramas performed in public spaces had long been propaganda method dating back to the nineteenth century. Initially these plays were direct translations of temperance plays beloved in Britain like Just a Peg. Like the use of lurid lantern slides in the 1920s, anti-drink propagandists made only small changes to European propaganda tools. By the 1930s, however, Indians were writing their own prohibition dramas to appeal to the drinking classes, most of whom were poor. One of these plays entitled, Excise Revenue, was circulated by Indian Congressmen and is exemplary of Indian temperance counter-attractions. Those viewing the play could enjoy a drama at no charge, luring some drinkers away from the shops. The message of the play itself encouraged abstinence but did so in strikingly caste-based terms. The play begins with the entrance of a representative of the Central Provinces government, a Baniya. It is noteworthy that the script specifically states that the government official is a Baniya. As a mercantile varna associated with banking, money-lending, and trade, Baniyas were often hated by the poor who nonetheless

677

, "Letter to Pt. Govind Kanth Malaviya Regarding Nasik Raid," in Home Department, Special, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1930).

242 depended on them for many services, including interactions with the state.678 Many of those in leadership roles within the Indian temperance movement were themselves Baniyas. In this case, the Baniya and the government are embodied by one actor. This juxtaposes Baniyas with government and alcohol, forming an unholy trinity of exploitation. In the final lines of Excise Revenue, the Bania tells the liquor man holding a sack of money Oh, give me a good share of the bootyI know you are my friend. I am afraid you will be soon driven out of this country, neck and crop.679 The liquor man responds by giving the Baniya some money from the bag. These two villains, the Baniya government official and the liquor-man, then pledge mutual support. For an upper class viewer, the liquor seller (wearing a placard with a black liquor bottle on it) might have appeared the greater evil. For a lower-class audience, Government might be as sullied by its association with the Baniya as it was with liquor. Added to this substantial social pressure in public spaces was the entry of temperance activists into the homes of Indians. House visits placed activists on the doorsteps of drinkers with the expressed purpose of suasion, but it was also necessarily a form of surveillance and identification of drinkers who were in opposition to the good intentions of their fellows. On one such home visit in September of 1931, volunteers discovered a woman in her own hut who was handed over with toddy pot to the Abkari inspector.680 The volunteers recounted the womans explanation,
678

David Hardiman, Feeding the Baniya : Peasants and Usurers in Western India (Delhi ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).

Uknown, "Excise Revenue," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931 C. nd). Neck and crop implies that this might entail violence. 680 Rajagopalachari, "Illegal Sales- a Narrow Escape."

679

243 At about 4 p.m. this evening at _____s toddy shop, south of the village well, I went to redeem my jewel that I had pledged. The renters servants told me they would give me a big pot of toddy and that I might keep it in my hut and sell it, and drink up what was left unsold. I agreed. So I was asked to stop at the well, and so-and-so and so-and-so brought and gave me a pot of toddy. They said they would give back the jewel only if I carried out these directions. I took the pot to my hut. I sold up till now 1 measures.681 Since the words of the liquor-selling woman were mediated both by the volunteer witnessing her statements and the translations he made, the perspective of the toddy seller is obscured. That said, one can see her story as the basis for a counter-narrative. Women engaged in the public sale of alcohol were of extremely low social status. As this was an activity almost entirely associated with men, it is a reasonable assumption that she was either widowed or otherwise unattached to a male. With few resources to meet her basic needs, she pawned her jewelry, a recourse of the unfortunate wherever these shops are found. Operating in a social space where money was hard to come by, she agreed to sell toddy. This allowed her to use her socially degraded status to economic advantage, making money by breaking both the law and social custom to regain her jewelry. The intervention of the volunteers barred the woman from benefiting, however nominally, from her low social status. The womans social status was not the concern of the volunteers who forcibly took her and her toddy pot to the abkari inspector. She was subjected to the humiliation of her trade being made public, particularly among those classes who did not engage in public drinking. Of greater import, no mention is made of her being renumerated for the loss of the toddy pot. As the trade was illegal, she would have lost the value of the remaining toddy. She certainly would not have expected to be aided by Congress volunteers since Rajaji had made it clear time and again that little sympathy would be
681

Ibid.

244 spared for those who engaged in the iniquitous trade. At minimum it is a safe assumption that the jewelry she wanted to reclaim from the pawn shop was lost for the near future if not forever. No mention is made in the documents regarding whether she was punished by the police, although it is a distinct possibility. Excluded from the protection of both the colonial state and the freedom movement allied against it, she simply had to suffer the consequences of subalterity predicated upon her class and gender. Volunteers applied pressure not only through focused interactions in homes and drinking dens, but also through a systematic propaganda campaign applying social pressure in public spaces. On behalf of Congress, Rajaji implored volunteers to hold, not only large meetings in central places, but also and more particularly small meetings in street corners and nearer the dwellings of the people concerned so that the message my go to every corner.682 It could more darkly be stated that a drinker could scarcely find a corner without substantial social pressure to reform his habits. Bureaucratization of Nationalist Volunteerism A corps of volunteersvariously called satyagrahis, sevaks, etc.was pivotal in Congress attempts to win Indian freedom, and this was certainly the case when Congress took up the issue of temperance. Indias colonial regime had a long track-record of antipathy towards the formation of Indian-run voluntary organizations, repeatedly denying the right of many such organizations to form.683 Voluntary organizations with Westerners in their ranks, such as temperance organizations, tended to fare better, with

682

, "Instructions for Picketing."

683

Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity : The 'Manly Englishman' and the 'Effeminate Bengali' in the Late Nineteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press; Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press, 1995).

245 administrators more likely to approve their formation. In the course of the Civil Disobedience movement, in August 1931, the Congress Working Committee reached an agreement with the Hindustani Seva Dal (HSD), an organization that began as a nationalist scouting club for boys. Under this agreement, the HSD functioned as the central volunteer corps for the Congress. Furthermore, no Volunteer Boards or Corps not previously recognized by the [Congress] Working Committee shall work in any Congress Province in the name or on behalf of the Congress.684 Congress administrators divided the membership of HSD into grades. Local volunteers were trained by supervisors who themselves had been trained at the HSD school in Karnataka. At a time when colonial administrators were tamping back their enforcement of existing abkari laws, the Congress was nurturing an internal organization of increasing complexity with a distinct hierarchy and sites for the social reproduction of its institutional rules and culture. Congress particularly worked to establish a tightly controlled volunteer corps for the purpose of working towards prohibition. Under plans developed by Motilal Nehru shortly before his death in 1931, each Provincial Congress Committee appointed a prohibition committee or, put a single person in charge, in order to prosecute the antidrink and drug campaign in the province.685 The rules developed by Congress All India Working Committee invested prohibition committee secretaries with a great deal of discretion at the local level, but the Congress subcommittee kept for itself the power to change the secretary if it is deemed necessary.686 Nehrus plan of organization for the

684

Hardikar, N.S. "The Cenral Volunteer Organisation of the Congress Hindustani Seva Dal: Rules, Grades & Ranks." edited by Madras Provincial Congress Committee, 1-18. Madras: N.S. Hardiker, 1931. 685 Rajagopalachari, "On Prohibition."
686

Ibid.

246 anti-drink sabhas allowed non-Congress volunteers to become honorary workers, but they could be jettisoned at any time at the discretion of local Congress leaders. Although Congress-organized prohibition campaigns allowed room for the participation of nonCongress volunteers, Congress leaders ensured that the latter remained subject to the control of the former. Congress kept close supervision over local temperance volunteers. Taluka [subdistrict] secretaries gathered information on local activities, sending reports on meetings and other work to Congress provincial sub-committees. In turn, provincial subcommittees sent reports to the Central Prohibition Committee peopled by key nationalists like Mukhtar Ansari, Vallabbhai Sardar Patel, Rajendra Prasad and Rajaji.687 The inclusion of such luminaries of the freedom movement on the Central Prohibition Committee sent a message about the importance of prohibition in the freedom struggle. Prohibition was an integral part of Indian freedom. The Central Prohibition Committee could change picketing rules as needed, negotiating between the demands of local circumstances and the needs of the larger nationalist movement.688 As producer of officials, central authority and coordinator of the actions of myriad local organizations, Congress was behaving like a government long before independence.689 In response to a letter from the Government of Madras complaining of

687

Ibid.

Congress decision to allow only five people to visit any one shop at a time referred to above is an example of this negotiation and its limitations. Some local government officials were inclined to give a freer hand to picketers while many of their colleagues were inclined to stop picketing altogether. Although more than five picketers might have been allowed in many localities, Congress limited the number across the board. A local event provoked the limitation. Congress responded by changing the policy nationally.
689

688

This is no accident. As D.A. Low observed, in response to the way the Raj itself operated, Congress, in its institutional organization, sought to parallel the Raj rather precisely. See D. A. Low, "Introduction:

247 intimidation and aggressiveness in certain districts, Rajaji requested he be informed of the location of the districts and the nature of the complaints [to] helptake steps to find out the accuracy of the reports and remedy the situation.690 Similarly, when police in North Arcot district complained of too many picketers, the Congress leadership arranged to submit the whole case for immediate enquiry by an un-official and impartial Committee of competent judges.691 The competent and impartial judges embodied the standard of respectability favored by the Congress included a vakil [attorney], the President of the District Board, and three well-to-do merchants.692 They found that nothing was objectionable in the conduct of Congress picketers and that it was the high-handed and boisterous conduct of the Inspector of Police that had precipitated the complaints against an irritated crowd.693 The veracity of the committees findings is of little import in this case. Rather, it was the decision of Congress to assemble in impartial committee composed of men who met the Congress standards of respectability, and thus exemplified fidelity to truth, the nation, and the coming sovereign state that impresses. Even as it created an increasingly sophisticated shadow-government, the Congress reinforced traditional power structures. For example, the activities of the womens branch of the HSD were invariably supervised by men. With regard to class, the views of
The Climactic Years, 1917-1947," in Congress and the Raj: Facets of the Indian Struggle, 1917-1947, ed. D. A. Low (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004; reprint, 2nd).
690

C. Rajagopalachari, Personal Letter, 5th August, 1931.

691

, "Ranipet Prohibitory Order, Enquiry Commission Report," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931). Ibid. Ibid.

692

693

248 middle-class and elite nationalists were more similar to those of British administrators than to the masses. Bombays Home Department Secretary, G.F.S. Collins complained that the alleged violence of the picketers in his presidency was attributable to the fact that they have been recruited from labourers out of work and from the hooligan element.694 Sensitive to these complaints, the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee instructed that only the well-to-do and responsible persons should involve themselves in the picketing.695 Acknowledgement of the superiority of elites was key to the success of the volunteer campaign against liquor. As N.S. Hardikar, President of the 1929 HSD Conference declared, the object of his organization was to develop the body and make it obedient to the behests of an intelligent will and to organize the people of India in such a manner that by obedience to the will of recognized leaders to develop a common will and act as one man for common purpose.696 Nationalism, Temperance, and the PLI Due to Governments harsh response to Civil Disobedience, nationalists found it increasingly important to distinguish between activism associated with the Congress temperance program or Prohibition League of India (PLI) from that of the Congress as a political organization. The close links between the PLI and Congress helped both

Collins, G.F.S., Home Dept. (special), Bombay. "Letter to the Government of India, Home Department." In Home Department (special) Bombay, 3. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1931. Collins reported more instances of violence than his counterparts in other presidencies. Among these instances was the burning of the Presidency Magistrates effigy, violent attacks on liquor-shop men and their property, and the illegal cutting of toddy trees. See Collins, G.F.S., Home Dept. (special), Bombay. "Bombay City and Bombay Suburban District- Instances of the Use of Violence in Connection with the Civil Disobedience Movement and Consequent Clashes with the Police, or with Government Officials, or with Loyalists." In Home Department, Special, Bombay, 28. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1931. Rajan, D.S, M. Baktaval Salam. "Strike Rules." In C. Rajagopalachari, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931.
696 695

694

Ralan, O.P., ed. Encyclopedia of Political Parties. New Delhi: Anmol Publications Pvt Ltd, 1997.

249 organizations but required PLI representatives to frequently state the divisions between them. For example, in inviting one local temperance organization to perform a Marathilanguage adaptation of the temperance play, Just a Peg, Rajaji pointedly advised his correspondent that the Prohibition League of Indiais a non-Congress, non-party organization.697 What Rajaji wrote was technically true; but it is also technically true that the letterhead on which he often wrote was topped by information on both the Congress and the Prohibition League of India.698 Even if the Prohibition League of India as an institution was non-party and non-political, its membership was decidedly so.699 The language of the Prohibition League of Indias organ, Prohibition, was delicately crafted by its editors lest its strictly moral mission be obscured by nationalist politics. This is to say, although the PLI was quite nationalist in orientation, it remained important for its leadership to maintain a faade of partition between its goal of realizing prohibition and gaining Indian independence. Rajaji described liquor shop picketing of the Non-cooperation Movement as social reformation rather than political change.700 This is a curious distinction, given that the Indian Nationalist movement, particularly under Gandhis tutelage, fused the two. After all, how could nationalists campaign for

C. Rajagopalachari, "Letter to Ramanujachariar," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).

698

697

, "Letter," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).

699

, "Letter to Kumaraswami Reddier," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931). Despite the nationalist aspirations of most Indian prohibition activists, Rajaji sometimes preferred to verify the temperance credentials of nationalists such as when one Niranjan Singh was recommended for a paid position with league. Though Rajaji knew him to have been in the non-cooperation movement and in gaol in 1921, he wrote to friend asking what sort of gentleman Mr. Niranjan Singh is from our point of view? See: , "Letter to Shri Prakash," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931). Rajagopalachari, "Advice to Picketers."

700

250 true Swaraj while ignoring the father of all vice?701 Temperance activists, however pure their motives, could not be allowed great influence over the carefully crafted statements of the PLI. Publishing and editing the PLI was a delicate task, straddling the fence between political and moral reform. When Prohibition appeared set to disappear in the wake of mass arrests and budgetary problems, N.S.R. Iyengar, a Bombay nationalist and temperance advocate offered to take over the journal, even if it costs my life and the life of my family memberstill the last drop of all Drinksexists no more in my Motherland. In a rather sternly-worded reply, Rajaji admonished that I have no authority nor do I intend to ask you to continue the journal.702 He added that his correspondent had every right to start another temperance journal, but hoped that Iyengar would find a suitable name that will not confound it with the journal of the Prohibition League.703 Divided loyalties grew increasingly problematic in the 1930s. Those Indians who chose to take up government positions prior to the 1938-1939 Congress governments were suspect. The decision to cooperate with colonial rule in a nationalist context within which non-cooperation was the ideal placed Indian bureaucrats outside of the nation. Rajaji went so far as to question the religious authenticity of those Indians who supported outrageous Legislative Council decisions and who were present when the local

701

, "Mr. Cox's Durbar Speech, C.R.'S Indictment." , "Letter." Ibid.

702

703

251 option often died a quiet death.704 He noted that Indians in such meetings who judged prohibition impractical, sound extremely funny from the mouths of a professing Hindu or Muslim minister.705 Indian temperance activists during the Civil Disobedience period fought against drink on several fronts. They pressured governments of the Presidency to reduce the publics access to alcohol though a variety of measures, from expanded local option to complete prohibition. At the local level, activists fought to reduce the number of liquor shops in urban cities and rural villages. In furtherance of this goal, activists picketed liquor shops and confronted would-be customers, emphasizing the evils of drink, for the individual, the family, the village, and the nation. Temperance Alliances Old and New Since many of Indias most vocal alcohol opponents were also prohibition advocates, leaders such as Rajaji frequently iterated the technical division between Congress and anti-alcohol organizations like the Prohibition League of India. Founded in 1926 by American missionary Herbert Anderson, the Prohibition League of India was organized at an All-India conference in Delhi that did not attract the European.706 Despite its founding by Anderson, the PLI became the premier temperance organization for Indians, particularly nationalists. The handful of pro-empire temperance activists

Local option was a system in which local boards were established, comprised of picked government men along with a few leading men of a given locality. These boards technically had the power to institute prohibition within the boundaries of their city; however, government officials and men handpicked by the local collector assured that these boards would never vote in favor of prohibition.
705

704

Rajagopalachari, "On Prohibition."

Herbert Anderson, "Prohibition Convention in India," in Livesay (Preston: University of Central Lancashire, 1926).

706

252 affiliated with the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association (AITA) would have been rather more conspicuous at a PLI meeting peopled with ardent nationalists. Congress, temperance workers, and other anti-drink activists increasingly emphasized abstention as the key distinction between India and the West. They substituted the upper caste ideals of religious practice for the much more variegated reality of religious practice and drinking habits. Activists could praise the fact that all of Indias religions and castes have a sense of great shame and sin in regard even to the moderate use of liquor.707 Christianity stood outside this fold. In 1932 Rajaji reminded his readers of the statement by a Brahman speaker at the 1893 Parliament of Religions who saw Christianity standing with the bible in one hand and the wizards wand of civilization in the other, but there is another sidethat is the Goddess of civilization with a bottle of Rum in her hand.708 The era of European-led temperance agitation in India decidedly came to a close with the advent of the Civil Disobedience movement in 1930. In that year the venerable Anglo-Indian Temperance Association (AITA), the organization that had facilitated the formation of hundreds of temperance organizations that would later become hotbeds of nationalism, began to wind up their operations. As Harold Mann, chairman of the AITAs annual meeting put it, conditions are changing. Within a very short time India will certainly be master of its own destinies and it seems probable that in the near future the propaganda which [the AITA] has done will no longer be required in exactly the same

707

Rajagopalachari, "Anti Drink Movement, a Report from South India." , "On Prohibition."

708

253 form.709 With the flag of temperance tied to the same mast as that of nationalism, the role of British activists evolved from one of leadership to the more subordinate role of advising and helping our Indian friends.710 A handful of European and American temperance activists like Herbert Anderson continued to fight alongside Indian nationalists, but the politics of the period drove a wedge between some British reformers and their Indian counterparts. At a 1935 meeting to explore Native Races and the Liquor Traffic in London, the famous physician and Mount Everest expedition veteran, Howard Somervell, argued that it had to be recognized that the Oriental found it extremely difficult to control himself if he once became addicted to strong drink.711 This kind of commentary would likely not have found approval within the nationalist-oriented approach to temperance in India. It was one thing to praise the historical purity of Indians vis--vis Europeans. It was quite another to claim that Indians were constitutionally unable to control themselves under the influence of alcohol in the same manner that more robust Britons could.712 Even as Somervell celebrated the growing spirit of nationalism in India, he did so only because British rule had failed to be the enlightening force he hoped it would be. All this was the result of one grave flaw in [British] contact with non-European races and that was our

709

Harold Mann, "Annual Meeting, Chairman's Address," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the AngloIndian Temperance Association I, no. 165 (1931).

Ibid. Frederick Grubb, "Facts and Comments," The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XXIX, no. 12 (1935).
711

710

Rajaji testified to the contrary, saying that his English friends seem to think that if they drink in moderation they would not lose their sense and would not become brutes. I have seen these friends not only losing self-control but becoming brutes when they drink. They are first class men. But when they drink they become asses. See Rajagopalachari, "On Prohibition."

712

254 encouragement of the drink traffic among them.713 Both British and Indian temperance workers harbored essentialist, negative stereotypes. As Indian nationalism gained momentum, it became harder and harder to reconcile them. Anderson was not alone in his support for Indian freedom. The AITA in the 1930s was cautiously supportive of Indian nationalism in print. But this support was tepid at best, with frequent laments that the controversy between colonial government and the Congress provoked increasing radicalism on both sides. In private, however, some AITA members were much more supportive of Congress programs. In a private letter to Rajaji, Secretary of the AITA, Frederick Grubb praised the formers efforts to secure justice for the Depressed Classes and National Unity.714 In a frank acknowledgement of how the political climate in India had changed since the AITAs founding, Grubb said of his organization that we were all the more ready to suspend the affiliations of our own [British] Association because we feel that the organization, under your direction would be in a much better position to carry on the same campaign than we would be.715 Grubb closed his letter with the wish that peace and Freedom may come to your people this year.716 Rajaji, in particular, underlined the division between British temperance advocates and their nationalist counterparts. While acknowledging some Englishmen

Somerville particularly lamented that the drinking habits of Europeans in India had discredited Christianity. Grubb, "Facts and Comments." 714 Frederick Grubb, in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1933).
715

713

Ibid. Emphasis original.

Ibid. Grubbs letter implies the writers dissatisfaction with the fact that although he had been willing to hand over the reins of the AITA to Rajaji, that the latter was not inclined to reciprocate with control over the journal, Prohibition. This seems to support some of Rajajis significant, if rarely stated, reservations about British temperance workers.

716

255 [who are] with us [who] happen to be Missionaries or Christians, he expressed disappointment that they are all for some purpose too practical. They say we should realize the difficulties of Government on the matter.717 Rajaji went on to complain that not one Englishman has yet told me that Prohibition was possible due to the increased taxation [through other methods like income tax] that would result.718 For his part, he would rather India become a pauper than have lakhs and lakhs of drunkards in their [sic] midst.719 British temperance activists, no matter how heartfelt their positions, extended their paternal concern for the population over a variety of social issues but for Rajaji, these other issues mattered little if the Indian nation lost its purity. The need for purity superseded all other needs; alcohol put that purity in jeopardy. Although the Congress welcomed any international support for prohibition in India, they generally preferred American temperance workers over their British counterparts, whose loyalties were subject to suspicion. The American temperance firebrand W.E. Pussyfoot Johnson, a favorite of Indian temperance men, toured the country in 1921. Rajaji lauded both his temperance work and his support for Indian freedom, quoting Johnsons lament on the condition of India [in which] a relationship between the rulers and the ruled, in which the intangible influences of foreign domination oppose[d] all efforts by Indian leaders to carry out some social reforms.720 Rajaji expressed regret that British temperance workers could never be entirely trusted. He tacitly rebuked some of us who live nearer the heartbeats of India than do the official
717

Rajagopalachari, "On Prohibition." Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

718

719 720

256 and administrative European classes wish that Pussyfoot was wrong.721 The distinction between those closer to the heartbeats of India and those in the official and administrative European classes is a stark one indeed. Rajaji implied that those even casually associated with colonial rule fundamentally cannot be true temperance supporters, since prohibition would not be realized as long as Indias right to freedom is denied to her.722 By the 1930s, British and American women rose in prominence within Indian temperance discourse. People like Ruth Robinson, Agnes Slack and Mary Campbell had replaced the men like Nicol Macnicol a generation earlier.723 The rise of white women in Indian temperance cannot be attributed to a single cause. However, it is instructive to speculate on some likely reasons for this. Indian nationalists like Rajaji appreciated the support of British temperance men but never entirely trusted them. American temperance men like Herbert Anderson were preferred for prominent roles, but since independence was now the immediate goal, Indians were the ideal and proper candidates for leadership positions, even over American leaders. In the wake of widespread arrests of Congress leaders in 1932, Rajaji handed control of the Prohibition League of India and its journal, not to a fellow Indian nationalist but to Ruth Robinson of the Womens Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).724 The choice of Ruth Robinson, an American temperance activist and missionary, lends itself to some speculation. The AITAs history of cooperation between
721

Ibid. Ibid. See chapter 3. Grubb.

722

723

724

257 nationalists and (heartfelt, if paternalist) Britons became a liability during the height of Indian nationalism. When Rajaji needed non-Indian, public assistance from international temperance activists, he turned to Americans like Herbert Anderson and Ruth Robinson rather than to their British counterparts. Although Frederick Grubb continued to regularly correspond with Rajaji, professing his support for Indian freedom, his contribution was limited to writing pieces for various temperance journals. At the height of the anticolonial struggle, the close relationship between nationalism and anti-drink rhetoric precluded leadership positions for British nationals within Indian temperance organizations. Ruth Robinson was also an ideal choice because of the prominent role she assumed at the center of several reform movements in India and her close connections with numerous institutions. She was a participant in the All-India Womens Conference, the Mission Conference, a member of the WCTU, a participant in numerous local temperance boards, and a friend of Frederick Grubb of the AITA. 725 She had the advantage of a highly organized network of individuals and organizations without the liability of challenging extant power structures within the nationalist movement. During the Civil Disobedience period, colonial administrators imprisoned most of the upper echelons of the Congress leadership, leaving a leadership vacuum in the prohibition program. Loathe to bequeath such an important (and ultimately nationalist) task of leading prohibition to men who looked very much like colonial rulers, Rajaji turned to white women for aid. Some of them had long been active in temperance work and provided an ideal alternative in lieu of Indian leaders. Yet promotion of junior Indian

725

Ruth Robinson, in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1932).

258 nationalists to prominent positions threatened to upset the hierarchy of the Congress as well. The solution lay in elevating foreign women. For example, Ruth Robinson, an American woman, proved the ideal candidate for leadership of the Prohibition League of India (PLI). As a non-Indian and as a woman, it was understood that she would resign the PLI leadership upon the release of Rajaji. As a woman operating in the highly patriarchal society of British India, her subordinate status was clear, precluding any usurpation of power either by nationalist upstarts or white men with questionable loyalties.

The Gandhi-Irwin Pact So many participants were arrested in 1931among Civil Disobedience pickets that Congress began to deploy women and children instead of men to picket the shops. Gandhi had long disapproved of women picketers, seeing their role in the freedom movement as spinning the charkha rather than working in public activism.726 With Gandhi arrested, the growing involvement of women in picketing proved somewhat effective for nationalists. For instance, with the Government of Bombay sent out a directive that the most satisfactory way of countering these unchivalrous tricks is to arrest the women before beginning to use force, to remove them to a police station or some other convenient spot at a distance, and to release them when the disturbance is at an end. It is not desirable from any point of view that the prisons should be filled with

Radha Kumar, The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women's Rights and Feminism in India, 1800-1990 (Delhi: Kali for Women, 1993), 82-83.

726

259 women.727 If the larger Civil Disobedience movement was losing energy as a consequence of mass arrest, female picketers presented Government with a new set of problems that they were keen to avoid. Children who demonstrated posed an equally vexing problem for colonial officials, some of whom recommended draconian responses such as placing them in reform schools or publically whipping them.728 The latter course of action was dismissed in all but the rowdiest of cases, implying that beating children in public in the defense of demon drink might have a detrimental effect on already poor public-relations. Both the Congress and Government had interests in pulling back from the brink. In March of 1931 Lord Irwin, then Viceroy of India, and Gandhi reached an accord with Congress agreed to suspend Civil Disobedience movement in exchange for a leading role in the upcoming Round Table Conference in London. Further, the Government of India released nationalists imprisoned for non-violent offenses while Congress agreed to curtail several forms of agitation. However, one notable exception to this new amiability was that Congress workers continued picketing liquor shops and carried on with the social work of reforming drinkers.729 The decision of Government to allow picketing to continue under the terms of the Gandhi-Irwin pact met with some rearguard resistance from British officials. For example, the Governor of Madras private
G.F.S. Collins, Home Dept. (special), Bombay, "Untitled, Regards Police Response to Women," in Home Department, Special, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1930).
728 727

A.S., "Secret Memo to Home Department (Political)," in Home Department, Special, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1929). See also A.O. Koreishi, District Magistrate, Broach, "Letter to Commissioner, Norther Division, Ahmedabad, Broach, J.H. Garrett," in Home Department, Special, Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1930).

The continued picketing of liquor shops during the period of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact kept up the fight for temperance. More importantly, it also provided an avenue for continued activism, for vast numbers of nationalist reformers, many of whom were unhappy with the agreement. Picketing of liquor shops was largely halted by the end of 1932.

729

260 secretary only approved picketing only under tightly-controlled conditions; it must be peaceful and must not lead to obstruction or disorder.730 This caused some friction within the colonial government that did not go unobserved by nationalists. The Collector of Madras, A.R. Cox, argued against liquor-shop picketing, provoking a very public condemnation from Rajaji, who reminded him that he was not the Viceroy of India but only the Collector of Madras.731 Embarrassing exchanges such as those above notwithstanding, the colonial government proved able to use the vague language of the Gandhi-Irwin pact to its benefit. When Congress officials intermittently reported government crackdowns on peaceful picketing in violation of the pact, the Government of Madras reported to Rajaji the instructions they had issued to the police with regard to the pickets. The tone of these instructions was initially conciliatory towards the picketers; for example, an order from March 1931 stated that, no notice be [should] taken of picketing unless it threatens serious disorder or danger to the public peace.732 But more ominous warnings appeared in the summer of 1931, indicating that several clear breaches of the pact had been reported, particularly in rural areas.733 The report concluded with the assertion that all district magistrates had the authority to call upon local Congress committees to suspend picketingif such a course is thought expedient.734

730

Madras, "Letter Exchange with C. Rajagopalachari." Rajagopalachari, "Mr. Cox's Durbar Speech, C.R.'S Indictment."

731

Government of Madras, "Letter to Rajagopalacharia," ed. C. Rajagopalacharia (Madras: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).
733

732

Madras, "Letter Exchange with C. Rajagopalachari." Ibid.

734

261 This assertionthat local magistrates had the authority to call on Congress to break up picketing when expedientwas inimical to Congress political strength. When the Government of Madras demanded that Congress stop picketing on the rather loose grounds of expediency, Rajaji responded to the threat by immediately consulting Gandhi regarding this wrong interpretation of the pact by local Government.735 Government restrictions on picketing threatened to drive a wedge between the Congress high command and the activism of local volunteers across India. The ability to continue anti-liquor activism despite the suspension of Civil Disobedience provided a much-needed outlet for the energies of Congress volunteers. As Rajaji told Congress-leader Vallabbhai Sardar Patel, good work is done throughout the country and not a little of it is due to the feeling that the Truce protects Congress workers. If we break the spell, all work may get dislocated.736 Congress continued a robust anti-liquor campaign despite the arrest of much of its leadership in 1931. Congress-led Prohibition 1938-1939 When the Gandhi-Irwin pact had failed in 1932, British authorities once again rounded up and imprisoned much of the Congress leadership. Picketing continued in isolated locations, but the movement had lost much of its energy. With many of the respectable community leaders once involved in picketing incarcerated, Congress pickets all but ceased. Although the system of dyarchy established in 1919 had been marginally improved with the 1935 Government of India Act, the Congress maintained

C. Rajagopalachari, "Local Government and the Gandhi/Irwin Pact," in Rajagopalacharia Papers (Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).
736

735

, "Letter to Vaidyanathier," in C. Rajagopalachari (Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931).

262 that the new Acts limited sovereignty was insufficient cause for participation in a colonial government. In 1937, the Congress reversed its position, agreeing to form ministries in the five provinces in which they had won majorities. Since abkari administration was a transferred or provincial department and thus under Indian control, Congress endeavored to make good on its pledge to work for total prohibition in the Congresscontrolled provincesMadras, Bombay, United Provinces, Central Provinces, and Bihar. Since 1931 Congress had already established that if and when elections to legislative councils and assemblies are held and congressmen participate in them, the introduction and active promotion of total prohibition shall be made part of the election pledge of the Congress candidates.737 Under Rajajis tutelage, the Congress Government of Madras thus instituted in 1937 a pilot prohibition program in Salem.738 Similarly, Minister of Health and Excise for Bombay, D. Gilder, initiated a pilot program in the industrial city of Ahmedabad. Kailas Nath Katju, United Provinces Excise Secretary, began pilot programs in the villages of the Etah District. Much was at stake in these pilot programs. Their success or failure would decide the ultimate fate of prohibition in India. Reasons to proceed slowly were myriad. Americas failed experiment with prohibition which had come to an end in 1933, suggested that the drink evil could not be dealt with by law alone. Prohibition in the United States had failed because, as Indian

737

Rajagopalachari, "On Prohibition."

This was against Rajajis wishes as stated in 1932 when he argued that the method of experimenting in one or two districts did not appeal to him. He wanted total prohibition across the entirety of India immediately. Piecemeal implementation was a compromise position for him. See Ibid.

738

263 temperance advocates said, there was no social backing in America.739 Frustrated American temperance advocates turned their eyes to the East, praising the activism of Indian nationalists in the cause of temperance but warning them to avoid the same pitfalls. Hattie Menzies, a member of the WCTU, urged strong enforcement of prohibition laws. She wrote that to wink at and ignore an offense causes vice to grow and thrive and encourages crime and wantonness.740 Only if prohibition were enforced to the same extent as laws against violent crime could prohibition be realized. She argued further that if the public does not back up the officials by giving truthful testimony and needed information, if they let the Traffic buy them off, if they tie the hands of those trying to get the best for their countrymen, then you might as well not have the law.741 Despite the increasing certainty in the U.S. of the failings of prohibition, nationalists greeted reports with a great deal of suspicion until it was repealed in 1933. Rajaji implored his readers to not believe the interested writings in newspapers that total Prohibition has been a failure in America. Scarcely an American who comes to India goes away without seeing me.742 Based on Rajajis interactions with Americans sympathetic to the cause of temperance and nationalism led him to make the unfortunate observation that there is no public opinion in America supporting the removal of Prohibition. The Government is their own Government and the people are satisfied with
739

India, Government of. "Bill(S)-the Orissa Prohibition Bill, 1939." edited by Excise and Opium Central Board of Revenue. Delhi, 1939.

Hattie Menzies, "Prohibition in the Making," The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XXXIII, no. 3 (1939).
741

740

Ibid. Rajagopalachari, "On Prohibition."

742

264 the state of things there.743 The sanguine predictions of some Indian temperance workers for Americas dry future proved ill-founded. Even if American prohibition had suffered setbacks, Rajaji drew a key distinction between Indian and American drinkers based on an idealized past. In ancient India, he averred, drink was necessarily held disreputable and complete prohibition had been achieved, at least in Bengal, 500 years ago by the fiat of the Hindu saint, Chaitanya. This fiat very soon solved the problem of intemperance.744 An even greater threat to prohibition in India was the fact that alcohol consumption underlay the system of government funding. A large portion of state revenue came from excise taxes on intoxicants, and state services such as education and municipal drainage depended on alcohol revenue. The Government of India had given the Congress a poison pill. They could institute prohibition only at the cost of defunding important public programs. Financial prudence alone suggested a gradual move towards prohibition, a tactic that seemed all the more important as news of the United States woes drew the anxious attention of the world temperance community. With the formation of Congress Provincial Ministries, the Congress found itself in fairly unique circumstances. They had access to some of the levers of state power without sovereignty. This provided nationalists with the ability to use the powers of the state to fight to further the independence struggle. Indian Nationalists and temperance advocates of all stripes had long cast alcohol as an alien contaminant that came to India with the empire and would doubtlessly leave along with it. Since temperance or

Ibid. Here we see Rajajis faith that in a state with its own government, rather than colonial rule, the success of prohibition was assured; the fundamental purity of Indians assured the success of prohibition.
744

743

Ibid.

265 complete abstention were tightly held values for the leading nationalist organization, using state power to move towards prohibition was an opportunity for Congress to demonstrate that its values were not merely rhetorical. Indian freedom meant independence from both colonial administrators and the liquor they brought with them. Actually deciding to use state power to implement prohibition again placed Congress in conflict with a segment of the population for whom they hoped to speak liquor sellers and a vast numbers of their customers. A recent history of half-hearted enforcement of abkari laws by magistrates and police during Civil Disobedience frustrated the Congress Working Committee, which had good reason to doubt the full cooperation of all bureaucrats in prohibition schemes. Some of those officials were known to have imperial sympathies. Hence, the Working Committee decided to set up a non-state bureaucracy to function much like a shadow-state that would cooperate with amenable bureaucrats and force the cooperation of recalcitrant officials. Prohibition boards were peopled by both government officials and volunteers who worked in tandem. Within the Congress provinces, the new governments established government-operated prohibition departments that would adapt the goal of prohibition to local circumstances. The Congress governments replaced those excise ministers known to be hostile to temperance with heartfelt temperance men. To ensure the cooperation of law enforcement and the judiciary, Congress-run, non-state Prohibition Committees carefully surveilled their districts. The broad participation of non-official Indians was a fundamental aspect of prohibition. For example, Bihars prohibition law dictated that Every village chaukidar [watchman] and dafadar [non-commissioned officer] shall be bound to give immediate information at the

266 nearest police-station or to a Prohibition authority of any breach of any of the provisions of this Act which may come to his knowledge.745 Yet this injunction went far beyond petty officials and extended virtually to all Indians. Bihar required that Every person who occupies any land or building or who is a landlord of an estate, residing in the village, or in which there shall be any tapping for tari [toddy] or manufacture of any liquor or intoxicating drug not authorized by a permit or license issued under this Act, shall, in the absence of reasonable excuse, be bound to give notice of the same to a Magistrate or to a Prohibition authority or to an officer of the Police as soon as such tapping or manufacture shall come to his knowledge.746 Bihars prohibition law required virtually all Indians to inform on drinkers and police the moral standards of drinking classes. Prohibition officers also used the power of employer over employee to further their cause. In the Bombay Presidency, all the mill-officers co-operated with the [Prohibition] Committee in the effort to dissuade mill-workers from going for drink.747 This suasion reinforced the patriarchal authority of mill-owners over their employees. Just as prohibition activists encouraged temperance by denying them toddy trees, millworkers were encouraged by bosses to abstain from drink with the implied threat of dismissal. Prohibition was in most, but not all, cases, a top to bottom affair, with those on the lower rungs of the social order more or less compelled to follow the moral example of their social betters. Surveillance included watching lonely paths usually taken by smugglers, checking conveyances, shadowing suspected individuals, spotting illicit distillation, checking niro [non-alcoholic toddy juice] for alcohol content, and keeping in touch with
Government of Bihar, "Bihar Prohibition Act, 1938," ed. Legislative Department (Patna, Bihar: Superintendent, Government Printing, 1938).
746 745

Ibid. Ruth Robinson, The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XXXIII, no. 7 (1939).

747

267 the taluk and village prohibition committee members and village officers.748 Checking niro for alcohol content was particularly burdensome to toddy tappers who complained of outright harassment. The India Temperance Record and White Ribbon reported favorably on this harassment as evidence for the vigilance of government officials: a close watch is already being kept in some areas as is clear from complaints received from some toddy tappers that they have become weary of constantly climbing trees to bring down pots and show to police officers, of another complaint that persons frequently ask to see their licenses and take the opportunity of having a swig of their sweet toddy at the same time.749 The complaints of the toddy tappers seemed well-founded. With their hereditary profession outlawed, even sweet toddy was being simply taken by respectable men. Moreover they were compelled to climb the trees far more than necessary to prove again and again their fidelity to the new lawno easy feat as evidenced by the picture below.750

748

Holdsworth, B.G. "Press Communique--Prohibition Department." edited by Revenue Department, 1-15. Madras: Government of Madras, 1938. Niro is the unfermented juice from toddy trees, sweet in flavor with no alcohol content. Many former toddy tappers moved to the production of niro.

Salem District Collector, Madras, "Prohibition in Salem District: Extracts from the Report of the Collector of Salem District," The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XXXII, no. 4 (1939). W.S. Caine, "Letters from India," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 28 (1897).
750

749

268

Figure 14 Source: W.S. Caine, "Toddy Palms," Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 28 (1897).

269

Leading men of local communities comprised approximately half of each prohibition committee, with prohibition-friendly state officials filled the remaining spots. In this way Prohibition Committees blurred the line between government officialdom and leading citizens. Respectable and well-to-do men, in addition to the various social pressures they could formerly initiate, now had the expanded authority to operate as a quasi-official police force. However well-intentioned, prohibition committees were authorized to impose the social values of leading men on the drinking classes; to do so was as a holy task.751 In Bombay City alone, besides the 4,000 city police, the Government draft[ed] 500 more police from the moffusil. Voluntary service [was] provided by 800 prohibition guards among whom are many students and professional men.752 Prohibition departments also watched the movements of individuals who journeyed from their homes in dry districts to slake their thirst in wet districts. Since Congress opted for piecemeal implementation to avoid setbacks and budget crises, prohibition areas were abutted by wet districts. Ahmedabads prohibition department documented quite of bit of daily migration on the part of drinkers. An inspector charged with surveilling these movements noted that The statistics for persons going to take their drink outside the dry area by passing various outposts has been compiled by the Excise Department... Average number of persons coming after drinking outside the Dry Area per day: Sphijpur Outpost 144, Chandola Outpost 10, Rakhial Outpost 4, Nicol Outpost 1.

Katju, Kailas Nath. "Message from Hon'ble Minister of Excise." Public Information, United Provinces, Lucknow II, no. 2 (1939): 2.
752

751

Robinson.

270 Total average 159 per day."753 To that number, prohibition authorities added an estimated 100 other drinkers who travelled by railway, bringing the total to 259 individuals per day. Prohibition officers and volunteers watched the people visiting these places [drink shops] and tried to get their names and addresses.754 This close surveillance met with sporadic resistance by some drinkers. At least one prohibition inspector was assaulted by a drunken man.755 Persistence paid dividends for Ahmedabads Prohibition Department when, 244 names of drunkards were received in the Dept. Those were analyzed according to their places of occupation... The inspectors approached those people and persuaded them to give up the habit. A number of people have signed a pledge for giving up the drink habit. The inspectors of the Department paid 25 visits to the liquor shops situated outside the Dry Area to get the names and information regarding the persons going there weekends and holidays.756 Prohibition officers observed drinkers and visited them individually, attempting to use every means at their disposal to root out the drink curse from every nook and corner. Although Congress surveillance plans were extensive and ambitious, their efficacy is debatable. Detection of illegal drinking and brewing made manifest the seriousness with which prohibition officers took their holy task, but it also represented a failure of moral suasion and appeals to nationalistic feeling. To take a specific case, Ahmedabads monthly prohibition reports in 1938 reflect some odd numbers suggesting, that the near unanimity of prohibition sentiment among Indians was illusory. In one month alone the department processed 448 applications for drinking permits and documented the daily trek of some 260 drinkers to wet areas. It is notable that these 448
753

"Ahmedabad Prohibition Department," (Ahmedabad: All India Congress Committee, 1938). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

754

755

756

271 applications were completed by either literate drinkers or those with the aid of literate men with at least a cursory knowledge of how to petition the bureaucracy for a drink license. Yet during this month only 33 reports of alleged breaches of prohibition laws were reported to the Prohibition Department.757 Of these, only 9 were reported to the excise department for prosecution. Only four prosecutions were successful while five failed. If the number of wandering drinkers and drink license applicants is any indication, nationalist (and now official government) appeals to report illicit drinking inspired few Indians to inform on their kith and kin. Resistance to prohibition laws by drinkers and drink-makers was widespread, but persistence in the drink habit was but one way to challenge the sweeping legal and moral authority of Congress-raj. Some lower classes groups who chose to eschew drink did so without regard to Congress volunteers and temperance organizations. In February of 1938 a mass movement emerged among the Bhils of Khandesh, people well-known for their historical affinity for alcohol. Begun by Ghuliya Bhagavan, the Arti movement galvanized the Bhils of Khandesh to abstain from alcohol. The central ritual of the Arti movement was the ceremony of Arti, a devotional offering of light to the Bhil deity, Janatha Janardhan. During this ceremony the wives of the men present circled the sacred lamp while enjoining their husbands to not eat flesh, avoid falsehoods, take daily baths, and forswear the use of alcohol.758 Arti ceremonies drew thousands of participants. On one day alone an estimated 6-7 thousand people visited Morwad to pay homage to the

757

Ibid.

Uknown, "Ghulia Bhagavan Paves Way for Bombay Govt. To Follow up His Good Work by Declaring Khandesh a Dry Area," in Home Department (Special), Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1938).

758

272 Samadhi of the late Guliya Maharaj.759 The movement grew so large that railway authorities commissioned special trains to ferry the thousands of Bhils from East and West Khandesh to take part in Arti. But if Arti devotees adopted abstinence from alcohol, that practice did not imply a favorable view of nationalism or the Congress more generally. Those who practiced arti had little love lost for the Congress party. The District Magistrate of West Khandesh, where the movement was centered, reported that Some Congress representatives tried to preach the principles of Congress at the time of Arti at Morwad but without success as Ramdas, the brother of the late Gulya Maharaj, does not allow them to speak, saying that they have nothing at all to do with the Congress principles or propaganda."760 Invested with the power of the state and the future of the nation, Congress ministries set out to help poor peasants and workers and Harijans in very humble circumstances of lifeto make them strong in body and mind, full of self-respect and self-reliance and self-control.761 This installation of self-respect and self control among the masses required a great deal of disciplinary control from elites. In U.P., warning boards were set up at the roads leading into prohibition areas.762 Those who illegally engaged in the drink trade, whether as sellers or their customers, were put on notice that they would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and that their actions were being observed by both officers of the state and by their respectable neighbors.
G.K. Joshi, District Magistrate, West Khandesh, "Extract from the Weekly Confidential Report of the District Magistrate, West Khandesh," in Home Dept, Special (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1939).
760 759

, "Extract from the Weekly Confidential Report of the District Magistrate, West Khandesh," in Home Department (Special) Bombay (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1938).

Katju, Kailas Nath. "Message from Hon'ble Minister of Excise." Public Information, United Provinces, Lucknow II, no. 2 (1939): 2.
762

761

Uknown. Public Information, United Provinces, Lucknow II, no. 5 (1939).

273 These regulations provoked desperate behavior on the part of those involved in the liquor trade. In the early months of prohibition in Bihar, of an estimated 6,000 who had been involved in the liquor trade, 2,500 left for non-prohibition districts, and 2,330 others found employment in low wage positions as vegetable wallas, cart-men and railway workers.763 In Madras, some Salem district families that refused to give up the liquor trade were assisted to emigrate to Malaya, where they could continue their occupations.764 Salems prohibition committee eventually had to curtail the ambitious program to literally expatriate liquor-trading Indians due to depressed wages there.765 Those involved in the production of alcohol were stigmatized by prohibition officers who labeled them as unclean and unfavorable elements.766 Like lapses in the failed experiment of prohibition in the United States, loopholes persisted. The decision to gradually introduce prohibition into British India piecemeal allowed drinkers to simply walk to locations where the trade remained legal. More problematic was princely rule in the native states. Although the princes were closely allied with the British who helped to secure their sovereignty, few in an era of Congress ascendancy were willing to oppose prohibition. The princely state of Baroda particularly benefited from prohibition in Ahmedabad, enjoying the tax revenue incumbent with the influx of drinkers and drink-makers from nearby prohibition areas. Ahmedabads prohibition committee complained that liquor-men in Baroda are canvassing and
Department of Public Information, United Provinces. "Prohibition Movement." Public Information, United Provinces, Lucknow 1, no. 6 (1938): 4.
764 763

Union, Women's Christian Temperance. "The Progress of Prohibition." The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XXXII, no. 7 (1938): 2. "Report of the Collector of Salem on the Working of the Madras Prohibition Act, 1937 up to the End of June, 1938 Is Published." Public Information, United Provinces, Lucknow I, no. 7 (1939): 6. "Ahmedabad Prohibition Department."

765

766

274 inducing people to come to their shops where they provided them with all the necessary facilities. They are also providing motor cars for conveying customers to their shops and back. This organized move stands out as a grave danger."767 Individual permits allowing the continued consumption of alcohol in prohibition areas on a limited basis were another loophole. Madras had a rather liberal policy, granting drink permits to people of all confessional groups irrespective of their country of origin. Bombays prohibition committees were much more restrictive, granting permits only to those of non-Asian extraction, based on the assumption that liquor was alien to Indian culture.768 By the early 1930s it was long-settled fact that Asia has always been the cradle of all the great religions of the world and nearly all of the religions that have nestled in its bosom strongly denounced the use of liquors.769 If Indians had never belonged an abstemious race, Bombays government had every intention of making them so. Central Provinces and Berar administrators followed Bombays lead in 1939, providing special dispensations only to non-Asiatic drinkers or members of the armed forces.770 In its prohibition areas, Bihar granted permits only to persons other than Musalmans, making the state a guarantor of religious ethics.771

767

Ibid.

Uknown. "How Prohibition Will Work in Bombay." Public Information, United Provinces, Lucknow II, no. 3 (1939): 2. Government of India, "Bills-Indian Prohibition Bill-Legislative Assembly-Wajihuddin (Khan Bahadur Haji), M.L.A.-Proposal for the Introduction of-Refusal by H.E. The Governor General to Accord the Necessary Previous Sanciton," ed. Excise and Opium Central Board of Revenue (Delhi1933). 770 Undersecretary West Godawari District Congress Committee, Lakshmana Acharyia. "Prohibition in the Central Provinces and Berar." The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XXXIII, no. 6 (1939): 1. Bihar, Government of. "Bihar Prohibition Act, 1938." edited by Legislative Department. Patna, Bihar: Superintendent, Government Printing, 1938.
771 769

768

275 In the brief period from 1937-1939 during which Congress held provincial power under a still sovereign empire, for the first time Congress nationalists had the opportunity to enforce an imagined common heritage of abstention from alcohol on Indians, many of whom had long traditions of drinking. Nationalists attempting to usher in prohibition at once fought against colonial rule and a new standard for Indian behavior modeled upon the supposed temperate lifestyle of the upper castes. On the cusp of freedom, India was set to be an example for the world with little room for the now un-Indian habit of drinking. As dry areas slowly spread across the maps of Congress provinces it might have appeared that India was on the cusp of complete prohibition, but a Bombay judge in the case of Imperator verses Sheth Chinubhai Lalbhi suddenly cut this future short. The judge discovered an arcane technicality that effectively halted or reversed prohibition in the presidencies.772 This ruling coincided with the withdrawal of Congress participation in the legislative assemblies. The implications of the Bombay ruling influenced all Indian presidencies, forcing an end to prohibition. India would have to wait until freedom in 1947 to attempt prohibition on a large scale again, another effort that won only mixed results. Conclusion The temperance movement in the 1930s was inextricably linked to nationalism and Indian freedom. Drinking became a symbol, not only of personal degradation, but
772

The judges opinion, supported through subsequent appeals, was that under the 1935 Government of India Act, the legislative assemblies of the provinces had every right to regulate alcohol use, but not to outlaw it entirely because it would infringe on the right of the central (British) government to regulate international trade and trade between Indian states. Bombays Prohibition Act could not be used to prohibit possession of liquor imported across a frontier or intended for export so as to prevent or impede import or export. We are clear that in practice prohibition could not be enforced in these conditions. See "Excise Supplement to the Bombay Police Gazette," ed. Appellate Side Bombay High Court (Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1940).

276 also of disloyalty to the concept of a free India. As thousands of volunteers poured through the bazaars, narrow lanes and even into the homes of drinkers, it became increasingly clear that a free India would make a claim on the bodies of Indians. But in a free India, drinkers could not allow the degradation of their bodies to infect the body politic. Increasing activism (or harassment depending on ones perspective) contributed to growing tensions between drinkers and nationalists, tensions that were never resolved in the prohibition areas of the late 1930s. The decolonization of India was prefigured to some degree by the decolonization of temperance organizations like the AITA and PLI. Temperance as introduced to India in the late 19th century had changed dramatically. Prohibition, the stated goal of most temperance reformers of the 20th century became indivisible from Indian freedom. As such Indian men assumed the leadership of these organizations. These Indian men, many of them of high status, found in temperance a way to elevate the condition of the poor in a way that they hoped would mobilize them politically. To some extent, it is clear that prohibition was successful. One of the few studies on the economic impact of prohibition area (Salem, Madras) found that much more money was being spent of food and other necessities for families rather than on liquor.773 This finding echoes that of other studies on the effects of prohibition on families. But as we have seen, the discourse surrounding alcohol far surpasses the borders of what is healthy or just. Use of or abstention from alcohol became a powerful symbolic act in the 1930s. Prohibition and its associated propaganda and surveillance campaigns divided Indians as much as it unified them,

773

P.J. Thomas, "A Statistical Analysis of the Shift of Expenditure in a Prohibition Area," Shankhya: The Indian Journal of Statistics 4, no. 4 (1939).

277 perhaps explaining the persistence of both the wide availability of drink in contemporary India and the heated debates surrounding it.

278 CHAPTER VI DRINK IN INDIA: THEN AND NOW In September of 2012, Vasant Dhoble, the Assistant Police Commissioner for Mumbai was fired. He had earned much praise and criticism for his attack on alcohol there. Using an archaic remnant of Mumbais now-defunct prohibition act that remained on the books, Dhoble demanded drinking permits from those imbibinga requirement that had been ignored for decades. Famous for his hockey stick, a totem much like Carrie Nations hatchet, Dhoble began harassing drinkers and arresting middle class women on suspicion of prostitution.774 This policing of moral behavior no doubt came as a surprise to those accustomed to Mumbais famed night-life. Lower class Indians have long been the target of the criminal policing of moral behavior but this was something new for Mumbais middle class drinkers. Middle class women suffered particularly, being labeled as prostitutes, however erroneously and briefly. In the upscale bars targeted by Dhoble, female patrons could hardly be confused with prostitutes, and they could easily have been arrested on the same charge as male drinkers for not having a permit. Why, then, were they arrested as prostitutes? During his crusade as Assistant Police Commissioner, Dhoble was policing gendered and class-based national boundariesboundaries that began to take their current form in the late 19th century. Male and female middle class drinkers committed two different kinds of infractions against the nation. Men of the middle classes were not

Dean Nelson, "Mumbai sleaze fighting policeman sacked after making enemies; A controversial police chief who launched a moral crusade against Mumbai's party-goers has been ousted from his job amid complaints that he had killed the Bollywood capital's celebrated nightlife.," The Telegraph, 17th September, 2012 2012.

774

279 to drink in public because drink is an emblem of the backward classes. As representatives of what is best in India, they could not engage in behavior that the legacy of nationalists associated with the worst of India. Women also transgressed gender boundaries. Idealized as symbols of Mother India, middle class Indian women who drank alcohol represented the poisoning of traditional India. To police the drinking habits of wealthy Indians was to police the moral health of India itself. British missionaries of the late 19th century in India found the meanings associated with the use of alcohol much different from those in Britain. Well-to-do Muslims and high-caste Hindus eschewed drink, at least in public, and low status Indians were associated with intemperance. The religious texts of India, often translated by the missionaries themselves, gave textual support to the general view that Indians more generally avoided alcohol. However, by relying on the authority of the texts themselves rather than on observation, missionaries had a skewed perspective with regard to Indian drinking customs. Indian nationalists of the late 19th century, in some ways, adopted the orientalist, more homogenized view of Indian religions espoused by the missionaries. That is to say, since Indian religions forbade alcohol and India was a quintessentially spiritual place, drinking Indians were evidence of British administrative failure. Moreover, the detailed accounts of alcohol sales revenue fit nicely with extant economic criticisms of empire such as Naorojis drain theory of empire. Most importantly, since drink was a moral rather than political problem, temperance provided a degree of protection for early nationalists. The temperance movement was global in scale and events in India were followed closely by myriad

280 organizations working towards the same goal. Where other aspects of colonial rule might have been too parochial to garner the attention of those outside of India, temperance was different. Temperance brought Members of Parliament together with nationalists, providing them information, resources, and some protection from Government of India intervention. Temperance also won Indian nationalists a great deal of support for their cause more generally. For instance, the hue and cry raised in response to the temporary outlawing of liquor shop picketing brought condemnation from temperance workers in Britain and the United States. Unlike with larger questions of sovereignty, temperance provided a case study for the inadequacies of colonial rule, one that resonated with the temperance activists of numerous countries. By the 1910s, as the nationalist movement grew in radicalism, so did the temperance movement. Poonas temperance riot reveals how this created fault lines within government. Temperance-concerned Members of Parliament made it increasingly difficult for colonial administrators to silence Indian critics. There were divisions among colonial administrators as well, with some, like A.M.T. Jackson, drawing distinctions between temperance and nationalist agitation, while the majority of administrators saw the movements as one and the same. Temperance divided colonial rule, both in Britain and in India. The ambiguity between the two movements provided a degree of protection for Indian temperance workers and nationalists against the colonial state. In the 1920s, Indias poor had become the focus of the temperance movement. Alcoholic Indians were symbols of the devastation that empire had wrought. Drinkers found themselves policed by uniform-wearing sevaks of the upper castes. The uniforms of anti-liquor sevaks, like the veneer of national homogeneity over diversity, wrapped

281 high-caste morality in the cloth of the nation. The nationalist flags hoisted in view of liquor shops reminded would-be drinkers that their private habits were imbued with national significance. This significance was hard to escape, even for foreign temperance advocates. William Pussyfoot Johnson, who toured India on behalf of the World League Against Imperialism, found himself unable to avoid the subject and once found himself an unwitting participant in a nationalist parade. Most foreign temperance workers in India supported nationalism, explicitly or implicitly, but there were exceptions. Those temperance workers who were against nationalism found it very difficult to continue their work. Where nationalism had once been one aspect of the temperance movement, the temperance movement had become one small aspect of nationalism. This coincided with the gradual demise of those temperance organizations reticent to support Indian independence, like the AITA. Indian nationalists toured the world as temperance men. Indian representative attended world temperance gatherings, bringing with them Indias uniquely nationalist brand of temperance. The 1921 Toronto conference of the World League against Imperialism brought Indian nationalism on to the international temperance stage, requiring temperance workers who had little to do with India to, however obliquely, deliberate on its fate. Indian temperance workers like the staunch nationalist Jnananjan Niyogi toured American churches, introducing American audiences to the tragedy of colonial rule with regard to drink. Temperance created a new rhetorical space internationally where the question of Indian freedom could be seen through the lens of morality.

282 Indian temperance in the 1930s continued and escalated earlier trends. Nationalist volunteers continued to harass drinkers and drink-sellers. To avoid the violence associated with drink pickets in the 1920s, volunteers were given detailed orders describing exactly which behaviors were endorsed and proscribed. This coincided with more direct Indian National Congress control over liquor-picketing activities. By this time it was official policy that liquor picketers should be drawn from the well-todo classes. Indian women, who had received only intermittent support for their own efforts to picket liquor shops were invited to participate in temperance aspects of the Civil Disobedience movement. In the late 1930s, the INC stood for provincial elections and won control of some aspects of administration between 1937 and 1939. During this period, the temperance movement had the imprimatur of government. It was during this period that the policing of the moral behavior of low-status Indians reached its zenith. As prohibition areas were introduced, individuals were tracked, names collected, villages blacklisted, and, in some cases, individuals were moved to wet areas. Drinkers found that, in addition to the significant social pressure and intimidation they had experienced in the 1930s, they could now be prosecuted as criminals. The Indian temperance movement began as a cooperative effort of Western missionaries and nationalists in the late 19th century. By 1900, the AITA had over 200 affiliated branches in India. Despite the intentions of the organizations founders, the pages of its journal, Abkari, served as one of Indias first nationalist publications. Instances of British administrative failures with regard to alcohol were shared across the subcontinent and events in the mofussil became as relevant as those in Madras, Delhi,

283 Calcutta, and Bombay. This follows closely with Benedict Andersons notion that print media was a key element in the development of the imagined community of the nation.775 In light of Indias famed linguistic and religious heterogeneity, Indias temperance journals provided an important line of continuity, however contrived, around which to construct the nation. The repercussions of constructing Indian identity upon that foundation remain with us today.

775

Benedict Anderson, Imagined communities : reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (London: Verso, 1983).

284 BIBLIOGRAPHY Archival Sources All India Congress Committee Papers, Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library British Library Livesay Collection, University of Central Lancashire, Lancaster Maharashtra State Archives, Mumbai National Archives, Delhi, India C. Rajagopalacharia Papers, Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library Uttar Pradesh State Archives Womens Christian Temperance Union, Delhi Branch Newspapers and Magazines Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association The Altoona Mirror The Bookman Economic and Political Weekly The Good Templar Journal: A Monthly Devoted to the Cause of Total Abstinence The Hindu The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon Indian Social Reformer The Leader The Manchester Guardian The Missionary Review of the World The New York Times

285 Public Information, United Provinces Quarterly Journal of the Hindu Sabha Shankhya: The Indian Journal of Statistics The Telegraph The Times of India Primary Sources: Collected Works, Reports, Books, Letters, and Ephemera
"A--Proceedings, December." edited by Separate Revenue Department of Finance and Commerce, Excise, General Matters. A-Proceedings, 1-5. Simla: Government of India, 1889. A.S. "Secret Memo to Home Department (Political)." In Home Department, Special, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1929. "Ahmedabad Prohibition Department." Ahmedabad: All India Congress Committee, 1938. Anderson, F.G.H., Personal Assitant to the Collector of Poona. "Report on Poona Disturbances." In Judicial, Bombay, 4. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1908. Anderson, Herbert. "Prohibition Convention in India." In Livesay. Preston: University of Central Lancashire, 1926. Andrews, C.F. "The India Problem." In British Library, edited by Christian Literature Society for India. Madras: G.A. Natesan, 1923. Anonymous. "Untitled Editorial." The Good Templar Journal: A Monthly Devoted to the Cause of Total Abstinence 1, no. 3 (March, 1878 1878): 2. Anonymous. "Untitled." In Maximum City's Morality Play, edited by Sidharth Bhatia, Response to editorial. Chennai: The Hindu, 2012. Archibald, Mabel E. The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XVI, no. 5 (May, 1922 1922). Association, Bombay Presidency. "Petition to the Secretary to the Government, Revenue Department, Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 35. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1887. Badley, Brenton, T. "Pussyfoot." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 125 (July 1921): 1. Badley, Brenton Thoburn. "Total Abstinence: India's Goal." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 118 (October 1919): 2. Barlow, Edward. Indian Museum Notes, Issued by the Trustees. Vol. V. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1900.

286
Bhargava, Rajeev. "History, Nation and Community: Reflections on Nationalist Historiography of India and Pakistan." Economic and Political Weekly 35, no. 4 (January 22-28 2000): 7. Bhatia, Sidharth. "Maximum City's Morality Play." The Hindu, 7th July 2012, 1. Bhattacharya, Jogendra Nath. Hindu Castes and Sects: An Exposition of the Origin of the Hindu Caste System and the Bearing of Sects Towards Each Other and Towards Other Religious Systems. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co., 1896. Bihar, Government of. "Bihar Prohibition Act, 1938." edited by Legislative Department. Patna, Bihar: Superintendent, Government Printing, 1938. Bombay, Government of. "The Bombay Disturbances. Govt. Press Note, Effect of Immoderate Propaganda, Govt.'S Determination." Leader, 17th December 1921, 1. Bombay, Government of. "License for the Retail Sale of Palm Toddy." edited by Revenue. Bombay, 1884. . Report on the Administration of the Bombay Presidency the Year 1882-1883. Bombay: Government of India Press, 1884. Bombay Presidency Association. "Petition to the Secretary to the Government, Revenue Department, Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 35. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1887. Bradshaw, Chairman, Mission Hall High Street, Edinburgh. "Letter to the Governor of Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1887. Brander, J.P., Collector of Bombay. "Letter to Secretary to Government, Home Department, Bombay." In Home Department, Special, Bombay, 4. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1921. Briggs, A. "Letter to D. Naoroji." In Dadabhai Naoroji, 3. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1896. Burns, Dawson, W. S. Caine, and William Hoyle. Local Option. 3d. ed. London,: S. Sonnenschier, 1896. Caine, W.S. "Current Notes." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 20 (Januart 1895): 2. . "Current Notes: Harji Ram Kaisth." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 16 (January 1894): 1. Caine, W.S. "Letters from India." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 28 (1897): 27. Caine, W. S. "Mr. Caine's Report to the President." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the AngloIndian Temperance Association I, no. 5 (April 1891): 3. . "Letter to Dadabhai Naoroji." In Dadabhai Naoroji, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1896.

287
Campbell, Mary. The Power-House at Pathankot: What Some Girls of India Wrought by Prayer. Philadelphia: Board of Foreign Missions of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, 1918. Carmichael, G. Esq., District Magistrate, Poona "Report." In Judicial, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1908. Chari, Krishnama V.K. Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 52 (April 1903): 3. Clwyd, Lord. "President's Address." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 125 (July 1921): 1. Collector, Salem District, Madras. "Prohibition in Salem District: Extracts from the Report of the Collector of Salem District." The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XXXII, no. 4 (1939): 3. Collins, G.F.S., Home Dept. (special), Bombay. "Bombay City and Bombay Suburban DistrictInstances of the Use of Violence in Connection with the Civil Disobedience Movement and Consequent Clashes with the Police, or with Government Officials, or with Loyalists." In Home Department, Special, Bombay, 28. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1931. . "Letter to the Government of India, Home Department." In Home Department (special) Bombay, 3. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1931. . "Untitled, Regards Police Response to Women." In Home Department, Special, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1930. Conference, Eighth Bombay Temperance. "Resolutions Passed at the Eighth Bombay Temperance Conference." Bombay: Eighth Bombay Temperance Conference, 1929. Conference, Indian National Social. "Report of the Sixth Indian National Social Conference." 151. Lahore: Indian National Social Conference, 1893. . "Report of the Tenth National Social Conference Held in Calcutta on 1st January 1897." Poona, 1897. Crafts, Wilbur Fisk, and Sara Jane Timanus Crafts. World Book of Temperance: Temperance Lessons, Biblical, Historical, Scientific. 3d rev. and enl. ed. Washington, D.C.,: The International reform bureau, 1911. Criminal Appeal. Jnananjan Niyogi- Accused- Appellant V. Emperor, Criminal Appeal No. 909 of 1929, Decided on 6th February, 1930, 6-2-1930 1930. Dalal, Jamshedi Ardeshir. Census of India, 1901. Bombay: Times of India Press, 1902. Dantra, Pestanjee Byramjee. "Appendices: The Bombay Abkari Administration." In Indian Abkari Administration, Being Notes on the Despatch of the Government of India, Relating to the System of Licenses for the Distillation and Sale of Spiritous Liquors in Force in the Various Provinces of India, Presented to the House of Commons, edited by Dinshaw E. Wacha, 57-106. Bombay: Bombay Gazette Steam Press, 1888.

288
Department of Public Information, United Provinces. "Prohibition Movement." Public Information, United Provinces, Lucknow 1, no. 6 (1938): 4. Devraj, W., Secretary, Hoorkee Tehsil Congress Committee, Hardwar. "Letter." In All India Congress Committee I, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1930. Doderet, W. Esq/ Commisioner, C.D. "Poona Picketing." In Judicial, Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1908. . "Report of a Disturbance Which Took Place in Poona on the 5th April 1908 in Consequence of Certain Boys Attempting to Dissuade Customers from Going to Liquor Shops." In Judicial, Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1908. Dorabji, Manjii and others, owners of Toddy trees, Bhundaries, ryots, agricultural labourers and others, Inhabitants of the Taluka Dahanu and Peta Umargaum in the Thana District. "Petition." In Revenue, Bombay, 4. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1891. Dorabji, Ghasvala Adarji. "Letter to John Nugent, Secretary to Government, Revenue Department, Bombay." In Revenue, Maharashtra State Archives, 9. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1885. Dorabji Nanjibhai and others, Inhabitants of the Taluka of Dahanu-Umargaum in the Thana District. "Petition to Lord Reay, Govenor and President in Council, Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 4. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1891. Douglas, James. Bombay and Western India: A Series of Stray Papers. Vol. I. London: Sampson, Low, Marston & Co., 1893. Dutt, R. Palme. India to-Day. London,: V. Gollancz, ltd., 1940. Edwards, J.F., Rev. "A Non-Brahman Leader on Peasants' Drinking Habits." The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XXII, no. 5 & 6 (May June 1928 1928): 1. Emerson, H.W., Secretary to the Government of India (Home). "Letter to Home Secretary to the Governor of Bombay." In Home Department, Special, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1931. "Excise Supplement to the Bombay Police Gazette." edited by Appellate Side Bombay High Court. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1940. Fox, H.L. "Letter to Commissioner, Northern Division, Ahmedabad on Picketing of Liquor-Shops." In Home Department, Special, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1921. Ferguson, J. All About the Cocoanut Palm Including Practical Instructions for Planting and Cultivation with Estimates Prepared for Expenditure and Reciepts, a Special Chapter on Desiccating Cocoanut and Other Suitable Information from a Variety of Sources. Bombay: Thacker Spink & Co., 1904. Gandhi, M.K. "A Deep Stain." In Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, edited by GandhiServ Foundation, 126. Berlin: GandhiServ Foundation, 1921.

289
Ghanashyam, Jethanand, Desh Seva Mandal. Letter to Vallabhai Patel. In All India Congress Committee Papers, 8585F, No. G-18. Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. Gokhale, C.K. "Mr. R.C. Dutt, C.I.E., and the Hon. G.K. Gokhale, C.I.E., on Temperance Reform." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 73 (July 1908): 2. Gordon, Anderson D.D. Our Indian Mission: A Thirty Years' History of the Indian Mission of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, Together with Personal Reminiscences. Philadelphia: Andrew Gordon, 1886. Grant, J.H. "Letter to J.G. Morley, Esq., Commissioner of Custom, Salt, Opium, and Abkari, Bombay Collector's Office." In Revenue, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1885. Gregson, J. Gelson Rev. "Drinking Habits among the Natives of India." In British and Colonial Temperance Congress, edited by Frederick Temple. 160-69. London: National Temperance Publication Depot, 1886. Grubb, Frederick. "Barmaids in Bombay." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 48 (April 1902): 2. Grubb, Frederick. "The Amritsar Temperance Society." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 107 (January 1917): 3. Grubb, Frederick. In C. Rajagopalachari, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1933. Grubb, Frederick. "The Anglo Indian Temperance Association Annual Report, 1920-1921." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 125 (July 1921): 7. . "Annual Report, 1922-1923 of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association, no. 133 (July, 1923 1923): 7. ed., Frederick Grubb. "Cuttings from the Press." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the AngloIndian Temperance Association I, no. 71 (January 1908): 3. Frederick Grubb, ed. "Cuttings from the Press." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 73 (July 1908): 2. . "The Poona Episode." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 74 (October 1908): 4. . "Poona Temperance Society." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 72 (April 1908): 1. . "Facts and Comments." The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XXIX, no. 12 (1935): 3. . Fifty Years Work in India: My Temperance Jubilee. 1st ed. London: H.J. Rowling and Sons, 1942.

290
. "A Fishermen's Temperance Society." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 105 (July 1916): 2. . "India and America." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 130 (October 1922): 1. . "Kayastha Temperance Movement." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 86 (October, 1911 1911): 2. . "M.K. Gandhi on Indian Temperance." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 108 (July 1917): 1. . "Mr. Pussyfoot's Tour: A Remarkable Campaign." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 127 (January 1922): 1. . "Mr. W.E. Johnson's Tour in India." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 125 (July 1921): 2. . "New India." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 119 (January 1920): 1. . "Press Comment." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 124 (October 1921): 2. Hardikar, N.S. "The Cenral Volunteer Organisation of the Congress Hindustani Seva Dal: Rules, Grades & Ranks." edited by Madras Provincial Congress Committee, 1-18. Madras: N.S. Hardiker, 1931. Heath, F. "Pussyfoot." The Bookman 59, no. 349 (October 1920): 1. Henderson, Charles. "Flag Hoisting on Dt. Board Office- E. Godavari Collector's Letter to President." In C. Rajagopalacharia, 1. Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. Holdsworth, B.G. "Press Communique--Prohibition Department." edited by Revenue Department, 1-15. Madras: Government of Madras, 1938. Hunt, Frazier. "The World War on Booze." XLII, no. 4 (October 1922): 3. India, Government of. "Bill(S)-the Orissa Prohibition Bill, 1939." edited by Excise and Opium Central Board of Revenue. Delhi, 1939. Hunter, William Wilson. Bombay 1885 to 1890: A Study on Indian Administration. Bombay: B.M. Malabari, Indian Spectator Office, 1900. India, Government of. "Alleged Increase in the Number of Liquor Shops in the Towns of Adoni and Hospet in the Madras Presidency." edited by Separate Revenue Department of Finance and Commerce, Excise, General Matters. A-Proceedings, 1-4. Shimla: Government of India, 1889. India, Government of. "Bills-Indian Prohibition Bill-Legislative Assembly-Wajihuddin (Khan Bahadur Haji), M.L.A.-Proposal for the Introduction of-Refusal by H.E. The Governor General to

291
Accord the Necessary Previous Sanction." edited by Excise and Opium Central Board of Revenue. Delhi, 1933. India, Government of. "Bombay Act No. V of 1878." In The Bombay Code in Four Volumes: The Unrepealed Acts of the Governor of Bombay in Council in Force in Bombay, from 1862-1887, Inclusive: And a Chronological Table of Enactments Reproduced in the Volume, 583-607. Calcutta: Government of India, 1907. . The Indian Empire: Census of 1881, Statistics of Population. Vol. II. Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Printing, India, 1883. . "Illicit Traffic-Liquor (Cheap Spirit)-Shipment of, Alleged as Scotch Whisky, from Calcutta to Dairen-Excise Conspiracy Case, Gariahat-Apportionment of Cost of Prosecution." edited by Excise and Opium Central Board of Revenue. Delhi, 1934. . "Correspondence on the Subject of the Alleged Increase of Intemperance in India Ending with a Despatch to Secretary of State Forwarding the Opinion of the Government of India on the Whole Question." edited by Separate Revenue Department of Finance and Commerce, Excise, General Matters. A-Proceedings. Simla: Government of India, 1887. . "Criticisms Made on the Excise Administration in India by the Temperance Deputation Which Waited Upon the Secretary of State in July 1912." edited by Excise A Department of Commerce and Industry. Calcutta: Government of India, 1914. . "Excise, General Matters, Further Information Regarding the Alleged Increase of Toddy Shops in Hospet and Adoni in Bellary District, Secretary of State's Remarks on the Reduction of Licensed Spirit and Toddy Shops in the Madras Presidency." edited by Separate Revenue Department of Finance and Commerce, Excise, General Matters. A-Proceedings. Shimla: Government of India, 1891. . "Excise, General Matters, Letter from Mr. W.S. Caine, M.P., Concerning Liquor Shops in the Towns of Adony and Hospet in the Bellary District of the Madras Presidency." edited by Separate Revenue Department of Finance and Commerce, Excise, General Matters. AProceedings. Shimla: Government of India, 1890. . "Extract from the Weekly Confidential Report of the District Magistrate, West Khandesh." In Home Dept, Special, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1939. Katju, Kailas Nath. "The Hon'ble Minister of Excise on Prohibition." Public Information, United Provinces, Lucknow II, no. 9 (1938): 7. . "Message from Hon'ble Minister of Excise." Public Information, United Provinces, Lucknow II, no. 2 (1939): 2. . "Questions Affecting Generally the Principles of Excise System: Resolution by the Government of Bengal on Mr. C.E. Buckland's Report on the Results of His Enquiry into the Systems of Excise in Bombay and Madras." edited by Separate Revenue Department of Finance and Commerce, Excise, General Matters. A-Proceedings. Shimla: Government of India, 1889.

292
. "Reports on the Administration of the Excise Department in the Bombay Presidency, Sind and Aden for the Year 1908-09." edited by Deparate Revenue A Finance Department. Calcutta: Government of India, 1910. . "Report of Native Newspapers, Bombay." 185. Bombay: Bombay Presidency, 1878. Joshi, G.K., District Magistrate, West Khandesh. "Extract from the Weekly Confidential Report of the District Magistrate, West Khandesh." In Home Department (Special) Bombay. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1938. Jackson, A.M.T., Collector of Nasik. "Circular." In Revenue, Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1908. . "Letter to the Secretary to Government, Revenue Department, Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1908. Jenkins, E.F. "Letter to All Local Governmental Administrations on Local Option." In Revenue, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1889. Kadri, Syed Shamsuddin. "Native Newspaper Reports." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 19071908. Kelkar, N.C., ed. Full and Authentic Report of the Tilak Trial, Being the Only Authorized Verbatim Account of the Whole Proceedings with Introduction and Biographical Sketch of Bal Gangadhar Tilak Together with Press Opinion. Bombay: Indu-Prakash Steam Press, 1908. Knight, H.F., District Magistrate, West Khandesh. "Letter to Commissioner, Central Division, Poona." In Home Department, Special, Bombay, 3. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1926. Koreishi, A.O., District Magistrate, Broach. "Letter to Commissioner, Norther Division, Ahmedabad, Broach, J.H. Garrett." In Home Department, Special, Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1930. Kohiyar, Jehangirshah E. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 18. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1881. Krishna, Sir Bhalchandra. "Address Delivered at the Second All-India Temperance Conference Held at Benares on December 26th, 1905." In Revenue, Bombay, 4. Bombay: Maharashtra State Archives, 1905. . "Letter to Chief Secretary of Government, Revenue Division." In Revenue, Bombay, 8. Bombay: Maharashtra State Archive, 1901. Kurkaray, G.W. "Native Newspaper Report, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 18791884. Lamb, R.A. "Letter from Chief Secretary to Government, Bombay to Secretary to the Government of India, Financial Department." edited by Fincancial, 1. Bombay: unpublished, 1908.

293

Lansdowne, F.S. Roberts, G. Chesney, A.R. Scoble, C.A. Elliot, P.P. Hutchins, & D. Barbour. "Letter to Viscount Cross, Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India." In Bombay, Revenue, 6. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1889. Logan, A.C. Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Abkari, Bombay. "Accompaniments to Government Resolution, Revenue Department, No. 10439, Dated October 1908." In Judicial, Bombay, 3. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1908. London, F. "Letter to the Earl of Dufferin, Governor-General and Viceroy of India." In Revenue, Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1886. Lorimer, John, Superintendent, Opium Preventive Services. "Letter to Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Abkari." In Revenue, Bombay, 3. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1905. Mackenzie, T.D. "Letter to Thana Collector's Office." edited by Revenue, 15. Thana: unpublished, 1884. Madras, Government of. "Excise--Arrack--Administration--Proposals for 1935-36--Orders Passed." edited by Revenue. Madras, 1935. . "Letter to Rajagopalacharia." edited by C. Rajagopalacharia, 1. Madras: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. Macnicol, Rev. Nicol. "The Temperance Movement in Poona." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 73 (July 1908): 2. Madras, Secretary to the Government of. "Letter Exchange with C. Rajagopalachari." In C. Rajagopalachari, 2. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. Malabari, B.M. "On British Drinking Customs." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 26 (October 1896): 2. Mann, Harold. "Annual Meeting, Chairman's Address." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 165 (1931): 5. Menzies, Hattie. "Prohibition in the Making." The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XXXIII, no. 3 (1939): 3. McKenzie, Fred Arthur. "Pussyfoot Johnson, Crusader--Reformer--a Man among Men. London: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1920. Mackenzie, T.D. "Letter to Thana Collector's Office." edited by Revenue, 15. Thana: unpublished, 1884. Mehta, Pherozeshah Merwanjee. "Address of P.M. Mehta before the Abkari Commission Consisting of Mr. J.H. Grant (President), Sir Frank Souter and Mr. Sorabjee Shapoorjee Bengalee." In Revenue, Bombay, 11. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1886.

294

Melchizedek, D.J. An Outline of the History of 'the Temperance Mission' Est. 1893. Madras: The Temperance Mission, 1897. Mill, James. The History of British India. 3 vols London,: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1817. Mirpurkhas, D., Secretary Congress Committee. "Press Telegram." In All India Congress Committee Papers, 2: JN Memorial Library, 1931. Mohamed, Sheikh Yakub Vazir. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." 40. Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1922. Moore, J.G., Under Secretary to the Government of Bombay. "Abkari: Memorial from Bhandaris of Bombay against the Arrangements Sanctioned by Government for Regulating the Taxation and Sale of Toddy Spirit in Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1885. , Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Abkari. "Confidential Letter to J. Nugent, Secretary to Government, Revenue Department, Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1885. . "Letter from Bombay Collector, Morley (or Moore) to Commisioner of Abkari, J.H. Grant." In Revenue Department, Bombay, 15. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1885. Moore, J.G., Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Abkari. "Letter to the Secretary to Government, Revenue Department, Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 11. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1885. . "Letter to Secretary to the Government of Bombay, Revenue Department." In Revenue Department, Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1884. Nelson, Dean. "Mumbai Sleaze Fighting Policeman Sacked after Making Enemies; a Controversial Police Chief Who Launched a Moral Crusade against Mumbai's Party-Goers Has Been Ousted from His Job Amid Complaints That He Had Killed the Bollywood Capital's Celebrated Nightlife." The Telegraph, 17th September, 2012 2012, 1. Newton, John, and Alexander Maclaren. W.S. Caine, M.P. : A Biography. London: J. Nisbet, 1907. Niyogi, J. "Report on Asian Temperance." In World League against Alcoholism: 1st Congress, Toronto, edited by Ben H. Spence. Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Press, 1922.

Osborn, Henry J. "Anglo-Indian Temperance Association Report." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 2 (July 1890): 2. . "Mr. Caines Report to the President." I, no. 5 (April 1891): 101-04.

295
. "Proceedings of the Annual Conference Held April 4th 1891." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 6 (1891): 137-53. . "Purity Associations." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 14 (July 1893): 102. . "Tanners of Sholapur." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 16 (January 1894): 13. Over 1000 Landed Proprietors, Owners of Toddy Trees and ryots of the District of Thana. "Petition to His Excellency the Right Honourable Lord Reay." In Revenue, Bombay, 10. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1886. Patel, Vallabbhai Jhaverbhai. "Leaflet Issued by the President of the Gujarat Prantic Samiti." In Home Department, Special, Bombay, 15. Bombay: Maharashtra State Archive, 1922. Patker, Atmaram V. "Report on the Native Newspapers, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1878. Pavgi, Raoji Bhavanrao. "Native Newspaper Reports, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1883. Pierson, Aurthur T. "News from Many Lands: Blue Ribbon Army." The Missionary Review of the World XXXIII, no. 3 (March 1920): 1. Price, Emma. Women in the Temperance Movement in India. Lucknow: Women's Christian Temperance Union, 1925. Pritchard, C.B. "Letter to Lord Reay, Governor and President in Council, Bombay." In Revenue, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1887. . "Untitled Note." In Revenue, Bombay, 3. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1887. Prohibition Department, Bombay. "Report of the Prohibition Department." In A.I.C.C. Bombay: JN Library & Archive, 1938. Quarterly Journal of the Hindu Sabha 20, no. 40 (July 1892): 40. Quin, H.O. "Letter to the Secretary to the Government of India, Home Department." In India Office Collection, 2. London: British Library, 1908. Rajagopalachari, C. In C. Rajagopalachari, 3. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Advice to Picketers." In C. Rajagopalachari, 5. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Anti Drink Movement, a Report from South India." In C. Rajagopalachari, 5. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931.

296
. "An Arrack Shop-Keeper's Penitence in Nagapatam." In C. Rajagopalachari, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Dr. Ambedkar and Drink Evil." In C. Rajagopalachari, 2. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Encouraging Results." In C. Rajagopalachari, 3. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Illegal Sales- a Narrow Escape." In C. Rajagopalachari, 2. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Instructions for Picketing." In C. Rajagopalachari, 2. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Instructions for Picketing. Gandhiji's Instructions." In R. Rajagopalachari, 2. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Letter." In C. Rajagopalachari, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Letter to "Mr. Raja," Local Congressman." In C. Rajagopalacharia, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . Personal Letter, 5th August, 1931 1931. . "Letter to Kumaraswami Reddier." In C. Rajagopalachari, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Letter to Mary Campbell." In C. Rajagopalachari, 2. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Letter to Ramanujachariar." In C. Rajagopalachari, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Letter to Santhanam." In C. Rajagopalacharia, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Letter to Shri Prakash." In C. Rajagopalachari, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Letter to Un-Named Member of the Press." In C. Rajagopalacharia, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Letter to Vaidyanathier." In C. Rajagopalachari, 3. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Libarary, 1931. . "Letter to Vaidyanathier." In C. Rajagopalachari, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Local Government and the Gandhi/Irwin Pact." In Rajagopalacharia Papers, 1. Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library, 1931.

297
. "Mr. Cox's Durbar Speech, C.R.'S Indictment." In C. Rajagopalachari, 6. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "On Prohibition." In C. Rajagopalachari, 17. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, C. 1931. . "Peaceful Picketing of Toddy and Arrack Shop Auctions." In C. Rajagopalachari, 2. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Picketing in Madras Presidency, a Few Experiences." In C. Rajagopalachari, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Picketing: Our Experiences." In C. Rajagopalachari, 6. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Ranipet Prohibitory Order, Enquiry Commission Report." In C. Rajagopalachari, 3. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Revenue Divisional Officer Namakkal Order." In C. Rajagopalachari, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Those Pictures." In C. Rajagopalachari, 3. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "Untitled." In C. Rajagopalachari, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. . "The War against Drink." In C. Rajagopalachari, 4. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. Rajan, D.S, M. Baktaval Salam. "Declaration Finalised- Toddy, Arrack Shops Tender Strike." In C. Rajagopalachari, 2. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. "Report of the Collector of Salem on the Working of the Madras Prohibition Act, 1937 up to the End of June, 1938 Is Published." Public Information, United Provinces, Lucknow I, no. 7 (1939): 6. Robinson, Ruth. In C. Rajagopalachari, 2. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1932. "Report of the Fourteenth National Social Conference Held in Lahore on 30th December 1900." Poona: Indian National Social Conference, 1900. Revenue Department, Bombay. "Abkari: Suggestions of the Government of India as to the Best Method for Ensuring the Payment of Due Regard to Local Public Opinion in the Matter of Licensing Liquor Shops." In Revenue, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1889. Robinson, Ruth. The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XXXIII, no. 7 (1939). Robinson, Ruth. In C. Rajagopalachari, 2. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1932. Santhanam. "Letter to "Santhanam"." In C. Rajagopalacharia, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. Sathe, G.M. "Native Newspaper Report, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1885-1890.

298

Saxena, Babu Lalta Prasad. Short History of Temperance Reform in the Kayastha Community. Agra: Moon Press, 1911. Scotland, General Assembly of the Free Church of. "Petition on Intemperance." In Revenue, Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1887. Secretary to Government, Bombay. "Letter Regarding Poona Disturbances to the Secretary of the Home Department, India." In Judicial, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1908. Sen, Keshub Chunder. "Liquor Traffic in India." In ULAN Livesay Papers, Preston, edited by United Kingdom Alliance, 1-4. Manchester: James Clark & Co., 1870. Singh, Zalim. "Letter to J.H. Cox, Commissioner of Excise, Central Provinces." In Central Provinces, Revenue, 1. Delhi: National Archives, 1921. Sinha, Tarini Prasad. "The New Movement for Prohibition in India." In World League against Alcoholism: 1st Congress, Toronto, edited by Ben H. Spence. Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Press, 1922. . "Pussyfoot" Johnson and His Campaign in Hindustan. Madras: Ganesh, 1922. Sivarankar Tiwari, Temperance Lecturer. "A Caste Meeting of Khatiks (or Fruit-Vendors)." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 59 (January 1905): 1. Slack, Agnes. My Travels in India. London: National British Women's Temperance Association, 1908. Spence, Ben H. World League against Alcoholism: 1st Congress, Toronto. Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Press, 1922. Talyarkhan, J. Chief Excise Inspector, Bombay. "Letter to Superintendent of Salt and Excise, Bombay." In Home Department, Special, Bombay, 5. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1921. Taleyarkhan, Manekshah J. "Notes on the Taxation of Toddy in Bombay." Bombay: Industrial Press, 1885. Tarkhadkar, D.R. "Native Newspaper Report, Bombay." Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1880. Templars, Independent Order of Good. Independent Order of the Good Templars, Grand Lodge of India, Constitution and Bye-Laws, Grand and Subordinate Lodges. Ahmedabad: Grand Lodge of India, 1879. Templars, International Order of Good. "Advertisement for International Order of Good Templars, "Indian Lodge"." Abkari: The Quarterly Organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association I, no. 106 (October 1916): 1.

299
Thacker, Madhavji V. "Letter to Govind Malaviya, Secretary All India Congress Committee, Allahabad." In Home Department, Special, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1930. . "Letter to Pt. Govind Kanth Malaviya Regarding Nasik Raid." In Home Department, Special, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1930. Thomas, P.J. "A Statistical Analysis of the Shift of Expenditure in a Prohibition Area." Shankhya: The Indian Journal of Statistics 4, no. 4 (1939): 12. Tillyard, Aelfrida. Agnes E. Slack: Two Hundred Thousand Miles Travel for Temperance in Four Continents. Cambridge, England: W. Heffer & Sons Ltd, 1926. Biography. Turnbull, William W. The Good Templars. n. p.,1901. Unknown. "Agnes Slack Here." New York Times, 2nd August, 1896 1896, 1. Unknown. Public Information, United Provinces, Lucknow II, no. 5 (1939): 2. . "Excise Revenue." In C. Rajagopalachari, 6. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931 C. nd. . "Ghulia Bhagavan Paves Way for Bombay Govt. To Follow up His Good Work by Declaring Khandesh a Dry Area." In Home Department (Special), Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1938. . "How Prohibition Will Work in Bombay." Public Information, United Provinces, Lucknow II, no. 3 (1939): 2. Undersecretary, West Godawari District Congress Committee, Lakshmana Acharyia. "Prohibition in the Central Provinces and Berar." The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XXXIII, no. 6 (1939): 1. Union, Women's Christian Temperance. "The Progress of Prohibition." The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XXXII, no. 7 (1938): 2. Unknown. "Ban on Picketing in Mysore from the Hindu." In C. Rajagopalacharia, 1. Madras: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931. Unknown. "Bellwood." The Altoona Mirror, 6th December, 1922 1922, 1. . "Clipping from Madras Christian College Magazine." In Charles Roberts Collection, 1. London: British Library, India Office, 1909. Unknown. "The Consumption of Foreign Spirits." Indian Social Reformer XIX, no. 14 (6th December, 1908 1908): 1. . "Evils of Drink in Far-Off India: Native Missionary Describes Them to a Media Audience." Chester Times, 16th December, 1922 1922, 1.

300

. "Excise Revenue." In C. Rajagopalachari, 6. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1931 C. nd. . "Ghulia Bhagavan Paves Way for Bombay Govt. To Follow up His Good Work by Declaring Khandesh a Dry Area." In Home Department (Special), Bombay, 1. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archive, 1938. . "How London Has Viewed Pussyfoot Johnson." New York Times, 23rd November 1919, 1. . "How Prohibition Will Work in Bombay." Public Information, United Provinces, Lucknow II, no. 3 (1939): 2. . "India Beware." The Times of India, 19th October 1921, 1. . "Letter to H.R. Lawrence, Political Agent, Haraoti and Tonk." In Central Provinces, 1. Delhi: National Archives, 1921. . "Letter to J.H. Cox, Excise Commissioner for Central India." In Central Provinces, Revenue, 1. Delhi: National Archives, 1921. . "Mr. Pussyfoot Johnson 'Ragged': Platform Stormed by Students, Carried by His Captors through West End." The Manchester Guardian, 14th November, 1919 1919, 1. Uknown. Public Information, United Provinces, Lucknow II, no. 5 (1939): 2. . "'Pussyfoot' on the Eyes Drinking Puts Out: Eager to Resume Fight, Financial Testimonial Not Desired." Manchester Guardian, 2nd December 1919, 1. . "Sees Dry Universe through Glass Eye: 'Pussyfoot' Johnson Returns to America-Considers Trip to Europe Successful." The New York Times, 23rd April 1920, 1. Uknown. "The Writing on the Wall." The Leader, 21st November 1921, 2. Union, Women's Christian Temperance. "The Progress of Prohibition." The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XXXII, no. 7 (1938): 2. Union, Women's Christian Temperance. Report (Illustrated) of the Seventh Convention of the World's Women's Christian Temperance Union. Boston: Tremont Temple, 1906. . Report of the Ninth Convention of the World's Women's Christian Temperance Union. Evanston, Illinois: Women's Christian Temperance Union, 1913. Various. "Lantern Slides." edited by Women's Christian Temperance Union. Delhi, c 1925. Wacha, Dinshaw E. In Voices of Indian Freedom Movement, edited by J.C. Johari. New Delhi: Akashdeep Publishing House, 1993.

301
Wacha, Dinshaw E. "Indian Abkari Administration, Being Notes on the Despatch of the Government of India, Relating to the System of Licenses for the Distillation and Sale of Spiritous Liquors in Force in the Various Provinces of India, Presented to the House of Commons on 4th August 1887." Bombay: Bombay Gazette Steam Press, 1888. Wedderburn, William. "Letter to D. Naoroji." In Dadabhai Naoroji, 1. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Library, 1895. Whitworth, George Clifford. An Anglo-Indian Dictionary: A Glossary of Indian Terms Used in English, and of Such English or Other Non-Indian Terms as Have Obtain Special Meanings in India. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1885. Willard, Frances K. The India Temperance Record and the White Ribbon XVI, no. 3 (January, 1922 1922). Woman's Board of Missions. "Life and Light for Woman." [Boston: Woman's Board of Missions, 1922. Woolley, John Granville & William Eugene Johnson. Temperance Progress in the Century. London: Linscott Publishing Company, 1903. Xavier, V.E., Inspector of Salt and Excise, Byculla. "Letter." In Home Department, Special, Bombay, 2. Mumbai: Maharashtra State Archives, 1921.

Secondary Sources: Articles, Books, and Dissertations Alam, Anwar. "'Scholarly Islam' and 'Everyday Islam': Reflections on the Debate over Integration of the Muslim Minority in India and Western Europe." Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 27, no. 2 (2007): 19. Alter, Joseph S. "Somatic nationalism: Indian wrestling and militant Hinduism." Modern Asian Studies 28, no. 3 (1994): 557-88. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities : Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1983. Bayly, C. A. Empire and Information : Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780-1870, Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society ;. Cambridge, [England] ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Burton, Antoinette M. Burdens of History : British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865-1915. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1994. Carroll, Lucy. "Origins of the Kayastha Temperance Movement." Indian Economic and Social History Review 11, no. 4 (January 1974): 15.

302
. "The Temperance Movement in India: Politics and Social Reform." Modern Asian Studies 10, no. 3 (1976): 30. Chandra, Bipan. India's Struggle for Independence, 1857-1947. [New Delhi, India]: Viking, 1988. Chatterjee, Partha. "Colonialism, Nationalism, and Colonialized Women: The Contest in India." American Ethnologist 16, no. 4 (November 1989): 11. . The Nation and Its Fragments : Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. . Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse. Tokyo: United Nations University, 1986. Chatterjee, Prasun. "The Lives of Alcohol in Pre-Colonial India." The Medieval Journal 8, no. 1 (2005): 36. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. "Of Garbage, Modernity and the Citizen's Gaze." Economic and Political Weekly 27, no. 10/11 (March 7-14 1992): 6. Chand, Tek. The Liquor Menace in India. New Delhi: Gandhi Peace Foundation, 1972. Chaturvedi, Vinayak. Peasant Pasts: History and Memory in Western India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. Cohn, Bernard S. Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India, Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996. Colpus, Eve. "Slack, Agnes Elizabeth (1858-1946)." In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Cox, Jeffrey. Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India, 1818-1940. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002. Cumpston, Mary. "Some Early Indian Nationalists and Their Allies in the British Parliament, 18511906." The English Historical Review 76, no. 299 (1961): 279-97. Dagg, Anne Innis. The Feminine Gaze: A Canadian Compendium of Non-Fiction Women Authors and Their Books, 1836-1945. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001. Dalrymple, William. Nine Lives : In Search of the Sacred in Modern India. 1st U.S. ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts : El Nio Famines and the Making of the Third World. London ; New York: Verso, 2001. Desai, Sapur Feredun. History of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet, 1860-1960. Bombay: Trustees of the Parsi Punchayet Funds and Properties, 1977. Dube, Saurabh. Untouchable Pasts : Religion, Identity, and Power among a Central Indian Community, 1780-1950, Suny Series in Hindu Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.

303
E.G. "Nicol Macnicol." International Review of Missions 41, no. 3 (July 1952): 3. Enthoven, Reginald Edward. The Tribes and Castes of Bombay, Native Races of India. Delhi: Cosmo Publications, 1922. Fahey, David M. Temperance and Racism : John Bull, Johnny Reb, and the Good Templars. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 1996. . "Temperance and the Liberal Party - Lord Peel's Report, 1899." Journal of British Studies 10, no. 2 (1971): 132-59. Fisher, Frederick, B. "Tarini Prasad Sinha." edited by University of Iowa, 1950. Fischer-Tine, Harald. Low and Licentious Europeans: Race, Class and 'White Subalternity' in Colonial India. Edited by Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Peter Cain, Mark Harrison and Michael Worboys, New Perspectives in South Asian History. New Delhi: Black Swan, 2010. Glaser, John F. "English Nonconformity and the Decline of Liberalism." The American Historical Review 63, no. 2 (1958): 352-63. Hardiman, David. "Baroda: The Structure of a 'Progressive' State." In People, Princes, and Paramount Power: Society and Politics in the Indian Princely States, edited by Robin Jeffrey. 107-35. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978. India, Government of. Report of the Prohibition Enquiry Committee 1954-55. Delhi: Government of India Press, 1955. Guha, Ranajit. "Chandra's Death." In Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian History and Society, edited by Ranajit Guha. 135-65. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998. . "Colonialism in South Asia." In Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India. xvii, 245 p. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. . "On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India." In Subaltern Studies I, edited by Ranajit Guha, 1-8. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982. Habib, Irfan. "Gandhi and the National Movement." Social Scientist 23, no. 4/6 (April-June, 1995 1995): 12. Hardiman, David. Feeding the Baniya : Peasants and Usurers in Western India. Delhi ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Heron, Craig. Booze : A Distilled History. Toronto, Ont.: Between the Lines, 2003. Hobsbawm, Eric. "Introduction: Inventing Tradition." Chap. 1 In The Invention of Tradition, edited by Eric Hobsbawn & Terrence Ranger. 1-14. London: Cambridge, 1983. India, Government of. Report of the Prohibition Enquiry Committee 1954-55. Delhi: Government of India Press, 1955. Itzigsohn, Jose & Matthias vom Hau. "Unfinished Imagined Communities: States, Social Movements, and Nationalism in Latin America." Theory and Society 35, no. 2 (April 2006): 19.

304
Jayawardena, Kumari. The White Woman's Other Burden : Western Women and South Asia During British Colonial Rule. New York: Routledge, 1995. Johnson, Gordon. Provincial Politics and Indian Nationalism: Bombay and the Indian National Congress, 1880-1915. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Kasturi, Leela, and Vina Mazumdar. Women and Indian Nationalism. Vikas Publishing House, 1994. Kerr, K. Austin. "Organizing for Reform: The Anti-Saloon League and Innovation in Politics." American Quarterly 32, no. 1 (Spring 1980): 37-53. King, Richard. Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and 'the Mystic East'. London: Routledge, 1999. Kothari, Rajni. Politics in India. Boston: Little, 1970. Kumar, Radha. The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women's Rights and Feminism in India, 1800-1990. Delhi: Kali for Women, 1993. Larsson, Marie-Louise. 'When Women Unite!': The Making of the Anti-Liquor Movement in Andhra Pradesh, India. Stockholm: Stockholm Universitet, 2006. Low, D. A. Congress and the Raj: Facets of the Indian Struggle, 1917-47. London, Eng.: ArnoldHeinemann, 1977. . "Introduction: The Climactic Years, 1917-1947." In Congress and the Raj: Facets of the Indian Struggle, 1917-1947, edited by D. A. Low, 14. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004. Reprint, 2nd. Lutgendorf, Philip. The Life of a Text: Performing the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Manian, David Fahey & Padma. "Poverty and Purification: The Politics of Gandhi's Campaign for Prohibition." Historian 67, no. 3 (2005): 18. McAlpin, Michelle Burge. Subject to Famine : Food Crises and Economic Change in Western India, 1860-1920. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. Michalic, Laurence. "Alcohol and Islam: An Overview." Contemporary Drug Problems 33, no. 4 (2006): 40. Mills, Sara. "Gender and Colonial Space." Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 3, no. 2 (1996): 125-48. Munshi, Indra. "On Drinking and 'Drunkenness': History of Liquor in Colonial India." In State Intervention and Popular Response: Western India in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Mariam & Ruby Maloni Dossal, 127-46. Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1999. Nandy, Ashis. "Culture, State and the Rediscovery of Indian Politics." Economic and Polical Weekly 19, no. 49 (8th December 1984): 5.

305
. The Romance of the State and the Fate of Dissent in the Tropics. New Delhi ; Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. O'Hanlon, Rosalind. Caste, Conflict, and Ideology : Mahatma Jotirao Phule and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth-Century Western India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Okrent, Daniel. Last Call : The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. First Scribner hardcover ed. New York: Scribner, 2010. Porter, A. N. Religion Versus Empire? : British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700-1914. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. Prakash, Gyan. "Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historiography." Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, no. 2 (April 1990): 25. Rajan, Vithal. "The Natives Continue to Be Restless." Economic and Political Weekly 44, no. 2 (2009): 15-17. Ramusack, Barbara. "From Symbol to Diversity: The Historical Literature on Women in India." South Asia Research 10, no. 2 (1990): 18. Rokkan, Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein. "Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignments." In Oxford Readings in Politics and Government, edited by Peter Mair. 91-138. Oxford England ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Ross, Jeffrey Ian, and Larry Allen Gould. "Native Americans and the Criminal Justice System." xv, 273 p. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm Publishers, 2006. Sadangi, H.C. Emancipation of Dalits and the Freedom Struggle. Delhi: Isha Books, 2008. Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1979. Saldanha, Indra Munshi. "On Drinking and 'Drunkenness': History of Liquor in Colonial India." Economic and Polical Weekly 30, no. 37 (1995): 9. Sarkar, Sumit. Modern India 1885-1947. Delhi: Macmillan India, 1983. Sarkar, Sumit. Writing Social History. Delhi ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Schwartz, Joan M. and Terry Cook. "Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory." Archival Science 2 (2002): 19. Scott, James C. Seeing Like a State : How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press, 1998. Sengupta, Subodh Chandra & Anjali Bose, ed. Sansad Bangali Charitabhidhan (Bengali Biographical Dictionary). Vol. I. Kolkata: Sahitya Samsad, 1998. Sinha, Mrinalini. Colonial Masculinity : The 'Manly Englishman' and the 'Effeminate Bengali' in the Late Nineteenth Century. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995.

306
Spodek, Howard. "Pluralist Politics in British India: The Cambridge Cluster of Historians of Modern India." American Historical Review 84, no. 3 (June 1979): 19. Srinivas, M. N. The Oxford India Srinivas. New Delhi ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Srinivas, Mysore Narasimhachar. Caste in Modern India, and Other Essays. Bombay, New York,: Asia Pub. House, 1962. Stanley, Brian. The Bible and the Flag: Protestant Missions and British Imperialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Leicester, England: Apollos, 1990. Stansell, Christine. The Feminist Promise : 1792 to the Present. 1st ed. New York: Modern Library. Tejani, Shabnum. Indian Secularism : A Social and Intellectual History, 1890-1950. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2008. Tyrrell, Ian R. Reforming the World: The Creation of America's Moral Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. Tyrrell, Ian R. Woman's World/Woman's Empire : The Woman's Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1800-1930. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Tyrrell, Ian R., David M. Fahey, and Jack S. Blocker. Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History : An International Encyclopedia. 2 vols Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2003. Valverde, Mariana. ""Racial Poison": Drink, Male Vice, and Degeneration in First Wave Feminism." In Women's Suffrage in the British Empire, edited by Ian Christopher Fletcher, Laura E. Nym Mayhall & Philippa Levine, 33-50. New York: Routledge, 2000. Watson, Nick, Stuart Weir and Stephen Friend. "The Development of Muscular Christianity in Victorian Britain and Beyond." Journal of religion & society JRS (2005).