the temperance movement in india: politics and social reform

The Temperance Movement in India: Politics and Social ReformAuthor(s): Lucy CarrollSource: Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1976), pp. 417-447Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/311914 .

Accessed: 24/05/2014 10:26

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ModernAsian Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 87.247.92.64 on Sat, 24 May 2014 10:26:12 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup

http://www.jstor.org/stable/311914?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Moder Asian Studies, 10, 3 (1976), pp. 417-447. Printed in Great Britain.

The Temperance Movement in India: Politics and Social Reform

LUCY CARROLL

University of California, Berkeley

THE temperance/prohibition agitation represents a fascinating chapter in the social and political history of India which has been largely ignored. If any notice is taken of this movement, it is generally dismissed

(or elevated) as an example of the uniquely Indian process of 'sanskritization' or as an equally unique component of 'Gandhianism'-in

spite of the fact that the liquor question has not been without political importance in the history either of England or of the United States.1 And in spite of the fact that the temperance2 agitation in India in the late nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century was

intimately connected with temperance agitation in England.3 Indeed, the temperance movement in India was organized, patronized, and instructed by English temperance agitators.

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

1 'Prohibition, a Sanskritic value [,] has been written into the Constitution of the Republic of India, and the Congress Governments in all the States have introduced it wholly or partly in their respective areas.' (M. N. Srinivas, Caste in Modern India (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, I970), p. 49.) A similar 'sanskritic value' was, of course, written into the Constitution of the United States in 1919. In the same essay Srinivas states: 'Though the scholarly tradition of the Brahmins placed them in a favourable position for obtaining the new knowledge, in certain other matters they were the most handicapped in the race for Westernization. This was especially so in the South where the large majority of them were vegetarians and abstained from alcoholic liquor.' (Ibid., p. 5I.) This amusing dichotomy highlights the continuing definitional problems associated with the use of the terms 'sanskritization' and 'westernization': here liquor and meat appear the criteria of 'westernization' while teetotalism and vegetarianism appear the criteria of 'sanskritization.'

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

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

417



In 1887-88 William S. Caine (I842-I903)-a Liberal Member of Parliament and a philanthropist 'of old puritan and non-conformist antecedents'4 with twenty years' experience in temperance work in

England5-visited India on a world tour. He was greeted in Bombay by a deputation 'consisting of some of the leading gentlemen of that

city' who 'expressed a strong desire that some organisation should be formed in England with a view to parliamentary action, and also for the purpose of promoting and guiding an agitation throughout India for Temperance reform.'6 The deputation had chosen their man wisely and Caine threw himself into the cause of temperance in India with the same intensity and enthusiasm that had characterized his zealous activities in England. 'I made some further enquiries into the matter, and convinced myself that India was threatened with all the evil results of the drink traffic with which we in this country are so familiar.'7

Immediately upon his return to England, Caine convened a small

gathering of Liberal politicians and temperance advocates in the London residence of Samuel Smith, M.P. The group constituted itself into the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association-an Association, Caine

explained to Indian audiences, 'not of Anglo-Indians but of Englishmen and Indians'8-with Smith as president and Caine as honorary secretary. Virtually the first official act of the newly-formed organization was to depute Caine to conduct a lecturing tour in India to stir

up temperance sentiment and organize branch societies to be affiliated with the London-based Association.9

Caine invited Reverend Thomas Evans, a retired Baptist missionary residing in Mussoorie, to accompany him on his tour; the invitation was readily accepted. A veteran of thirty years' missionary work in India, Evans was fluent in Hindustani and a dramatic, effective speaker. It was Evans' linguistic ability that had induced Caine (who knew no Indian language) to seek his assistance on the tour. But Caine found to his astonishment that the meetings they addressed were attended by

4 Indian People, March 27, I903. 5 'For over twenty years he has been the president of the Liverpool Temperance

Union, he is president of the Baptist Temperance Union, and he is a vice-president of the United Kingdom Alliance, the British Temperance League, and the National Temperance League. Of the Hand-in-Hand Club, which promoted the cocoa-room movement, now in operation so extensively throughout the country, he was the pro- moter and, for some time, the secretary. At his mines in Cumberland he has built a temperance hall, and, in connection with it, maintains a missionary for the benefit of his employees.' (Abkari, July I890, p. 28.)

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

7 Ibid. 8 Lahore Tribune, December 15, I888. 9 Abkari, July 1890, pp. 29-30.

4I8 LUCY CARROLL



THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT IN INDIA

Indians who understood English quite as well as they did the vernacular.

Mr. Evans, as usual, addressed the meeting first in their vernacular, and I followed in English. This has been our custom everywhere, though in almost every instance these huge meetings have understood my English as well as Mr. Evans' vernacular. Nothing surprises me more in this wonderful country than the extraordinary knowledge of English which is being acquired by millions of young men all over India.10

Evans' services as interpreter and co-lecturer soon proved superfluous under the circumstances, and the two parted company in order to cover more territory and address twice as many audiences. As a result of this first tour in the cold season of 1888-89 'more than 40 native temperance associations' were formed and affiliated to the Anglo-Indian Tem-

perance Association.1l Evans toured alone in winter I889-90; the

following winter saw both Caine and Evans again in the field. During the 1890-91 tours Caine estimated that they had together addressed 'at least 300,000 Indians, all of whom are ... sufficiently educated to

thoroughly understand the English language.' 'The net result of our work since our Association was called into existence in your drawing room three years ago,' he wrote to Smith, 'has been the formation of

upwards of Ioo satisfactory Temperance Societies throughout India, the great majority of which would never otherwise have been called into existence.'12

Given his long association with temperance agitation in England where the question was a political one at least as much as a moral one and where temperance advocates had long believed that governmental regulation was more efficacious than unaided individual self-discipline in the face of temptation, it is not surprising that Caine immediately viewed the Indian situation in largely political terms. He politicized the temperance issue in India and his success in doing this accounts in

very large measure for the popularity that the cause enjoyed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 'There was a time when the

Temperance problem was looked upon in India as more a social and moral than a political question,' Bipin Chandra Pal wrote in I899.

1o India as Seen by W. S. Caine (Lucknow, I889), p. 44. '[T]here is not a town of 50,000 inhabitants in India where I can not obtain ... an audience to hear a Tem- perance or political address in English, certain that every point and argument will be as keenly taken up as it would be in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester.' (Abkari, April 1897, p. 38.)

11 Abkari, July 890, p. 30. 12 Ibid., April I89I, p. 104. Although Evans toured North India on behalf of the

Anglo-Indian Temperance Association almost annually during the I89os, Caine did not return to India until his tour of I896-97.

4I9



LUCY CARROLL

'But this mis-representation has now been removed, and year after year the Indian National Congress reiterates its condemnation of the Excise

policy of the Indian Government, and the Provincial Conferences also

annually discuss it at their meetings.' This change of perspective Bipin Chandra Pal attributed 'to the visits of the Honorary Secretary of the

Anglo-Indian Temperance Association [W. S. Caine] to India.'13 By carrying the issue to the political plane and urging pressure on the

government in regard to its excise policy-a policy which he characterized as one ignoring higher moral considerations for the sake of increased revenues obtained at the cost of the demoralization of the Indian people- Caine gave the Congress another plank in its moral indictment of British rule and won himself allies and supporters in his cause. During his initial temperance tour in the winter of I888, Caine made a point of

attending the Allahabad session of the Indian National Congress. At a time when Congress was viewed with open disfavor by the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces` and Oudh, Caine lauded the session as 'one of the most impressive sights ... . have ever seen.'14 'The 4,ooo persons in the Congress Hall are in every respect equal in intelligence, culture, and education to our own middle class in England, and it will be impossible for any length of time to

deny them the modest share in the government of the country which they demand.'15 For the first time, and in his presence, the Congress re-

cognized alcohol as a subject fit for inclusion in its political programme, rather than one more appropriately confined to the deliberations of the National Social Conference.16

The meetings that Caine and Evans addressed during their initial temperance tour of 1888-89 were convened and organized by Congress supporters or missionaries (and particularly missionaries connected with educational institutions). Evans had the

missionary contacts:

My beloved Missionary Brethren have, with but one or two solitary exceptions, received me with open arms and aided my work with loving hearts, and to them all I would return sincere thanks.... I am indebted to Mis- sionary Brethren of all denominations I have met with, during my travels, for much of the opportunities, and of the success of my temperance campaign, and I always feel that if I only have an earnest missionary to back up the

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

14 India As Seen by W. S. Caine, p. 62; Englishman, January I4, I889. 15 India As Seen by W. S. Caine, p. 52. 16 The resolution was moved by D. E. Wacha (Bombay), who congratulated the

420




work it is almost sure to succeed, and that without them I can do but little real or lasting work.17

And Caine rapidly acquired the Congress contacts. The annual report of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association in I890 expressed 'gratification at the assistance rendered to our movement by the Indian National Congress, and its branches throughout the Indian Empire. The practical help given by their representatives in all the great centres of population, to [Mr. Caine] and Mr. Evans during their tour in the winter of I888-89 and to Mr. Evans during his prolonged tour last winter, has been very great. With one or two rare exceptions the whole cost of our meetings in India have been borne by Congress representatives and their friends.'18

The appreciation was mutual. Caine immediately won the warm accolades of the English-educated by his endorsement of the Indian National Congress, and his standing in their eyes was only increased

by the attacks levelled at him by the Pioneer and the Englishman, the latter demanding in 1889 that he be fined and sent home as an 'inter-

loper' under an old John Company law.19 Congress supporters were

only too glad to have another M.P. or two on their side, especially ones who could effectively score points against the Indian government as Smith and Caine did in their motion on the Indian Excise administration-moved in April i889, shortly after Caine's return from his first temperance tour; opposed by the Under Secretary, 'who rightly characterised the resolution as a very severe vote of censure on the Government of India'; and carried by a majority of ten votes.20 In its 1889 session the Congress unanimously passed a resolution declaring its 'sincere thanks to Messrs. Caine and Smith, and the members who voted with them in connection with the debate on the Excise question in the House of Commons.'21 Caine repeatedly demonstrated a knack for dramatically identifying himself with issues of concern to his India Congress 'on this new departure in its programme' and lauded the work of Samuel Smith, Rev. T. Evans, and W. S. Caine. Caine, who was present, was honored with 'continued cheers' when his name was mentioned. (Report of the Fourth Indian National Congress held at Allahabad, i888, pp. 60-3.)

17 Abkari, April 1891, p. 120. 18 Ibid., July 890, pp. 31-2. 19 Englishman, January 15, I889. The Lahore Tribune said of Caine in 1896: 'He

is very cordially disliked in official and non-official circles, which is a great compli- ment to his power and perseverity.' (July 22, 1896.)

20 Abkari, July I890, p. 30. 21 Ibid., July I890, p. 32. The resolution was moved by Rev. G. M. Cobban,

Madras; seconded by Dinsha Eduljee Wacha, Bombay; and supported by Rev. R. A. Hume, Deccan, and Rev. T. Evans-i.e., three of the four people who spoke to the resolution were missionaries.

42I



public and for framing the temperance question in terms that appealed to Congressmen. In I893, for instance, he suggested to the Congress a resolution which called upon the Government of India to 'suppress the common sale of alcohol, opium, hemp drugs, and other intoxicants, and so cease to derive any portion of its revenues from the vice, de-

gradation, and misery of the people'; the resolution went on to propose that the government might recoup immediately the financial losses that would be entailed in thus abolishing the abkari revenues 'by the wider employment of Indians in the civil and military service of the

Empire.'22 Caine found the mixture of Congress and temperance congenial to his

personal style and profitable in terms of the support he was able to thus

engender for the temperance cause. In announcing the proposed itinerary for his I896-97 tour of India he requested the officers of the

temperance societies to confer with those of the Congress in the various localities he would be visiting and suggested that he would 'be glad to make one meeting serve both causes, as I have done with good effect in previous journeys.'23 As a result of these joint meetings, Caine was elected a delegate to the Congress session 'by no less than seventeen Indian constituencies' and returned to England with the impression that '[n]early all the active men in the Indian Temperance movement are "Congress,"' while 'half the [Congress] delegates are members of the different branches of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association.'24 A few years later, Bipin Chandra Pal, an honorary lecturer for the

Anglo-Indian Temperance Association in Bengal, went to England to

study at a Unitarian seminary and spent much of his time keeping temperance lectures arranged from him by Caine. On his return to India he contributed an article to the Kayastha Samachar on his ex-

periences in England. These had, he wrote, convinced him

of the duty and wisdom of utilising the innumerable Temperance organisations in the United Kingdom for educating the British electorate not only in Temperance matters, but in the general questions of present-day Indian

22 Abkari, October 1893, pp. I49-50. The Pioneer said of this suggestion: 'Here is an Englishman who does not stop to consider what hurt the Empire might suffer, or what loss his countrymen might sustain, were natives substituted for Europeans to the extent he suggests in the civil and military services. He merely wants the Congress vote for a particular purpose, and he offers as a bribe unlimited loot in the shape of a wholesale distribution of Government offices and emoluments.' (November 8, I893.)

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

23 Abkari, October 1896, p. 99. 24 Ibid., April I897, pp. 48, 50.

422 LUCY CARROLL




politics. So far we have only worked through the liberal organisations in England in propagating our ideas among the British public, but we can do so with less cost and perhaps even greater effect, through these Temperance organisations, which are manned by the most honest, earnest, and enthusias- tic body of men to be found anywhere, whether in England or out of it.25

The annual meetings of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association, held in London, were 'largely attended by members of the Indian

community' and addressed by such individuals as Dadabhai Naoroji Surendranath Banerji, G. K. Gokhale, Romesh Chandra Dutt, Lajpat Rai, Ameer Ali, and C. F. Andrews.26

Clearly, the merger of temperance and politics paid dividends both to the English temperance agitators and the Indian political agitators. Clearly also, Anglo-Indian interests viewed the merger as fraught with

danger. Reporting Caine'sJanuary 1889 Calcutta speech before 'a very large meeting almost entirely of Bengalis' and chaired by Surendranath Banerji, the Englishman noted with alarm, anger, and fear the emerging alliance. 'It was significant of Mr. Caine's meeting how this offer of

co-operation in Parliament between, on the one hand, the party for whom he was acting and speaking, and on the other hand, the agitating classes in India was welcomed. His allusion to the late Congress at

Allahabad, which he had attended, was also received with marked fervour....' 'It was distinctly noticeable,' the Englishman continued, that if there was any enthusiasm exhibited on behalf of temperance, there was much more manifestation of feeling when any point appeared to be made as specially telling against the action of Government and its officers. It is a matter for serious consideration whether any Government, situated as ours is in India, can afford to allow a spirit of insubordination to be planted and disseminated in a receptive soil by the modern class of parliamentary agitators.27 The officers of government were also suspicious. During his tour of

I889-90 Evans addressed a meeting at Monghyr, where he had served for several years as 'agent of the Baptist Missionary Society.' 'At the

meeting I was honoured by the official attendance of the deputy magis- trate and the police, to take note of everything I said. It is something new to me to be watched as a dangerous character, under magisterial and police supervision. It is very amusing that a humble temperance lecturer should be looked upon as in any way a danger to the State.'28

Besides the Congress, Caine and Evans also found allies in the Brahmo 25 Kayastha Samachar, IV, July 190I, pp. 38-9. 26 Frederick Grubb, Fifty rears' Work for India: My Temperance Jubilee (London:

H. J. Rowley and Sons, Ltd, I942), p. 6. 27 Englishman, January I4, 15, 1889. 28 David Hooper (ed.), A Welshman in India. A Record of the Life of Thomas Evans,

Missionary (London: James Clark and Co., 1908), p. 184.

423



LUCY CARROLL

Samaj, the Arya Samaj, and Christian organizations (particularly mission-run schools and colleges). Indeed, they claimed credit for

bringing the Aryas and the Brahmos actively into the temperance agitation. 'It is a matter of congratulation to the [Anglo-Indian] Temperance Association that it has been able to secure the sympathy of the Ayra Samaj,' Evans wrote in 1893. '[T]his is the first time that the Arya Samaj, as a body, has identified its sympathy with another

society which is out of its own pale.'29 A few years later Caine addressed a large gathering in the Brahmo Samaj Church in Calcutta and re-

ported: 'The Brahmo Samaj . . . have, as a result of my visit, decided to make the Temperance movement an integral and important part of their aggressive work in India, appointing travelling lecturers, &c.'30

Besides overseeing the initial formation of the branch societies dur-

ing their tours, Caine and Evans maintained a close hand in the

organization and functioning of the branches, replacing officers when

they proved delinquent in the performance of their duties, reorganizing societies which had lapsed into inactivity, engaging and dismissing lecturers, integrating the local branches into provincial associations, etc.31 The Anglo-Indian Temperance Association clearly viewed itself as midwife to the birth of an Indian temperance movement- and as not merely midwife but also nurse and tutor. '[D]uring the

infancy of the movement it is necessary to stimulate as far as possible the activity of the newly-formed Societies, and for many years to come the movement will require careful nursing from England.'32 Partly owing to the necessity of overseeing the various organizational matters and partly because of the interest and enthusiasm that visits by foreign speakers seemed capable of arousing, the annual visits of Caine, Evans, or other representatives of the London Association were essential to the maintenance of a minimal level of activity in the branch societies. 'Of one thing I feel deeply,' Evans stressed in the report of his 1893-94 tour, 'and that is this; that all our branches require a personal visit every year to stir them up to the needful point of enthusiasm. .. .'33

The methods and role of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association are cogently illustrated by the following extracts from Evans' diary of his 1890-91 tour in North India.

I find it most advantageous to get hold of the leaders of the people personally and set before them their individual responsibility to the cause of temper-

29 Abkari, April I893, p. 87. 30 Ibid., April I897, p. 46. 31 E.g., ibid., April 189I, pp. IOI-4, I I9-20; July I891, p. I58; April 1895, p. 54;

April I897, pp. 45-6; July I899, p. 88. 32 Ibid., July 1891, p. 132. 33 Ibid., July I894, p. 113.

424




ance, as well as get them to promise to advocate both by example and pre- cept the work of total abstinence.

This I was able to do by a stay of a few days at each place and visiting the men of light and leading in the various stations, and I am glad to be able to

say that with a few rare exceptions, I found all the best and foremost men of native society I spoke to, most ready to help in the crusade we now carry on against the demon drink in India, and it is no small point gained to be able to form a personal acquaintance with such influential members of

society in India. I am happy to be able to say that I have been able to get not a few of those who were given to drinking habits to abstain and to come out as the advocates of temperance, and this I consider to have been one of the good results of personal visits during my stay at various stations, which after all is of greater value than a public meeting, the applause and excite- ment of which too often pass away as the rustle of a breeze through the forest, with little or no practical effect.

NEW SOCIETIES FORMED.-Yea, and I may add, old ones organised too hastily revived. I found not a few of the societies I had, in the course of a

passing meeting before hastily organised in a moribund state and I was glad of time to lay a deeper and firmer foundation, while not a few new associations were also organised.... I would here just enumerate the new Temperance Societies organised during my late tour.

PUNJAB.-LAHORE.-One Students Society, and one for the Kayastha community, both with some 200 members....

AMRITSAR.-Here the Society was reorganised and I21 pledges taken. LODHIANA.-Here also I had to reorganise and 63 took the pledge. AMBALLA.-Here I started two new Societies. One in the city with 8I

members, and another in Cantonments-5 miles away-with 50 members. SAHARANPORE.-Here the society formed last year, had an addition

this year of over 0oo members, making now in all about 200. Also a new society formed for students and [an]other [for] native Christians with 50 members.

MOORADABAD.-Visited for the first time[;] new society... formed with 55 members.

BAREILLY.-Visited for the fifth time, and organised two new societies- one for the city people, when over 2oo00 took the pledge; and the other at the Government College, where I50 students joined.

LUCKNOW.-In addition to the Association already formed here before, I organised a new students' society, and 300 names were given at two meetings. I also started a new "Kayastha Temperance Club" here in addition to the other city Kayastha Society. Thirty joined the club.

FYZABAD.-Here I found a host of help in the Rev. Mr. Elliott. We had two great meetings, and a society was formed, including the leading men of the place as well as others. Mr. Elliott will also start a students' society and branches in the towns around....

GAYA.-My first visit to this station. A new society was formed with 40 members.

PATNA.-Mr. Caine and I had to organise a new association here, as we found the former one had done nothing. Over Ioo joined.

425



LUCY CARROLL

ALLAHABAD.-Organised a new society in the Kutra Mission, when some I50 took the pledge.

CAWNPORE.-New Society organised and I64 took the pledge. AGRA.-St. John's College: Reorganised the students' society; 200

names enrolled. Also a new students' society for the Agra College, with over a hundred pledges. Formed a new Kayastha society in the city school, which started with over a hundred members.

MUTTRA.-Two new societies formed here. One for the city community, when over 0oo joined, and the other for the Kayasthas with some 40 names.

MEERUT.-Here also two new societies were organised, one for all castes, and another for the Kayastha community. In all some 200 took pledges.

DEHRA DOON.-A new society formed for the native community, when over 200 joined.34

The London Association provided the branches with suggested bye-laws and rules, with pledge cards and literature, and expected them 'to hold regular meetings, to translate suitable Temperance tracts and articles from Abkari [the journal of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association] into the vernacular, to visit their surrounding villages, to submit memorials to Government against the opening of fresh liquor shops, and generally to foster the growth of a sound

Temperance sentiment among the people.'35 Secretaries of branch societies were required to submit regular reports of the branch's

programme and progress to the London secretary; many of these

reports were published in Abkari. To further temperance propaganda in India, the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association engaged salaried Indian lecturers (e.g. Shyam Kishore Varma, Allahabad; Mahant Kesho Ram Roy, Benares; Bipin Chandra Pal, Calcutta); provided lecturers with magic lanterns and slides; and equipped branch societies with 'select libraries of about Ioo volumes.'36 'The students are eager readers of Temperance literature and there are hundreds of young men in the schools and colleges of India who would become eloquent Temperance advocates if they had at their command the necessary material for mastering the subject matter of their speeches';37 unfor-

tunately, there was 'nothing published in India to help them.'38 The literature provided by the London Association was 'greatly appreciated and thoroughly used.'39 During his tour in I890-9I Caine 'heard a student deliver a splendid speech, which I thought I had listened to before, when suddenly it flashed across me that its author was Dr. Richardson. I challenged the young man with this, and he said, "I know three of his books by heart."'40

34 Abkari, April 89 I, pp. 19-20. 35 Ibid., July 1900, p. 83. 36 Ibid., July 1891, p. 132. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid., July 1893, p. I 09. 39 Ibid., July I89I, p. 132. 4 Ibid., April I89I, p. I 2.

426




The quarterly organ of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association, Abkari, was distributed free to all branch societies, 'as well as to every editor, reading room and club throughout India' ;41 its circulation was maintained at approximately 3,000. Branch societies were encouraged to translate appropriate articles from the journal into vernacular tracts and the Indian press frequently summarized or reprinted its articles. In addition, commencing in 1900 the editor of Abkari, Frederick Grubb, authored a column on temperance and temperance agitation in England and India which was carried by the major Indian-edited

newspapers.42 The nature of the audiences that they attracted during their first two

temperance tours of India (Caine and Evans, 1888-89; Evans, I889-90) convinced Caine and Evans of the desirability of conferring special attention and patronage upon student groups. The annual report of the

honorary secretary in 1890 suggested raising a special fund of ?500 (over and above the ?400 estimated to cover all other expenses of the

Association) 'for the purpose of developing the Students' Total Ab- stinence Society.' Such a programme, the secretary urged, 'would be a means of turning out a force of reformers during the next few years that would have a marked effect for good on the future of our Indian Em-

pire'; 'there is no proposal before the Temperance public to-day by which such vast result might be secured for so small an amount of

money.'43 The full amount of funding requested for student work was

apparently not forthcoming; nevertheless, the reports of the various

temperance societies published in the Abkari and the notes of Caine and Evans on the societies which they organized repeatedly comment on the fact that 'the work is taken up with greater vigour and earnestness by the students of the High Schools and Colleges of India than by any other class of the community' ;44 that the members of the Indian temperance societies were 'drawn from young university men' ;45 and that 'graduates and students of the universities... have been the backbone of our movement from the start.'46 'Our society has no more useful branches than these various students' and university societies, which under its

41 Ibid., July 1893, p. I09. 42 In his memoirs Grubb paid 'a warm tribute to the Indian Press... for the

unwavering support which they have always given to the temperance movement generally,' particularly mentioning the Hindu and the Tribune (Fifty rears' Work for India, p. I8).

43 Abkari, July I890, pp. 32, 33. 44 Ibid., July I891, p. 131. 45 Ibid., July 1893, p. I09. 46 Ibid., July I894, p. 86. Among the names mentioned in this report as examples of

such young men are Oudh Behari Lal and Madan Mohan Malaviya.

427



428 LUCY CARROLL

auspices have been established in so many of the large cities of India. It is very gratifying to me,' Caine wrote in 1897, 'to find that the young men who have been active members in them are now turning up as

equally active members of the societies in towns and districts where

they have settled, after taking their degrees[,] as lawyers, doctors, or Government servants.'47

While good use was made in temperance propaganda of the fact that students who were members of temperance societies inevitably passed their examinations with credit,48 the student composition of many of the temperance clubs and societies produced complications. One such

complication became apparent when Association lecturers making the rounds of affiliated branch societies tried to locate a society listed in the Abkari.

The lecturer, when he reaches a place, and tries to find out the abodes of the officers whose names are given in the ABKARI, has often to spend three or four days in going about from street to street, and mohalla to mohalla, without being any the wiser upon the subject of his search. In many cases he finds out, after all his efforts, that the officers whose names appear on the concluding pages of the ABKARI were formerly students at some school in the place against which their names figure; that they have since got appointed to some office elsewhere, or that their guardians have removed to some other place....49

Many of the temperance clubs and societies were off-shoots of student

literary clubs and these origins were apparent, for instance, in the

temperance literature produced by the societies. The very active Amritsar Temperance Society was particularly distinguished for its

highly successful attempts to popularize the temperance cause through exploitation of dramatic and literary forms. 'According to a resolution of the society the members tried to write different kinds of books in the various branches of the literature,' the branch secretary's report noted in 1894.

47 Abkari, April 1897, p. 42. Student activists, however, did not always maintain their temperance activities after leaving school. Rev. Ewing, president of the Punjab Total Abstinence Association, Lahore, in his speech on the occasion of the eighth anniversary of the Association, 'having expressed his delight at the large audience present, alluded to a curious fact that it was the students generally that largely attended these meetings, but that in their after life they generally lost all interest in such movements, and he asked, where are the Tahsildars, the Munsiffs, and the Head Clerks, &c. ?' (Ibid., July 1892, p. 31.) At least as far as the Tahsildars, the Munsiffs, and the Head Clerks were concerned, part of the reason for their defection must have been that as employees of government they were hesitant to participate in a movement the government regarded as suspiciously political. (See below, pp. 430-3.)

48 Abkari, April i892, p. 89. Report of the Seventh National Social Conference, 1893 (Poona, 1894), p. 139. 49 Abkari, Oct. 1898, p. 135.



THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT IN INDIA 429 The following novels, short stories, &c., were prepared by the different members of the society:- I. Sharabi-ki-Biwi ("Drunkard's Wife") of which the Civil and Military Gazette, dated February 2nd 1893, says: 'The tale with a moral or purpose is strictly in favour with the natives as in the "Drunkard's Wife" from Amritsar, the story of a drunkard who squandered away all his fortunes in drinking and brought about his premature death.'... 2. Sharabi-ka-Beta ("Drunkard's Son") ... 3. Sharabi-ka-Yar ("Drunkard's Friend"). It is... far away the best... account of the discussion between the drunkard and his friend about the different vices to be reformed, such as alcohol, Nautch, child marriage, and other social reforms.... 4. Sharabi-ki-Amman ("Drunkard's Mother"). An admirable novelette by the same author, who has adapted the commentary of the Temperance Mission with great skill to the requirements and capacities of the readers to whom the series is addressed. 5. Darus-Sarur ("The Public House"). A drama after Shakespear... [which] contains everything desired for Temperance teaching.... 6. An Urdu Translation of Milton's "Comus" .. .50

The Anglo-Indian Temperance Association also paid close attention to Indian students studying in England-many of whom Caine had met previously during his visits to schools and colleges in India. The Association arranged hospitality for them in English homes and places for them on temperance platforms during their sojourns in England, hoping to send them back to India as dedicated, experienced tem-

perance workers.51 The real significance of the temperance agitation of the late nine-

teenth century was its function in providing to a generation of students a political education and an introduction to those political skills which were becoming increasingly important as Indian society became

increasingly politicized. This aspect of the temperance agitation he was so instrumental in organizing was not lost on Caine, who viewed Indian

political activity with open approval. 'The Indians have never been accustomed to organizing themselves, until very recently, into anything in the shape of political or social organization,' he wrote in I89I. 'They are now learning it, and I believe that this particular movement [i.e., temperance] will act as a school for other movements, and that sooner or later the Indian people will be able to speak for themselves, and

sway Government in their course of action.'52 Proficiency in public speaking and street lecturing;53 familiarity with propaganda techniques;

50 Ibid., October 1894, p. 149. 51 Ibid., July I894, p. 84. 52 Ibid., April I89I, p. 112. 53 'Numbers of young men, reading in schools and colleges, have shaken off their

nervousness and come forward not only to preach in the Bazaar, but also to sing



experience in organizing public meetings, in conducting a voluntary association with elected officers and bye-laws, in collecting subscriptions, in petitioning government-the opportunity of mastering such skills as these was placed within the reach of the young temperance workers, whose initiation into their practical exercise took place under the watchful tutelage of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association and its

representatives, both English and Indian. Particularly important in this

process of practical political education were members of school and

college faculties-men like Ramananda Chatterji, the Brahmo Samaji principal of the Kayastha Pathshala and long president of the Allahabad branch society of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association; Rev.

J. C. R. Ewing, principal, Presbyterian Mission College, Lahore; Ganga Sahai, professor of English, D.A.V. College, Lahore; Professor Ranchi Ram, Government College, Lahore; Rev. C. L. Bare, principal, Reid Christian College, Lucknow. That this side of the temperance agitation was appreciated at the time is indicated by the title of a paper presented at one of the programmes of the Benares Temperance Society in 1891: 'The Advocacy of Total Abstinence as a Training for Public Life.'54

One example of the use to which the lessons learned in temperance work were put is the Kayastha, journal of the Kayastha (Student) Clubs Association. This periodical was started in I895 by three young men who had been active in the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association

branches-Narayan Prasad Asthana, Mathura Prasad Srivastava, and Oudh Behari Lal-and dedicated to student, educational, and tem-

perance concerns. The Kayastha was openly patterned in style and format after the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association's journal, Abkari.55

The prominence of English-educated students and young ex-students, the inter-relation of much temperance activity with Congress politics, Temperance songs for the purpose of inspiring the people to stem the tide of drunkenness. These young men are all respectable, and although in the beginning it appeared a strange sight for them to preach, they have now become familiar to it. At times, a rush of preachers makes it impossible to decide who is to have the honour of addressing the people.' (Oudh Behari Lal's report of the Allahabad branch society, ibid., July I892, p. i I.)

54 Abkari, July I89I, p. 157. The paper was presented by R. C. Chaudhuri, M.A. 55 'You will be glad to learn that I have been elected General Secretary of the

Kayastha Clubs Association existing all over India,' Narayan Prasad Asthana wrote to Caine, 'and that I am proposing to issue a Quarterly English magazine conducted on the lines of the ABKARI; a copy of the prospectus is enclosed herewith. I shall always be very glad to devote most of its columns to education and Temperance, thus supplying the want which was already felt by the generality of students and others, who could not read ABKARI.' (Ibid., October 1895, p. 8i.)

430 LUCY CARROLL




and the official suspicion directed toward temperance agitation are illustrated in the case of Oudh Behari Lal. Oudh Behari Lal had been

actively involved with temperance work since the founding of the Allahabad branch of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association in 1888 when he was an undergraduate; he served as honorary secretary and local lecturer of the branch virtually since its establishment.56

Shortly after taking his B.A. in 1890 Oudh Behari Lal accepted a post with the Congress Committee on a salary of Rs Ioo a month and undertook a lecturing tour in the Punjab.57 'The Babu [was] an im-

pressive speaker and he explained lucidly and forcibly to the audience the rationale of the great National movement.'58 In the course of this tour, he also lectured under the auspices of Kayastha clubs and societies on 'the subject of Social Reform.'59 The professional Congress work lasted only until July 1890, when he was offered and accepted a

position on the staff of the Kayastha Pathshala, Allahabad.60 In April I892-two years after his brief lecturing tour on behalf of

the Congress Committee-Oudh Behari Lal applied for an appointment as a probationary Deputy Collector, submitting his application together with recommendations from Justice Straight, Dr Hall, Rev. Hackett, Dr Thibaut, and Messrs Woodburn and Gough to the Board of Revenue as required. The Senior Member of the Board, Mr J. R.

Reid, shortly after receipt of Oudh Behari Lal's application, dispatched a letter to him that was at best incredibly indiscreet. 'It has been re-

ported,' Reid wrote, 'that you were for a season in the employ of the National Congress Committee for the purpose of publicly advocating their views in the Punjab or some district outside Allahabad, and that

you received a salary while on that errand. Also that you are connected

directly with an association whose object is to overthrow the excise and opium systems of the Government. Please let me know whether there is any truth in these reports; and, if they should be correct, whether the facts were known to the gentlemen who have given you

56 Oudh Behari Lal largely was the Allahabad branch society. When Kesbo Ram Roy (the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association lecturer in Benares) was sent north to stir up the Allahabad branch in I891, he reported: '[P]roperly speaking, there was no Society, and consequently little or no work here. There are some eight members on the roll, a few of whom now and then subscribe a little money for holding one or two meetings when any outside Temperance Reformer visits the station, that is all. He [Oudh Behari Lal] really values the work very much and wishes to place it on a firm footing. But he can not do anything alone; he has lots of school business to attend to besides his own private work.' (Ibid., January 1892, p. 33.) Oudh Behari Lal was at this time on the staff of the Kayastha Pathshala and studying for his M.A. examination. 57 Pioneer, August 10, 1892. Lahore Tribune, June 14, 25, 28, 1890.

58 Lahore Tribune, June I4, I890. 59 Ibid., June 7, 1890. 60 Pioneer, August io, 1892.

43I



certificates and letters of recommendation in support of your application now to be taken into the employ of the Government.'61

Oudh Behari Lal's reply was mendicant, repentent, and apologetic. He had only taken the Congress job because of his family's financial distress due to the death of his father; he had resigned immediately when another position became available to him (albeit one offering a lower salary). 'Never for a moment did I think that the temperance work was one which would be prejudicial to me as a candidate for the Government service,' he confessed. 'But now that I have come to know the real state of things I have cut myself off from the work.'62 Two weeks later Oudh Behari Lal received a letter from Reid informing him that he had not been appointed.

Not one to let the matter rest, Oudh Behari Lal promptly sent copies of both the communications from Reid to Caine in England. Caine

immediately brought the matter before the English public by a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette calling for the question to be raised in Parliament: was it true that 'graduates of Indian Universities who choose to identify themselves with the Congress, or with the temperance movement, are to be considered by the Government of India as disqualified for Government employment?'63 The Under Secretary replied that no such disqualification was intended 'so long as applicants for official

employment... do not identify themselves with movements of the nature of those mentioned in a manner which would be inconsistent with the proper discharge of official duties.'64 The extent to which the temperance movement was regarded as political by both the

government and the Congress publicists is evinced by Reid's letter and the Under Secretary's statement on the one hand and the comments of the Lahore Tribune on the other. '[N]o one can say that previous connection with the Congress... or the temperance movement can be inconsistent with the discharge of any official duties,' the Tribune noted in reference to the Under Secretary's reply. The Tribune did not, however, question that simultaneous temperance work and official

employment were incompatible: 'If Mr. Oudh Behari Lal, after being appointed a Deputy Collector, had declined to sever his previous political and temperance connections he would have made himself liable to forfeiture of his appointment.'65

Reid's assertion that Oudh Behari Lal's Congress and temperance connections had nothing to do with his eligibility for appointment as a

61 Lahore Tribune, July 6, 1892. 62 Pioneer, August 9, 1892. 63 Lahore Tribune, July 6, I892. 64 Ibid., July 9, 1892. 65 Ibid.

LUCY CARROLL 432




Deputy Collector66 was thoroughly unconvincing. If these connections were irrelevant, why were the questions put to him in the first place; '[i]t was surely not necessary to ascertain the value of a statement which had no bearing whatsoever upon the appointment.'67 However, the government managed to defuse a lot of the opposition that had been aroused by the publication of Reid's letters by releasing Oudh Behari Lal's letter to Reid in which the young man had responded to the

queries concerning his Congress and temperance activities. The martyr- ed hero appeared as something less than heroic in his letter to the Senior Member of the Board of Revenue and Bishen Narayan Dhar articulated what many must have thought in a letter to the Advocate.

This is as humiliating a recantation as has yet proceeded from a Congressist, and I for my part am very sorry for it. I am very sorry both for him and Mr. Caine and other English friends who have been placed in a very false position on account of his timidity and indiscretion. If Mr. Oudh Behari Lal wanted to lick the dust before the Government, why did he move Parliament.... I can feel no sympathy for him in the matter, and few men, I am sure, will be found to sympathise with what I consider to be the worst form of moral cowardice.68

Oudh Behari Lal was appointed a probationary Deputy Collector the following year and formally gave up his temperance work.69

Perhaps taking a lesson from the case of Oudh Behari Lal and from official harassment of some of their Indian lecturers, the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association began to urge their Indian lecturers to 'confine their eloquence mainly to the advocacy of Total Abstinence, and

[refrain] from all criticism of the administration.'70 Caine-together with his parliamentary allies in England and the Congress politicians in India-would see to the political side of the question.

Although the temperance issue was highly politicized by Caine and the work of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association, it was never

exclusively a political matter. It was also a moral and social reform which afforded both an outlet for the youthful idealism of the students and a plank in the programme of social service and national uplift associated with reformist Hindu organizations. The fact that temperance was an issue of political import that could be paraded in the garb of a social or moral reform made it doubly attractive to those who wanted to play at politics without running all the risks that political

66 Pioneer, August 10, I892. 67 Lahore Tribune, August 27, 1892. Abkari, October I892, p. 59; January 1893, p. 3. 68 Quoted in Lahore Tribune, August 17, I892. 69 Lahore Tribune, June 7, I893. Abkari, October 1895, p. 80. 70 Abkari, April I898, p. 52.

433



agitation involved. At the same time there was virtually nothing to

compete with temperance agitation for the allegiance of youthful idealism and energy. Temperance activity absorbed, channelled, and directed this idealism, this energy, this enthusiasm, and the students made the temperance cause their own-learning important practical lessons of organization, propaganda, and agitation in the process. And in the temperance movement was an opportunity for both students and Hindu reformers to make a contribution to the regeneration of India by taking the message of sobriety, economy, and education to the

poor of the city and the village.

* * *

Besides the temperance movement among the 'educated and high class members of Hindu society,' there was also the 'movement so

successfully carried on among the lower classes in Benares'71-and the

Anglo-Indian Temperance Association was involved in the one as much as in the other. The main figures in the Benares movement- which had repercussions reaching the length and breadth of India-- were Rev. Evans, Rev. Arthur Parker of the London Mission, and Kesho Ram Roy (Brahmin; 1836-1896).

Kesho Ram Roy was the son of a clerk at the C.M.S. Mission

College, Benares, and had been educated in the school and college of the Mission. He served as a teacher and headmaster of the C.M.S. school for several years and then joined the service of the East India

Railway, eventually becoming a station master. At the age of 46 the childless widower became a yogi, taking a vow of 'asceticism and consecration, devoting himself entirely to the public preaching of Hindu

morality.'72 He lived off his savings, alms, and fees earned tutoring students in English, which he spoke fluently.

'In an interval of religious meditation,' Kesho Ram Roy wandered into the temperance meeting in Benares Town Hall addressed by Caine and Evans in December i888.73 He was greatly moved by the speakers and 'impressed with the importance to India of the Temperance reformation.'74 A month later he sought out the secretary of the Benares branch society of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association, Rev. Parker, and presented him with a programme for the diffusion and enforcement of temperance ideals. 'He told me he had tried to persuade a man here and a man there to become a teetotaler. "Now," he said,

71 Abkari, April 1891, p. I20. 72 Ibid., July I891, pp. 133-4. 73 Ibid., April 1891, p. I 2; July 1891, pp. 133-4. 74 Ibid., July I891, p. 33.

434 LUCY CARROLL




"I have a new idea; I want to start a new campaign. I want to go round to these people and tell them to make their caste rules strict and forbid all drinking, and we will have every drink shop shut up in a

fortnight."'75 Parker thought the Mahant overly optimistic, but welcomed the offer of help and 'the extraordinary movement' was under-

way.76 It was decided to test the idea on the Benares Ahirs, noted for their

riotous drinking. Parker and the Mahant got together the Ahir headmen on March 31, 1889; the assembled leaders 'were appealed to with all the Mahant's extraordinary eloquence. The discussion which followed was prolonged past midnight, and as dawn broke they decided to adopt a rule binding Total Abstinence upon all the members of the Ahir caste.' Fortified by this success, the Mahant and Parker turned their attention to other local caste groups.

On April 25th a caste of village tailors, about two hundred, were gathered in 'Panchayat' by the Mahant, and abjured the use of liquor. May 2Ist, the blacksmiths, reckoned at about ten thousand, followed the good example; May 23rd, a small caste of about fifty families, the Nyarias, came in; in June, the oil-sellers; in July, the grain-dealers; in August, the Bhars of four villages in the suburbs, and the Rawats; in September, the caste of Katiks in other villages, were all brought in by the Mahant's eloquence to adopt Total Abstinence as a caste rule. Other castes were induced to forbid the use of liquor at marriages and funerals, and even Mussulman castes were brought under the influence of the Mahant and his co-workers.77

While the urban temperance societies averaged about one hundred members and Evans in the course of a four-month tour could enroll

perhaps 2,500 new pledge-holders, the Benares programme of con-

verting the headmen and adding all caste members to the temperance statistics produced impressive totals: 'The net result of all this has been to pledge 40,000 or 50,000 of the industrial classes of Benares to Total Abstinence.'78 Nor were these statistics without meaning. The excise revenues for Benares for the year ending March 31, 1891, showed a decrease of Rs 35,000, and the Benares liquor sellers petitioned for a reduction in their license fees, complaining of decreased sales due to the abstinence campaign.

Oh, Feeder of the Poor! May God preserve you. Since the last annual sale of licenses, your petitioners have suffered considerable loss on account of the scarcity of grain. But the chief cause of our ruin is that all the Ahirs, whose number is 25,000, have entirely given up the use of liquor, from which

75 Ibid., April 1898, p. 57. 77 Ibid., July 1891, p. 133.

76 Ibid., July I890, p. 52. 78 Ibid.

435



LUCY CARROLL

our income has been greatly reduced. For these reasons we find it very diffi- cult to pay our installments. But, in addition, the tailors have also given up the use of liquor. The potters, too, in whose marriage ceremonies large quantities of liquor were used, have resolved to abstain. Further, the blacksmiths are beginning to consult on the same subject. Consequently, the sale of liquor is wholly stopped.79

The battle was only half won, however, when the assent of the headmen had been secured. 'You are all aware of the vigorous and

repeated efforts which have been made to induce the various castes who are pledged to partial or Total Abstinence to break away from those pledges,' Parker reported to the Benares Society in I89I. 'There have been, as before, teachers bribed to expound new and saving doctrines to salve the tender consciences of orthodox tipplers. As for the Mahant he has had to face opponents who added threats to their

arguments, and crowned all by offers of bribes.... Again and again the Mahant's work has been undone, and again and again with energy and courage more than equal to the occasion, the breaches have been made good.'80 His house was several times burgled, his life several times threatened; the Mahant quoted the Bible, 'Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake,' and continued his work.81

The Mahant impressed his missionary co-adjutors as a 'cultured man, a perfect gentleman, a natural orator of remarkable power, a born

organiser, a leader of men, and a religious enthusiast.'82 But he was by no means a fundamentalist Hindu. His lectures, even to illiterate

villagers and depressed classes, were full of biblical quotations and Christian references:

When I saw this dumb multitude of the innocent sheep gathered together, I was much moved, and actually wept for a few seconds, that these poor folks were without the Good Sheperd to lead them safely through the wilder- ness of this world of sin and sorrow in which they were almost lost.... I at once... commenced by quoting the text from the Bible, "Love thy neigh- bour as thyself." I dwelt nearly two hours on this simple sentence, and by quoting other similar texts from Hindoo holy books, convinced my audience fully that they have been neglecting one of the most important duties of men towards their neighbours, and even to their Creator, by allowing the free sale of liquor and other intoxicants in their village....83

'I hardly ever deliver a Temperance or religious address without quoting from it.' the Mahant stated in regard to the Bible. Rev. J. A. Elliott, president of the Fyzabad branch society of the Anglo-Indian

79 Translation reproduced in ibid., p. 134. 80 Ibid., July 1891, p. 157. 81 Ibid., July I892, p. I24. 82 Ibid., July 1891, p. 134. 83 Ibid., October I894, pp. 132-3.

436




Temperance Association, noted that the quotations were always from the Revised Version; the missionary thought this strange and asked the Mahant why he utilized this edition. 'Because it is more correct and modern,' was the Mahant's inmmediate reply. Rev. Elliott also wondered

why the Mahant did not declare himself a Christian, as obviously he 'loved the Bible, he loved Christ.' When queried on this point by the reverend gentleman, Kesho Ram Roy responded simply, 'In my work I shall succeed best as the religious Mahant.'84

Virtually single-handedly, and under the sponsorship of the Anglo- Indian Temperance Association, the Mahant maintained a vigorous temperance campaign in the Benares area. His religious authority (uncompromised by his use of Christian texts and references), combined with his extraordinary oratorial powers, his 'senatorian voice,' his

imposing physique, and his total dedication to the cause made him a force to be reckoned with.85 He was a brilliant propagandist, a born audio-visual expert who wrote simple temperance songs that soon became popular and were sung by children in the streets;86 painted

huge imposing placards which he took on processions through the

bazaars; used to good effect the magic lantern and slides provided by

84 Ibid., October 1896, pp. 107, io8. 85 Ibid., October 1894, p. I31. 86 E.g.,

Don't tamper with the winecup, for with mischief it is full. Though a man should drink but little, he is sure to play the fool! Drink will roll him in the gutter, then with every limb unclean, And dumb with shame, a laughing stock, his folly he would screen.

But should he drink still deeper, home he'll never find the way, He lies senseless in the roadway, with not a word to say; Home he has, and wife and children, but in sleep they are forgot, His only friend, a policeman; do you envy him his lot ?

Oh, what did you find in the drink? What were you thinking about? Good milk and butter, curds and sweets, Like fools, you have despised; Unlawful things, and things allowed, You ate, and nothing prized.

But what did you find in the drink? What were you thinking about? Your solemn vows you cast aside, Your sacred thread you broke, Your name you made a laughing stock to decent, sober folk.

(Translated by Rev. Arthur Parker, ibid., October 1891, pp. I79-80.)

437



LUCY CARROLL

the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association; authored and distributed vernacular tracts.87

Although he played upon Hindu social prejudices-as for instance in the placard showing a dog licking the face of a drunkard, and references to the 'unclean' drunkard lying in the gutter and to the

breaking of the sacred thread in his temperance songs88-the major arguments in Mahant Kesho Ram Roy's temperance message concerned the economic hazards of addiction to alcohol:

I see your city is poor, your people are very poor; you have not proper clothes to wear, nor food sufficient to eat, nor means to educate your families nicely, and yet you are-spending yearly ten lacks of rupees for liquor and toddy. Oh, what a shame, what a reproach to your city! Behold the cause of your poverty and ruin.89

He was, after all, lecturing to impoverished people. After a meeting of the Kolee (weaver) caste of Agra, convened by the president of the

Agra branch society (Raja Lachman Singh) at the Mahant's request, 'seven Kolee women (who were all the while standing and hearing my lecture very patiently) came forward and fell prostrate before me, crying and bitterly lamenting the misfortunes which the grog-sellers had brought upon them. They said that all their ornaments and even their utensils had been sold to liquidate the grog-sellers' demand. The

grog-sellers had robbed them right and left by supplying their husbands with liquor on credit.'90

The dramatic success of the Mahant's technique of using caste

panchayats in the Benares area induced the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association to urge other branch societies to introduce this method of propagating the reform, and Mahant Kesho Ram Roy was dispatched on missions to the various branch societies in North and West India to help them get such a programme organized.91 'It is clear that this method of dealing with the drink custom through the Panchayats

87 'The character of these tracts is such as to secure the attention of the simplest mind. The most popular of them are collections of Temperance songs which the Mahant himself has composed, and which are extremely popular among the un- lettered poor.' (Abkari, July 1893, p. I24.)

88 Ibid., October I89I, pp. 179-80; October 1894, p. 131. 89 Speech in Surat as reported in a 'Western Indian Journal' and quoted in ibid.,

October 1896, p. 107. 90 Mahant Kesho Ram Roy, ibid., April I892, p. 83. 91 The annual report of the London Association in 189 announced an intention 'to

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

438




when once taken up vigorously will revolutionize the whole question,' Rev. Parker enthused in I891,92 while Rev. Evans urged the caste- action line of attack against 'the drink demon' upon the urban, educated Kayasthas (particularly students) whom he encountered on his tours of the cities and college centers. While many of the 'cosmo-

politan' temperance societies formed as a result of Caine's early tour bear Caine's name, many of the Kayastha temperance societies formed

during Evans' tours after the caste-action approach had come into

vogue bear Evans' name.93 The Mahant toured North India on behalf of the Anglo-Indian

Temperance Association in 1892, 1893, I894, and Western India in

1895, introducing his caste panchayat methods.

The Panchayat system, which I so strongly recommend, is in my opinion the surest, and at the same time the cheapest method by which the people of India could be raised from the present degraded state in which they have fallen. We should simply call upon the headmen, talk with them in a friendly manner, show them the evils of drinking liquor in the marriage and funeral ceremonies, to which they are accustomed, and convince them of the benefit of using milk and sugar in place of the maddening and destructive alcohol. I may remark here, for the information of my colleagues, that the headmen would pay little or no attention to our advice at the first attempt, but we should not lose heart at their cold reception. We should call upon them the second time, the third time, and go on persevering till we prevail upon them. 'Constant fall of rain breaks the mountain.'94

An example of the covenant entered into by the jati headman and Kesho Ram Roy is provided by the following, executed with the headmen of the barbers of Baroda during the Mahant's tour of Western India in I895.

We the undersigned men of the Panchayat of Kandeshi barbers do sol- emnly declare, in the presence of Mahant Kesho Ram Roy, of Benares, that from this day, that is, Posh Vadi 9 of the Savant year I951, and i9th January, 1895, that if any individual takes intoxicating drink on any occasion such as marriage ceremonies, caste meetings, caste dinners, &c., he shall be punished for the first offence with a fine of 5 annas, for the second offence with a fine of one Rupee and a quarter, for the third offence, with a fine of five Rupees, for the fourth offence with a fine of twenty-five Rupees, and for the fifth offence he will be thrown out of the community. When he is so thrown out, his re-admission into the community may be arranged by the community in the best way they may think proper.

All the moneys coming from such fines will be the property of the com- 92 Ibid., July 1891, p. 157. 93 See Lucy Carroll, 'Origins of the Kayastha Temperance Movement,' Indian

Economic and Social History Review, XI (I974), pp. 432-47. 94 Kesho Ram Roy in ibid., October I894, p. 133.

439



munity, and will be applied towards furthering the religious, moral, and physical well-being of the community. Any one who misapplies or mis- appropriates this money will be subject to the worst tortures of hell.95

The occasion for the Mahant's tour of Western India was a 'strike'

against government liquor shops in Surat by some of the drinking castes 'on the score of short measure and bad liquor.'96 In an attempt to convert the strikers to total abstinence the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association sent Kesho Ram Roy to Surat. Jamsetji Tata 'was so

deeply impressed with the power and influence of the Mahant,' that he offered to sponsor him for three years to work in the Bombay Presidency. The London Association, however, did not agree to re-

moving the Mahant from the scene of his spectacular labors in Benares.97

Another result of the agents of the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association was the adoption of an abstinence resolution by the 1897 session of the Kayastha Conference.98

* * *

The preceding examination of the temperance movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries raises several questions concerning the process of 'sanskritization' with which it is commonly identified. The classical 'sanskritization' hypothesis assumes:

(I) the primacy of 'sanskritic' or ritual motivation for temperance reforms;

(2) a causal and sequential relationship between (a) economic

improvement, (b) a consequent desire for 'social mobility', and (c) the adoption of abstinence from alcohol;

(3) a commitment to a higher standard of ritual purity on the part of the economically-advanced, 'socially-mobile' caste fragment, which in order to achieve recognition of this new status, refuses commensuality to the unregenerate fragment;

(4) while at the same time, given the caste-basis of Indian society, 'individual mobility' is tied to 'group mobility' of the 'caste' and the forward members have to drag at least a goodly number of their unregenerate brothers up the social ladder with them ('Whom will the

95 Quoted in ibid., April 1895, p. 64. 96 Ibid., January 1895, p. 3. 97 Ibid., October I895, pp. 85-6. 98 Lucy Carroll, 'Origins of the Kayastha Temperance Movement.'

440 LUCY CARROLL



THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT IN INDIA 441

sons and daughters of the mobile family marry?' asks M. N. Srinivas),99 and the instrumentality of caste rules is thus invoked to sanction and enforce the reform.

Of the utility of an appeal to religious sentiment there can be no doubt; this has been a standard argument of the anti-alcohol agitators in every culture. Reverend Evans, a Welsh non-conformist of intense

religious conviction, praised heaven and thanked God for the opportunity that the temperance crusade in India gave him to bring the

message of Christ to a class of people whom he had not been able to reach during his thirty years of ministry in India. The educated classes had neither ventured into his church nor paused to listen to his Gospel preaching in the crowded bazaars, but they flocked to his temperance lectures in hundreds-and frequently stayed on when the temperance lecture had concluded and Evans announced that he would now speak on the Gospel of Christ. 'This is one interesting feature of our Tem-

perance work; it opens up free course to the Gospel, for the people say, "The man who does his best to save us from our social evils must also be our friend in religion."'loo Yet Evans, in his temperance lectures, stressed that all Indian religions condemned intemperance, used Hindu religious and social symbolism, and cited Hindu texts.

We have been told sometimes that the Vedas and Shastras sanctioned the use of strong drink. I say they did not. 'Mpi Mdi Magrahajan.' You know what that means. It means 'Intoxicant drinks do not give, do not take.' This is in accordance with the laws of Manu and the laws of the Shastras. A Brahmin who drinks is a Brahmin no longer, a Mahomedan who drinks, is a Mahomedan no longer. So says the Koran.... Now, when Hindus and Mahomedans, according to their Shastras and Koran, are dead against drink, if our Government puts the drink under their noses, they are inter- fering with their religion.101

If Rev. Evans exploited Hindu religious symbolism and social prejudices in his crusade against drink, it should not be surprising if Indians, who were, after all, Hindus and not evangelical non-con- formists, should do so also. Even so, the religious argument seems not to have been a major one in the late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century temperance movement. Much more important were arguments based on health and economy. The most popular literature provided by the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association to its Indian

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

loo Abkari, April I893, p. 68. 101 Speech at the 1889 Congress, quoted in ibid., April 1890, p. 17.



branches and lecturers had to do with the medical aspects of alcohol

consumption. A horrific set of colorful posters and slides showing the effect of alcohol on the various organs of the body drew crowds to hear bazaar lecturers and to the temperance booths set up at fairs and melas. A temperance worker in Bombay province, who had joined the tem-

perance movement as a student at Bombay University and tried to introduce the reform in his home district, conceived the notion that the temperance reform would spread most successfully among the masses 'when that reform is proved to be a necessity from a religious point of view, and when such a reform is advanced by persons, whose

profession is the preaching of religious sermons.' He therefore engaged the services of an itinerant religious preacher (kathi kari) who was without the benefit of an English education and who agreed to follow his

religious sermons with a temperance sermon. The Bombay scholar assumed that the religious functionary would base his temperance lectures on the Hindu holy books. The preacher demurred: it 'would be far more advantageous for me to deliver Temperance lectures, as well as to create a lasting impression on the audience, if I could get scientific information regarding the evils of drink,' he asserted, and

requested his patron to secure for him the necessary literature, for which the patron in turn wrote to the Association in England.102

On the other hand, a speech by the vice-president, Shiv Dyal, M.A., before the Caine Temperance Club, Lahore-a club consisting 'mostly of the students of the local colleges and schools'103-illustrates the importance given to the medical argument by the educated section of the temperance movement.

When alcohol enters his stomach, it produces irritation on the inner coating of that organ, which, after a pretty long interval, becomes covered with sores. This fact, he said, was supported by the post-mortem examination of bodies of several persons addicted to this vice. Injury and burning of the inner coating of the stomach is not the only mischief done by the use of alcohol; it commits, we are told, a greater mischief, for it coagulates and precipitates pepsin, which may be called an essential of the gastric juice; so, instead of aiding digestion, it hinders it; instead of sharpening our appetite it kills it; instead of bringing relief it brings misery and poverty, not only to the person who takes to it, but to all those, who, by chance, have anything to do with him. Then the speaker went on to show that alcohol renders the liver in- capable of assimilating the sugar which is manufactured, and the result is that this heat-generating article passes out of the body quite unused, and this diseased state is termed diabetes by the medical profession. In reference to the kidneys he said that 'their function is to excrete urine out of the blood, but intemperance creates very unwholesome deterioration in their substance, and

102 Abkari, July 1894, pp. 84-5. 103 Ibid., July 1892, p. 131.

442 LUCY CARROLL



THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT IN INDIA 443

renders them less capable of performing their important duty. The result is that the other members of the system have then to perform the work which is left undone by the kidneys, and have then to do so much overwork. This leads to general debility of the system and premature decay. The heart, the lungs, and the brain also are injured by the use of wine and liquors. Insanity, paralysis, delirium tremens, and a host of other nervous diseases are the reward of this evil and pernicious habit.'104

At the same meeting, Ruchi Ram spoke on the 'deformities which excessive drinking causes in the red corpuscles of the blood, thereby preventing their free circulation through the different ramifications of veins and arteries leading to the heart.'105

Contrary to the situation postulated in the classical 'sanskritization'

hypothesis, the necessity for caste panchayats to take action in regard to the matter of alcohol consumption derived-at least in many cases for which we have information-from the fact that the abstainers would be outcasted for this deviation from caste customs, particularly the custom of providing an abundant supply of liquor at weddings.106 Rather than a process whereby a reformed section of the caste cut itself off from the bulk of the unreformed and refused them commen-

suality, it seems to have more commonly been the case that the unreformed used the threat of social outcasting to hinder the introduction of new rules of abstinence. (Perhaps the question posed by M. N. Srinivas should be rephrased: 'Whom will the sons and daughters of the abstainers marry?') The reports of temperance workers and societies in North India during the latter part of the nineteenth century are

replete with examples of this nature, particularly from among the lower classes of Indian society. At the invitation of the managers, who, 'being Total Abstainers as well as men of Christian lives, were anxious to do what good they could among the coolies of their gardens,' Rev. Evans took the temperance message to the Dehra Dun tea gardens. His success was unremarkable: 'Only a few took the pledge on account of the sad fact that it was the general custom to drink and to get drunk at weddings, festivals, and the birth of sons, as well as funerals, and should any dare defy the custom, they would be put under the ban of outcastes. They said, "If you can get all to join, and not make drinking imperative at festivals and weddings, we can go for abstinence, else we dare not do so."'107

104 Ibid., July I89I, pp. 156-7. o05 Ibid., p. 157. 106 E.g., 'The population of this place [Dehra Dun] is very largely composed of

dhobis (washerman), chamars (sweepers), and other people ranked in the lowest scale of society.... These people have gone so far that the father of a bride is liable to be excommunicated by his caste people if he does not offer them liquor on the occasion of marriage.' (Ibid., October 1899, p. 154.) 107 Ibid., July 1893, p. 115.



Again, while the 'sanskritization' hypothesis assumes that temperance and like reforms follow upon economic advancement, it would appear that economic improvement was more frequently a by-product of the discontinuance of wasteful expenditure on drink. The Dehra Dun branch society-whose president was Arya Samajist Jyoti Swarup- for instance, undertook concerted work among the low castes in their area with considerable success, judging from the regular reports of the

society appearing in the Abkari. Their first project was among the Jatias (leather workers) who, under the auspices of the society, gave up liquor in I9OI: 'Only three years' abstention has had a remarkable effect on their economic position, in giving them now pucca houses in place of

miserably-covered and half-covered thatched houses; cows and buffa-

loes, dozens of sewing machines, ornaments worn by the women, their -outward appearance, as regards dress, &c., all indicating a state of

prosperity never dreamt of before.' 'The example of the Jatias has indeed worked wonders amongst other low class people.' The project, however, required the constant supervision of the branch society: the money saved might be squandered in 'mischievous channels, such as immoral habits, spiteful litigation, and the like. This must be looked

constantly after, and the general principles of morality and religion should be constantly held before them, and through sound advice and

guidance they must be led to aim at good living, and becoming useful members of society.' And there were, too, the constant complications arising from situations which brought Jatias from outside Dehra Dun into contact with the local group of abstaining Jatias.

A marriage party of the Jatia community came here from Umballa. These Umballa men wanted the Dehra men (who had already given up drinking) to drink with them, but on their refusing to do so, the Umballa party threatened the Dehra men with the dissolution of [the] marriage contract. The DehraJatias came to us for help. Most of the influential and respectable residents of Dehra then went to the Jatia Mohalla, and had a parley with the men that came from Umballa.... All their arguments in favour of drinking, such as that immemorial custom should not be broken, that they require wine for worshipping the Devi (goddess), &c., were successfully met. These men were specially struck by the presence in their midst of the high caste nobility of the place, who would on no other account condescend to visit the locality inhabited by these low caste people, but did so now simply to persuade them to abstain from drinking. These Umballa men promised us that as soon as they should return to Umballa, they would try to persuade their fellowmen to give up drinking, and we learnt they kept their promise.108

108 Report by Ishan Charan Dev, Secretary, Dehra Dun Temperance Society, in Abkari, October I904, pp. 158-61.

444 LUCY CARROLL




Much of what has been interpreted as internally generated pressure within a 'caste' for 'social mobility' expressed through the adoption of 'sanskritization' was more accurately social service of the Jane Addams- Tenament House variety in local situations, involving local jati groups, and undertaken by educated upper class individuals, particularly those involved in reformist Hindu sects-e.g., the Arya Samaj-which incorporated a humanitarian ideal of social service into their catechism. This social service commitment became increasingly important when it became politically charged in the controversy over whether the

depressed classes should be counted as Hindus in determining the allocation of seats between Hindus and Muslims. At this point even the Sanatan Dharm Mahasabha discovered a social service commitment.

The closest approximation to the classical 'sanskritization' hypothesis afforded by the Kayastha temperance movement is the following passage contained in a report of the Kayastha-Evans Drink Destroyer Society, Agra, by its secretary Narayan Prasad Asthana:

From time to time our friend the Rev. T. Evans has been sending to ABKARI short notes about the Kayasthas, showing how addicted they were once to this pernicious habit of indulging in intoxicants; how on this very account they came to lose their honour and yet untarnished fame; and, lastly, how in the present generation they are striving hard to shake off all idle and lethargic dispositions, and to adopt new truths of science, and to witness new truths of Temperance. At one time these very Kayasthas, who are now so much looked down upon by their religious as well as secular leaders, were the sole stay and asylum of all virtue and all generosity. They had power, wealth, fame, and good renown; they had the good luck of being called Kalp- Beiksh by the Brahmans, who now called them Sudras. All this on account of this demon-demon of drunkenness, which has wrought so much of evil and misery to be seen in the Kayastha homes. But now Western civilization has burst upon them in its full flood of light, and they have organised one of the most perfect systems of social government ever seen in India, by means of Sabhas, Annual Conferences, Libraries, Clubs, and Temperance Societies.109

But it was a Welsh non-conformist who lectured the Kayasthas on the reasons for their fall from glory and it was 'Western civilization'

bursting 'upon them in its full flood of light' that spawned the Kayastha temperance movement, under the patronage of the same Welsh non- conformist! And, on the other hand, there was no 'sanskritic' necessity for the Kayasthas to give up liquor in order to justify Kshatriya claims; indeed, both Kali Prasad (the Oudh lawyer most prominent in the defence of the Kayasthas' Kshatriyahood) and John C. Nesfield saw in

109 Ibid., October I892, p. 174.

445



the Kayasthas' reputation for insobriety proof of their Kshatriya traditions.110

The abstainer/non-abstainer factions among the Kayasthas did not reflect a 'sanskritization'/'Westernization' dichotomy. They reflected in part a generation difference; in part-and more importantly-a divergence between those within the Urdu-Persian cultural tradition and those who had taken up Western education. The 'conservative,' 'orthodox' Kayasthas-as indeed the 'conservative', 'orthodox' members of other North Indian castes1--who opposed reforms such as

temperance, abolition of nautch, reduction of marriage and ceremonial

expenses, etc. were adherents of cultural patterns that owed more to the influence of the Moghul rulers and to the styles set by the Nawabi courts than to anything that can meaningfully be termed 'orthodox' or 'sanskritic' Hinduism. The nineteenth-century reformers who crusaded

simultaneously against both alcohol and child marriage, against nautch and excessive marriage expenses were, on the other hand, products of Western education and saw all these reforms as part and parcel of the 'full flood of light' of 'Western civilization.'12

Srinivas equates a 'puritanical style of life' with 'sanskritization.'113 On the contrary, a very strong case can be made for the argument that much of the puritanism of nineteenth-century caste and religious movements derived more from 'Western' sources than from traditionally Hindu ones. The reference was not infrequently made, especially in the

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

111 E.g.: 'The Sirin Sabha of the Punjab represents a strong community of the Khatris and notwithstanding the strong resistance of some of the conservative members, the nautch was condemned by the Sirin Conference.' (Report of the Fourteenth National Social Conference, 900o, Appendix A, p. 74. Italics added.)

112 It is quite impossible to relate the factionalism within the Kayastha movement to a struggle between a 'sanskritic' faction and a 'westernizing' faction, or to view the Kayastha movement as 'developing' from a stage characterized by an emphasis on 'sanskritic' values to one characterized by emphasis on 'Western' values-as recent interpretations of the Kayastha movement have attempted to argue. (William L. Rowe, 'Mobility in the Nineteenth Century Caste System,' in M. Singer and B. Cohn (eds), Structure and Change in Indian Society (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1968), pp. 201-7; Cletus J. Bishop, 'Sachchidananda Sinha and the Making of Modern Bihar.' Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of History, University of Virginia, August 1972. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms, January 1973, number 72-33, 223. See also Lucy Carroll, 'Caste, Social Change, and the Social Scientist: A Note on the A-Historical Approach to Indian Social History,' Journal of Asian Studies, XXXV (I975), pp. 63-84.)

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

446 LUCY CARROLL




earlier period when reformers were less shy about praising the West and

condemning what they saw as the moral degradation of Indians.

While many obscene customs have ceased to exist in the country under the auspices of the British Government, the practice of singing improper songs at marriages, which is equally inconsistent with civilization and morality, is still fashionable to a great extent.... The practice is observed among the Kay- asthas with particular show and ceremony....114

As late as I900 a memorial submitted to the Viceroy by the Hindu Social Reform Association of Madras stated:

The humble memorial of the Hindu Social Reform Association of Madras most Respectfully Sheweth:-(i) That there exists in the Indian community a class of women commonly known as nautch-girls.... (5) That a strong feeling is springing up among the more thoughtful of the educated classes of this country against the prevalence of this practice of employing nautch-girls, as tending to lower the moral tone of society and as inconsistent with social propriety and those ideas of self-respect which are coming to be adopted under the influence of modern education.115

That social reform should come by the turn of the century and later be defended by reference to a resurrected and redefined Hindu tradition, should not mislead analysts to assume either that this had

always been the case, or that the redefined Hindu tradition represented the single, ageless Hindu tradition. (After all, Hinduism has as many traditions as it has gods.) Such assumptions define away the most

significant questions posed by the history of social reform in India:

Why did the 'Western' origins of the social reform movement come to be denied? Why did it become increasingly necessary to anchor social reform in a redefined, purified Hinduism? Before these questions can be answered, they must be asked. As long as our vision remains re- stricted by the blinders imposed by the popular assumptions and cate-

gories-by the attempt to confine all social change within a simplistic 'sanskritization'/'Westernization' scheme of analysis and by a distinctly a-historical approach to historical researchll6-these questions will remain unasked and thus unanswered.

114 Shola-i-Tur (Cawnpur), May 2, I871, in Selections from the Native Newspapers Published in the North Western Provinces, I87I, pp. 207-8. (Italics added.)

115 Quoted in the Pioneer, January 7, I9I0. (Italics added.) 116 See Lucy Carroll, 'Caste, Social Change, and the Social Scientist.'

447



the temperance movement in india: politics and social reform

Documents