Pardon any grammar and diction issues. I wrote this essay when I was a lot less competent in English. During the early 1900s, India was stricken with an epidemic of domestic abuse and other evils blamed on alcohol, causing many to advocate for the prohibition of alcohol, otherwise known as the temperance movement. India has had a long history of alcohol use, from the Indus Valley Civilization, to “toxic homemade alcohol” use today. In the states of India where alcohol has been banned, society is doing better than in the states where alcohol is legal. While India has the third largest market for alcoholic spirits in the world, states like Gujarat and Bihar, where alcohol has been banned, have seen a large decrease in domestic abuse and other malicious activities thought to be caused by alcohol. The decrease has brought hope that the temperance movement has contributed to these improvements, and with the constitution of India calling for prohibition, will continue to do its job in the coming years as more elsewhere in the country suffer from alcohol’s effects. Now, as India advances in the modern world, it is critical that Indian citizens understand and value the significant benefits of the temperance movement. Most importantly, prohibition has helped to decrease child abuse and other domestic abuse that arose from alcoholism.
As India staggered into the twentieth century under British rule, influential figures like Gandhi spoke out against alcohol and alcoholism as “foreign to India” and “what makes the British cruel,” resulting in blame on British imperialism for bringing the bad habits to India, strengthening the “patriotic pursuit [of prohibition] that could be followed even as India sought its independence,” and leading to the constitution article forty-seven requesting prohibition. Nonviolence or Ahimsa was a central ideal of Mahatma Gandhi’s movement, and because alcohol and alcoholism were and are very linked to violence inside and out of the home, Gandhi also advocated for the temperance movement, along with many popular women activists, in order to cease the violence. Correlating the violence from alcohol to British imperialism worked to help Gandhi spotlight the temperance movement as a part of Indian independence, and resulted in activism against British owned saloons. Indigenous Indians also led the temperance movement in 19th century India, such as Mahant K. R. Roy, who “persuaded whole communities to enforce caste rules against the use of drink.” Later in the early 20th century, people such as Sir Bhalchandra Kishna, the president of the Bombay Temperance Council, also helped get the temperance movement into the wider eye, and Kishna was famously quoted for calling the temperance movement “the only common platform for the diverse castes and religions to unite behind.” As the British remained in control into the world wars, the temperance movement found the hearts of more and more Indians, all wanting to heal their then maligned society. As more and more European nations came to India such as the French around 1600, and the Belgians also around 1600, ending with the British taking control, more and more alcohol permeated in Indian culture. Before the West’s imperialistic arrival in India, alcohol primarily existed as homemade, elaborate drinks made by talisman; along with the British beverages such as beer and wines, they flourished in India. Even today, after India became part of the modern world, unrecorded alcohol, or homemade alcohol, makes up fifty-one percent of all alcohol consumed in India, warranting concern for the drinker’s health from the lack of regulations on the production of these homemade drinks. Because of the correlation of many drinks to ancient Indian religions, such as Hinduism, the temperance movement in India focused on western drinks and, from the mass quantities of these drinks imported to India, found ground in the idea that western drinks brought by the British lead to increased alcoholism and much more consumption of alcohol in general in India. Prohibition was officially instituted in multiple states, over several years, and continues in the states of Gujarat, Nagaland, Lakshwadeep, Mizoram, and Bihar today. In 1947, the British left India. At that time, a few states initially implemented prohibition, all hoping to lower harmful side effects from alcohol consumption in Indian society. Gujarat, one of the first few states to implement prohibition and the home of Mahatma Gandhi, similar to the state of Tamil Nadu in 2016, faced harsh activism from the temperance movement to cease the epidemic of domestic abuse inside of the state, and thus prohibition was instated inside of Gujarat in 1949. Now that the effects of prohibition in Gujarat are easier to see, it is obvious prohibition is doing at least some of its job. With “a decreased incidence of violence against women,” Gujarat’s prohibition may not be blocking all of the homemade alcohol, nor some of the easily accessible alcohol inside of the state, but as long as there are less alcoholism and domestic abuse inside of state, prohibition is better than its alternative of legalization of alcohol in Gujarat. In 1920, the United States of America implemented prohibition, twenty-seven years before India put prohibition into its constitution. While the U.S. used prohibition for some of the same reasons as India, including to stop domestic abuse, some of its motives differed from India’s because of prohibition’s expected impacts on the marginalized group of Germans in the U.S. after world war one. The Indian temperance movement not only wanted to end social issues sparked from alcohol, and it also wanted to remove Europe’s influence over India, at least while the British were in power over India. Unlike America, prohibition in India did not form notable gangs controlling underground bars. Instead, many would either make their own homemade alcoholic beverages or smuggle them in personally from other, non-prohibition states. Both the U.S., and Indian states that implemented prohibition faced harsh backlash to their policies. Bihar, a state with a ban on the “import, export, transport, manufacture, possession, and sale of intoxicants or liquor” as of 2016, faced a lot of backlash from city dwellers for it’s new policies on alcohol, just as the U.S. faced backlash from many urbanites when it implemented prohibition of alcohol. After all of its backlash, prohibition in Bihar has had notably positive effects, Murders and gang robberies are down almost 20 percent from a year earlier, and riots by 13 percent. Fatal traffic accidents fell by 10 percent. At the same time, household spending has risen, with milk sales up more than 10 percent and cheese sales growing by 200 percent six months after the ban. Sales of two-wheeled vehicles rose more than 30 percent, while sales of electrical appliances rose by 50 percent. Brick houses are rising in villages where mud huts used to predominate. It has become very clear that, even after the temperance movement has essentially passed, oppressed people everywhere, especially in India, will still speak out for social changes such as prohibition as having strong benefits for themselves and their societies. Luckily for Indian political discord, with all of prohibition’s benefits, few people still oppose the policies in India. In recent years, states like Kerala and Mizoram have implemented prohibition, sparking less controversy than in the U.S. during the 1920s. In Mizoram, a bill to reinstate prohibition passed this March, making Mizoram a dry state again. The new policies had support from both major parties in the state, the Mizo National Front and the Mizoram Pradesh Congress Committee, showing the unity for prohibition still in India today. When the bill for prohibition was being processed, there was a large citing of the good effects upon Bihar once they enacted prohibition.“[Bihar] has recorded [a] lower rate (13 %) of crimes against women[,] and the percentage of rape has also decreased.” While India suffers from alcoholism affecting its communities, citing the past benefits of prohibition in of Indian states can persuade many to back prohibition policies. With new examples of prohibition succeeding, the so-called modern temperance movement can continue to improve Indian society with prohibition. Today in India, specifically in Bihar, along with the other four states with prohibition, “one person is arrested and sent to jail every 10 minutes in Bihar for flouting the ban on sale and consumption of liquor.” That means that on average one hundred and seventy-two people go to jail every day because of prohibition, in only one state. The problem with prohibition in modern India is that, before prohibition was implemented, there was and has been little in the way of rehabilitation centers for people dependent on alcohol, causing the striking amount of people arrested during prohibition finding their own cure for their addiction. To quote DARA Thailand, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center out of Thailand, “[There are m]any alcohol and drug rehab facilities in India however, [they] have a very austere setting and are comparable to boot camps or prison compounds.” Because of the large rise in alcohol use in India since before 2009, without prohibition and with poor rehabilitation centers, states without prohibition are in need of a way to rescue their new “abusive drinking” populations. As Gandhi and others advocating for temperance prophesied and reflected, as India now joins the modern world, western problems are impacting the country. Alcohol was considered a small part of Indian society before the 1950s. Now, “the country, which has seen a rapid proliferation of city bars and nightclubs in recent years, is fast shedding its inhibitions about alcohol as a lifestyle choice.” More and more, the ideals that the temperance movement fought for, such as prohibition and reform, are being stripped away by states not practicing prohibition, as they experiencing an influx of drinkers. Ten years ago, India had fourteen million people in need of help for their alcohol dependency. Bihar and other famous states, aside from their high arrests, have seen a great deal of good societal change coming from their prohibition, showing that prohibition can accomplish what the temperance movement wanted it to like preventing a lot of domestic abuse and crime. The temperance movement of India pushed for national prohibition, achieving an entire amendment. In the past three years, two new states have reinstated prohibition, causing hope that a new wave of local governments concerned with alcohol has arisen. With five states currently enforcing prohibition, temperance endures to save Indians affected by the troublesome effects of alcohol. With many arrests, it may look as if prohibition suffered the same fate in India as it did in the U.S., however with a striking decrease in violence and crime in the Indian states that have instituted prohibition, it is clear that the temperance movement has benefited Indian society. Bibliography Agnihotri, Sanjana. "What led to an early liquor ban in Bihar? Why did it fail earlier?" India Today. https://www.indiatoday.in/fyi/story/liquor-ban-bihar-nitish-kumar-dry-state-316617-2016-04-06. Ahmedabad PTI. “Alcohol ban: Gujarat govt notifies rules for new prohibition law.” Hindustan Times (Jun. 13, 2017). “Alcohol and Drug Rehab India.” DARA Thailand. https://www.dararehab.com/drug-alcohol-rehab/india/. Anand, Geeta. "Alcohol Ban Succeeds as Women Warn, 'Behave, or We'll Get Tough'." The New York Times, 15 April 2017. 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