TEMPERANCE WORK IN INDIA.

White Ribbon, Volume 27, Issue 319, 18 January 1922, Page 3

TEMPERANCE WORK IN INDIA.

As in many other countries throughout the world, so also in India, Temperance work has been carried on with varying success for many years past. India was not naturally an intemperate country, nor can drunkenness be said to be a national vice, though there is a considerable amount of drinking, particularly in the cities, and hotels are far too numerous, especially in the European quarters; and it is a fact which must fill every Britisher with regret ind even shame, that the drinking habit has been to a large extent fostered by contact with Europeans. I have been told by more than one of the workers in India that where temperance work is most needed is amongst the European women there, and I have also heard from some, who have had experience of Anglo-Indian life, now common the drinking and smoking habits are, and how difficult and at times almost impossible it is for women entering into society to be wholly free from it. Under these i jnditions, it is not to be wondered at if these same habits have penetrated into the secluded life of the zenana, and it mast surely bring home to as all the serious responsibility resting upon as as women in our relations with those belonging to other nations. In country districts, most particularly those comparatively remote from the great centres, th.s habit is far less in evidence; nor is the public-house the chief feature of Indian villages, as is so often the case in Western countries This may partly arise from the very limited purchasing power possessed by the working classes of India, though, unfortunately, they are not wholly dependent upon the public house for their liquor, a very large proportion of which consists of a kind of “toddy” made from the juices exuding from the trunks of some of the palm trees common on the Indian plains. With the middlc-cku* Hind as the ase of alcohol is not by any means the general rule, but amongst the wealthier classes and the Indian princes it is no uncommon thing to find many who are addicted to drinking and its attendant evils. The Temperance movement has made considerable progress in India during recent years, and the Indian W.C.T.U. is a large and active body, having branches in most of the large centres.

and many of the smaller ones throughout the country. The majority of the workers belong to the varioas missionary centres established in the different provinces, and the reformative and educational work carried on by them amongst the women and girls of the lower classes cannot be too highly spoken of. The women appear for the most part to bo easily interested in temperance work, and quite prepared to join the Unions, all of which are open to Indian women on payment of a nominal fee, some few being composed almost entirely of Indians. It is interesting to note the unanimity of aim and effort in all the sections of the W.C.T.U. Many of the departments to which the greatest prominence is given here in New Zealand are being worked also in India. notably those of Literature, one special and most necessary form of which is the translation of Temperance publications into the vernaculars. Social Purity, Child Welfare, and the introduction of systematic Temperance instruction into the public schools, which, if not already an accomplished fact, is likely to become so before long, as the management of the educational affairs of the country was last year placed in the hands of an Indian statesman, who is a strong Temperance advocate. The W.C.T.U. is also making an effort to secure its own national Headquarters, and has received a grant from the American Jubilee Fund towards this obj*ct. The W.C.T.U. Organiser, Miss M. J. Campbell, is a most efficient and capable woman, and too much praise cannot be bestowed on her earnest, self-sacrificing labour travelling throughout the length and breadth of this great continent, forming Unions and L.T.L. circles wherever passible. and spreading everywhere the principles of Temperance.

Those principles find ready response in the Indian mind, and it is eneourag ing to find interest in the work being shown by young men of the Hindu middle-class. The following extracts are taken from a paper written by a young Indian friend who occupies the past of libiarian to one of the Maharajahs cf N. India. 1-e undertook the distribution of some Temperance leaflets. and ased them also in vhe compilation of a paper on "Yemperanoab Work in India and America.” «vhic’ peared in one of the Madras

They are reproduced here as showing specially the Indian view of the matter, and calling attention to certain less familiar aspects of the subject. “The United States of America is perhaps the first country that has been successful in creating a popular will for temperance. The result there has opened the eyes of social workers in other countries, who are now trying to follow America’s splendid example. In India, Temperance work h»*s been going on for the last twenty years or more, and American methods have been introduced with some amount of success. But the difficulty in our country is that the Government seems not to encourage Temperance for fear of the lass of revenue; and, strange to say, some of the Indian Provincial Governors have shown themselves opponents of the movement. One of them is reported to have said, in opening his Council: 'Social reform by way of temperance i.sought to be promoted by methods some of which, at any rate, mast conicinto collision with law and order. If the direct objects of these movements were amelioration of the people, and not lln* destruction of Government -(black type ours) —I am confident they would appeal to the members of th*s Council. . . . But I cannot believe that you will seek to carry out that poiicy . . . by trying to create habits of temperance by means other than a well-considered exci.se policy, regulating the control, manufacture, passession. and sale of alcoholic liquor and other intoxicating

drugs.’ And a notice served on a temperance worker at Nagpur begin, thus: ‘Whereas it has been made to appear to me that a movement has been started in Nagpur recently, ostensibly in favour of temperance, but in reality with the object of embarrassing Government by causing the sale of liquor to drop, with resultant lass of revenue, ary* by causing liquor contractors to ** , taking up excise shops in futji£ p In some places the poli.9> ar to ron verbally instructed, so.vood effects n f vincc the people of*eise Supplement liquor, and in R. q of a o® v %.'! PenC * O<UM> »«. Jan,, Crimia Va.ue * qUoW a no Ws: ... n „ lne - which open, ) ,o, al campaign ,he

coming an accepted creed of an increasing number of people, it is well to point out the value of wine both as food and a.s medicine. . . . What is wanted is not tee total ism. but moderation, for if wine be excluded from the dietary of the whole community, a food of equal value will be denied us.” No doubt there wav a motive underlying the reproduction of such an article in a police gazette. Is it the duty of the police to promote drinking among the people? Rut the writer of this paper .also gives us the brighter side. He says: "India has of late taken a new step not only in respect of temperance, but of •very other aspect of social welfare. We hear of the washermen of some village or locality assembling together in response to the call of a simple, selfless person, clad in the simplest style, and living on vegetables and milk; and realising that their Scriptures forbid the use of wine, and that a caste engaged in ketping clean the outer garments of the people, should not pollute its inner body with intoxicant liquors—it is beneath its dignity. The high idea spreads like wildfire from village to village, and the whole caste makes this question a condition of remaining within the caste. The same has happened in almost every other so-called Mow’ caste. Marvellous results have been achieved during the few months since the movement came into existence. . . . We find the common people listening to the higher truths of life: that it is not wickedness, but honesty, by which wickedness is to be overcome; not false hood, but truth, by which error is to be avoided. ... If the moral and religious instinct ‘-atent in the people can be thus aroused, the communal life of every caste will be raised to a highfr status; and the Indian community will be ultimately free from evils which other countries have found ve.y difficult to eradicate under the conditions of an individualistic basis of society. . . . The glamour of liquor is gone, and it may he that in the near future the great continent of India will become a ’dr ' land, even without the support of a foreign Government.” There is one factor which in all fairness should not be ignored in considering Indian Tenr.peranee Reform. Whatever may be thought of Mr (Jp.ndt political action, his moral influence the Inzhan masses is unquestionably good, inculcating as he does, truthful-

ness, abstinence from all kinds of alcoholic drinks, and the i oiicy of nonviolence. To quote a writer in the “Indian Temperance Record’’ for April, 1921, "India stands to lose much revenue from a stoppage of the sale of alcohol, but it stands to gain ftr more from the discontinuance of the use of it by her people.” Ry including the liquor traffic in his scheme of “Non-co-operation,” Mr Gandhi has undoubtedly given a strong impetus to Temperance Reform in India.