For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Drink Evil and Mahatma Gandhi

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

E-mail- dr.yadav.yogendra@gandhifoundation.net;

dr.yogendragandhi@gmail.com

Mailing Address- C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur- 208020, Uttar Pradesh, India

Drink Evil and Mahatma Gandhi

In the cities the drink-evil is on the increase, tea-shops are multiplying, gambling is rampant. If we cannot remedy these evils, how can we attain swaraj? Swaraj means managing our own affairs. The very newspaper which writes against the drink-evil publishes advertisements in praise of drink. In the same issue, we read of the harmful effects of tobacco as also from where to buy it. Or we shall find the same issue of a paper carrying a long advertisement for a certain play and denouncing that play as well. Medical advertisements are the largest source of revenue, though they have done, and are still doing, incalculable harm to the people. These medical advertisements almost wholly offset the services rendered by newspapers. I have been an eye-witness to the harm done by them. Many people are lured into buying harmful medicines. Many of these promote immorality. Such advertisements find a place even in papers run to further the cause of religion. This practice has come entirely from the West. No matter at what cost or effort, we must put an end to this undesirable practice or, at least, reform it. It is the duty of every newspaper to exercise some restraint in the matter of advertisements. 1

Has it struck you that this Government of ours is deliberately increasing the drink evil and that all effort at amelioration must be fruitless until this Government is either destroyed or radically mended? 2 If the women of India were to surrender their superfluous ornaments, if the wine-bibbers were to give up their drink and hand to the movement half their savings, if the smokers were to suspend their smoke pending attainment of swaraj and give to the cause half their savings, we would get all the money we need for bringing the movement to a successful close. I was agreeably surprised to find that in the Central Provinces there has been a great campaign going on against the drink evil. I understand that the movement has resulted in thousands having given up this cursed habit. It would be a crowning triumph of non-co-operation if an organized effort were made to stamp out the drink evil. And I am sure that those who are weaned from it will gladly and thankfully part with a portion of their savings. 3

The excise policy of the Government has brought in its wake many baneful results to the people. We intend in future issues to reveal this policy as well as substantiate from official figures that the excise policy of the Government is directed systematically to increase the drink evil. It will startle our readers to know that in some of the provinces better facilities are provided for the consumption of liquor than for the promulgation of knowledge. 4 This Congress Committee congratulates the country in its spontaneous response to the principle of self-purification underlying the movement of non-violent non-co-operation by taking up the campaign against the drink evil and trusts that the habit of taking intoxicating drinks and drugs will totally disappear from the land by the persistent and continued efforts of self-sacrificing workers. 5

I refer to the drink evil. I ask you to accept my evidence that the country as a whole is sick of the drink curse. Those unfortunate men who have become slaves to the habit require to be helped against themselves. Some of them even ask to be helped. I invite you to take advantage of the wave of feeling that has been roused against the drink traffic. The agitation arose spontaneously. Believe me; the deprivation of the Government of the drink revenue is of the least importance in the campaign. The country is simply impatient of the evil itself. In no country in the world will it be possible to carry on this traffic in the face of the united and the enlightened opposition of a people, such as is now to be witnessed in India. 6 The drink evil has been never as bad as it is today. (Nobody has contended that there was no drink evil in India before the advent of the British.) 7

The Indian Social Reformer contests the utility of picketing in its vigorous style. Without entering upon any examination of its argument, I would perhaps take up less space if I simply stated my view and experience. Picketing in its nature must be temporary, but it is like what a stimulant is in medicine. Drink is more a disease than a vice. I know scores of men who would gladly leave off drink if they could. I know some who have asked that the temptation might be put away from them. In spite of the temptation having been put away at their instance, I have known them to steal drink. I do not, therefore, think that it was wrong to have removed the temptation. Diseased persons have got to be helped against themselves. If I have a son who is addicted, say, to gambling, and a gambling company imposes itself on me to tempt my boy, I have either violently to knock the company down or to post watches at its offices, in order, if possible, to shame my son into not going there. It is true that there are other gambling companies some distance from my place. Still, I take it, I would be held in the right in having posted a watch at the company’s door. I must make it difficult for my son to gamble. If the Reformer accepts the doctrine of State prohibition, it must accept the corollary of picketing, so long as the State is a tyranny being perpetrated in the face of public opinion. What, for instance, should the public do if the State were to build palaces in every street for women of ill fame, and issue to them licences to ply their trade? Will it not be its duty, unless it destroys these palaces inhabited by vice, to quarantine them and warn the public of the danger of falling an easy prey to the temptation forced on it?

I recognize the necessity of using only men and women of character as pickets and of guarding against violence being offered to those who insist on drinking in the face of public opinion. Picketing is a duty a citizen must discharge when he is not helped by the State. What is a police patrol if it is not picketing against thieves? The police use the gun when the thief betrays an inclination to break into another’s house. A picket uses the pressure of shame, i.e., love, when he warns a weak brother against the dangers of the drink evil. The Reformer has attributed to picketing claims never put forth on its behalf. 8 These are the drink evil, swadeshi, Hindu-Muslim unity, non-violence and untouchability. The Congress can have nothing but goodwill towards these states, so long as their subjects are well treated. And even when they are ill-treated, the Congress cannot and will not exercise any pressure or force save that of public opinion. And therefore nationalist organs do not hesitate to discuss, when necessary, in strong language the grievances of the subjects in some of these states. The thoughtless and wanton ill-treatment, for instance, of Sheth Jamnalalji and his party in the confines of Bikaner State whilst they were prosecuting merely their campaign of swadeshi has justly evoked hostile criticism. The liberal States may therefore look for every encouragement from the Congress, and the reactionary ones at the most fierce criticism of their methods and measures. Moreover the Congress cannot but sympathize with the States in their humiliating plight. The imperial power has used them as pawns in its game of exploitation. They are least able to resist the illegitimate and insidious pressure that is brought to bear upon them from time to time. They must therefore realize that the increase of people’s power means decrease of the humiliating influence described by me. 9

There is the drink evil, you must tackle that evil. I do not sufficiently know the other evil habits that may be prevalent in your community. But you must remove untouchability from amongst yourselves. You must go out to those among the suppressed classes who are still lower down in the scale, befriend them and help them in every manner possible. 10 The third thing, I have said times without number, is Hindu- Muslim unity. It is impossible to reach the fullest height that this nation is capable of unless we realize the value of the unity of all the races living in our midst. And the fourth is temperance. Throughout my wanderings in Cochin and Travancore, it was pressed upon me that the drink evil was destroying many a home. If the population in this district is given to the drink habit, I hope you will tackle that problem also. 11 The third thing is the drink curse. I know that many in this southern Presidency are given to this drink habit. Everyone in this, who is given to the drink habit, will, I hope, give it up completely. Drink makes a man forget himself. He ceases to be a man for the time being. He becomes less than a beast. He loses control over his tongue and every other limb. It never does the slightest good. I hope, therefore, that you will combat the drink evil with all your strength. 12

The problem of drink is another problem which awaits instant solution. It is destroying many a home and I hope those of you who are patriotic, who consider yourselves as servants of the country, will bestir themselves and go into the midst of those given to the drink evil and try to convert them. Copy the noble example of Mr. Ratnasabhapathy Gounder and do what he is doing in order to save the country from being ruined by the drink curse. It gave me joy and comfort to find his cousin brother only a few months ago making a solemn vow to me that he would throw himself heart and soul into temperance and khaddar work. It gave me the greatest joy to see his wife spinning away at the wheel. She needed no money. She spins for the sake of the country. But I ask every man and woman to spin from today. 13

It is a very great pleasure that I am able today to speak to you on the matter of temperance and it is a matter of great honour that I am doing so under the chairmanship of one whom I revere for her long, great and continuous services to the motherland. The cause of temperance I have handled now, I think, for 30 years, if not longer. The horror of drink I have inherited from my revered mother when she gave me her permission to proceed to England. Some of you may know she imposed upon me three vows or obligations, one of which was that I should abstain from drinking. I may tell you that she did not know what a great curse the drink evil was. She had no knowledge of the masses and the destruction that the drink evil was bringing into their homes. In the place where I was brought up and at the time of which I am now speaking to you there was probably very little drinking going on in that beautiful little city, Rajkot. However, the fact that she imposed this obligation on me, naturally, put me upon my guard and set me thinking also why it was that rather than imposing other vows she had imposed these three vows of which this was one. I set sail and I met several people on board. I was a duffer and could not carry on a sustained conversation with my fellow-passengers in English. One of them was from Kutch, a district in Kathiawar, and he told me that after we had crossed the Bay of Biscay I would be compelled to drink. I said I would wait. He asked what I would do if my doctors advised drink. I said I would die if that were the only condition on which I could live, rather than break a sacred promise deliberately made to my mother. 14

It is not without sorrow that I am leaving the simple and good people of Bihar. I hope, if all goes well, to finish the balance of the Bihar tour early next year, but I expect that the Biharis will show much further progress in khaddar and charkha during the intervening months. The whole of the stock of beautiful khaddar now lying in its khaddar stores should be cleared. There must be many members of the A.I.S.A. enrolled and centres where poor people are awaiting, volunteers should be organized for spinning. The drink evil should be brought under control. 15 The movement among the mill-workers in Ahmadabad against the drink-evil is proceeding very well at present. All people may not know that in America, where only a few years ago every worker used to drink, they have stopped drinking for some years now. Their paper has published the following information. 16 Something like this has happened in Vedchhi. Propaganda against the drink-evil can succeed only if carried on in this spirit. A drink addict will not respond if we simply ask him to give up drinking. It is a language which he does not understand. If, however, we live as his neighbour and, by our example, persuade him to employ himself in useful work, he would give up drinking. The drink-addicts in Vedchhi seem to have responded to such an appeal. We would succeed in all other places if we worked with similar patience and faith. 17

When in 1920 we felt that we were getting swaraj, we took the law into our own hands, we successfully picketed the liquor shops and the Government was frightened to notice an immediate fall in the liquor revenue. Liquor dealers trembled in their shoes and for a moment it appeared as if the drink evil had gone. Unfortunately the party of non-violence had not attained sufficient control over the people. Violence broke out. It was discovered that pickets did not everywhere carry out the instructions to create a blockade without resort to violence or threats to use it. The picketing had therefore to be suspended. 18 There is that drink evil, common almost too every Adi Dravida. You must therefore try your level best to rid the community of this drink evil. If I am not mistaken Adi Dravidas are also given to beef eating. Hinduism is a tolerant religion. But tolerant though it is, it is intolerant of beef-eating on the part of its devotees. You must therefore agitate and agitate till every Adi Dravida has given up beef eating and the slaughter of cows. Make this temple at once a seat of devotion, centre of learning and a centre from which the force should spread to every Adi Dravida and subsequently to every Hindu and still more subsequently to every Indian. You have said in your address that khaddar itself cannot be successful without the removal of the curse of untouchability. 19

It is really your duty to agitate till the drink evil is abolished from this land. Let not this land of beauty, with which Nature has surrounded it, stink with the curse of drink. And if you realize, as Hindus, Christians or Mussalmans, the essential oneness of man and regard your neighbours as your own step-brothers and sisters, it is your duty to go into the midst of those who are given to the habit of drink and by gentle persuasion wean them from it. I hold total prohibition as an absolute necessity because so long as the temptation is put in the way of the person given to the drink habit, no amount of persuasion would keep him away from this habit. The movement therefore amongst those who are given to the habit and with the State goes side by side. 20 The drink evil is sapping the manhood of the poor people of the country. If we identify ourselves with the poorest of our country, it behoves us to work in their midst and try to wean them from the evil habit, and you must not be satisfied until you have brought about total prohibition in the land. 21

You will then earn not only the gratitude of the present generation but of generations to come. It has been my lot to be thrown among drunkards in various places. I have read copious literature relating to the evils of drink. I know of homes rendered desolate. I have known men, respectable men, ruined. And I have seen husbands turn monsters to their wives on account of that drink evil. A captain who was under the influence of liquor was nearly going to imperil the whole crew of a ship where I was on board. You being in a tropical climate, there is no reason to warrant drinks. It is beastly—it is a sin against the Lord and humanity! The great labouring classes are becoming more and more useless under its deadly influence. Then there is untouchability, and among Buddhists also, in Ceylon. 22 It has delighted me to find that you have the right of local option in your midst and that you are taking advantage of that right, but I know from painful experience that this blighting curse is not one to be trifled with nor does it admit of any patience. I would therefore respectfully urge you to hasten the pace and rid this country of this great evil which is sapping the vitality as also the morality of at least the labouring population. I do hope that you are not going to make the mistake of giving favoured treatment to foreign liquors. I have known them to produce the same mischief that indigenous liquors do. So far as I have been able to observe conditions and discuss this question with many medical friends with experience of temperance question, I have no doubt whatsoever that we who live in the temperate zone have no excuse for indulging in this intemperate habit. 23

Another thing I want to impress upon you is that you should strenuously endeavour to banish the drink evil from out of the land. If you are sincerely and seriously bent upon doing away with the drink evil, the Government will certainly have to bend to your will and do what you want; and a colossal attempt on the part of the people in this respect is absolutely necessary. The Indian National Congress has passed a resolution that wherever the drink evil is rampant, there must be a sincere attempt on the part of the people to eradicate it; and for this purpose, the people throughout the length and breadth of India, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, including Mahomedans, Hindus, Parsis and all the other communities, must unite. Even among Hindus, I find several communities quarrelling among themselves, and if we want to do away with all the existing evils, we must all necessarily unite. 24

I hope you will all co-operate with and help the Ashram to achieve still better results in all directions. You must send your boys and girls to it and see they get real education here. Help this good Ashram with all your might. I congratulate you on your heroism in banishing the drink evil and your having paid the punitive tax of Rs. 7,500 for that. Such struggles are bound to come. Be bold and face them. In the huge attempt for the attainment of swaraj such loss of money or even loss of life is nothing. 26 The third task is eradication of the drink evil. In which religion is drinking not forbidden? In the course of my life I have mixed a great deal with Muslims and attended many dinners given by Muslim hosts. Muslims cannot but join the movement for banishing liquor and other intoxicants from the country. Are those mill workers not Muslims who picket liquor booths in Ahmadabad and plead with proprietors and drink-addicts, patiently submitting to assaults and abuses? 27

I am glad that you have frankly admitted the existence of the drink evil amongst fishermen here. I myself belong to a fishermen’s village. And therefore I know what fishermen do. And I suppose, it is from their habits that we have got the phrase, ‘‘He drinks like a fish.” I am glad, however, that your Sabha has been tackling this drink evil. I am glad that your effort is being crowned with some measure of success. Having worked at prohibition, I know how difficult it is to deal with this drink curse. I hope, however, that you will not relax your effort because you may not see full success. I would leave with you one suggestion: that you must not be satisfied with merely asking the people not to drink. I have found that many people drink because they have nothing else to do. Therefore you must find out a variety of ways whereby you may occupy their attention, their minds, their hands and their feet. You must study what other people have done wherever this drink habit has been tackled. 28

But I have the gravest doubt about this acceptance being from the heart or free from selfish considerations. Everyone who knows my son Harilal knows that he has been for years addicted to the drink evil and has been in the habit of visiting houses of ill-fame. For some years he has been living on the charity of friends who have helped him unstintingly. He is indebted to some Pathans from whom he had borrowed on heavy interest. Up to only recently he was in dread of his life from his Pathan creditors in Bombay. Now he is the hero of the hour in that city. He had a most devoted wife who always forgave his many sins including his unfaithfulness. He has three grown-up children, two daughters and one son, whom he ceased to support long ago. 29 Prohibition in the Congress provinces is not going on in the spirit in which it was conceived. It is perhaps no fault of the Ministers. Public opinion is not insistent. Congress opinion is equally dormant. Congressmen do not seem to see that prohibition means new life for many millions. It means new and substantial accession of moral and material strength. They do not realize that honest prohibition gives a dignity and prestige to the Congress which perhaps no other single step can give. They do not see that prosecution of prohibition means identification with the masses and a resolute determination to refuse to have anything to do with the drink revenue. Even such a confirmed prohibitionist like Rajaji has not had the daring to set apart the drink revenue purely for the purpose of fighting the drink evil. He has proved in this matter too cautious for me. Congressmen have learnt to count no cost too dear for winning freedom. Our freedom will be the freedom of slaves if we continue to be victims of the drink and drug habit. Is any cost too much to establish complete prohibition in all the provinces? 30

The drink evil has been recognized as such by the people of this land. But the other evils are more or less fashionable. If I led an agitation against the share gambling, I should be in danger of losing some of my willing and regular donors. If I incited people against the races and the infernal gamble that goes on there, all the high personages from the Viceroy downward would be up in arms against me And those who patronize the race specials? If I led a raging campaign against the cinemas, I should lose caste among educationists and reformers. They have often sought to convert me by pleading that cinemas are a fine medium of education and that church and reformers in the West give them their patronage in an ever-increasing measure. Therefore if I treated these evils as I have treated the drink evil and if I began to organize picketing in respect of them, I should lose caste, lose my Mahatmaship, and even lose my head which of course has very little value at this time of my life. But as I do not wish to suffer the triple loss, I must allow my correspondent and others like him to think that I am shirking an obvious duty. I know the evils. I hope that greater reformers than I will deal with them. For me one step is enough. 31 You may take it from me that I am not going to strike a bargain with the Viceroy for ministries and the like. I am not going to be satisfied with anything short of complete freedom. Maybe, he will propose the abolition of salt tax, the drink evil, etc. But I will say: ‘Nothing less than freedom.’ 32

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