Prohibition Programme and Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

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

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Prohibition Programme and Mahatma Gandhi

 

Mahatmaji felt that it was the Government game not to arrest the rank and file of law-breakers but to tire them out. He wanted the volunteers not to play into the Government’s hands by losing their patience. He wanted them to carry on the work in every branch of national regeneration, namely, production of khaddar and more khaddar to replace foreign cloth. He also wanted the volunteers to engage themselves in an intensive prohibition programme by propaganda, picketing and felling of date trees. It was not necessary that women alone should do all this, especially in the United Provinces and Bihar, where there are very few women. In provinces like Bihar and U.P., Mahatmaji wanted that women should be helped by men. He felt that the initiative in these provinces should be taken by men. 1

I can therefore only ask my Parsi correspondents and others like them in return to help the Ministers in their noble and philanthropic mission; for I feel convinced that whatever may be said for or against Congress Ministers about their popular measures, their prohibition programme, if they are able to put it through to the end, will go down to posterity as unquestionably the noblest measure of all. It is no vote-catching device. Prohibition is an integral part of the programme of national self-purification. Twice has it been demonstrated what was possible in the shape of closing of liquor shops even through voluntary effort. Let the great Parsi community, men and women, discarding the unbecoming vituperation, rise to the occasion and help the great reform movement which, if it succeeds, will not only enrich India morally and materially but will serve as an impetus to similar effort in the Western world. Many eyes outside India are watching this experiment anxiously and prayerfully. I grant that many Parsis drink moderately and without any visible bad effect. That is an argument not for opposing prohibition but for ensuring that they get their drink if it is proved to be a medical necessity. They should be patriotic enough to recognize that as against their limited experience is the universal experience of the deadly effect of the drink habit. 2

The Congress Election Manifesto is principally a political document and naturally does not contain the prohibition programme. But prohibition has been in the forefront of the Congress programme since 1920. With me it has been a passion ever since my close contact with the Indian immigrants in South Africa and also with the South Africans. I have seen with my own eyes the terrible scourge drink can be. It has ruined people morally, physically, economically and it has destroyed the sanctity and happiness of the home. My heart bleeds as I think of the disaster that comes in its wake and I have really pined for the immediate introduction of prohibition. When the Congress decided to accept offices, I thought it had a golden opportunity to introduce it at once, but it was the Ministers who pleaded for fixing the time-limit at three years. To my mind, therefore, there is no question of short notice. It is coming several years too late. Hundreds and thousands of women have in the past picketed liquor shops, suffered insults and assaults. In one case a woman volunteer was so hit on the forehead that the evil effect still persists. There was no compulsion. It was all peaceful persuasion, and it had succeeded so remarkably that in some provinces the excise revenue was almost reduced to zero. As for its effects here in India I would like you to study the condition of workmen in factories, and I would like to tell you also the boon prohibition has been to them in Ahmadabad. 3

Parsi friends told me with glee that you had described the prohibition programme of the Bombay Ministry as a ‘madcap scheme’. Can this be true? If so, why do you consider it to be such? 4 I gladly publish the foregoing letter and accept the explanation. Without it the concluding paragraph of the petition could only be interpreted as a threat. Better than the explanation, however, will be the help the Bhandari could render in the prosecution of the prohibition programme. Let them be true soldiers of the Congress Government and the nation as they were of the East India Company, who were foreigners come to exploit the country. If they will heartily assist the Government in their arduous task, they will find that they will also assist themselves in a manner they never otherwise could have done. 5

 

References:

 

1. The Hindu, 14-5-1930
2. Harijan, 3-6-1939  
3. Harijan, 10-6-1939
4. Letter to Sikandar Hyat Khan, July 9, 1939
5. Harijan, 12-8-1939