Battling the bottle: Experiments in regulating drink in late colonial Madras

Abstract

During the first half of the twentieth century numerous efforts were made in Madras to taper the consumption of liquor among the cities’ workers. Those who put their weight behind such schemes included municipal and presidency governments, employers, missionaries and labour unions. Though their motives may have been divergent, they agreed that plebian liquor consumption was unacceptably high. Their endeavours ranged from restricting access to alcohol by various means to making repeated attempts at founding recreational clubs for workers. These clubs were intended as spaces of leisure that provided counter-inducements to alcohol. This article traces the methods employed in this urban temperance agenda noting the changes they sought to effect in the culture of popular leisure. Based on an examination of these temperance schemes—worker’s clubs in particular—I suggest that the regular appearance of tea and coffee in these campaigns indicates that their use as agents of sobriety consciously dovetailed with the creation of mass markets for these hitherto niche products.