The problem with neera: The (un)making of a national drink in late colonial India

Abstract

Over the course of the interwar period, the Congress-led movement for prohibition wrought a lengthy debate about ‘Indian’ and ‘foreign’ drinks. This debate gave rise to a little-known movement to promote the fresh, unfermented sap of the palm tree as India’s swadeshi beverage. If the British tried to claim the initiative for temperance through their tea campaign, Congress leaders sought to replace intoxicating drinks and their sobering ‘foreign’ alternatives with an indigenous drink. They had high hopes for this drink, which they believed would facilitate social reform while supporting national economic development. Neera, in other words, was the nationalists’ answer to toddy as well as tea. Indeed, the project of popularising neera was entirely in keeping with the upper-caste sensibilities of the Congress leadership: if toddy was the profane, neera was fresh, unfermented, and hence, pure. To this end, Congress leaders emphasised its nutritional value and potential in supporting the manufacture of gur (jaggery). They also promised a ready source of re-employment for tappers displaced by prohibition. As this article demonstrates, however, the neera scheme proved to be a slippery course to navigate owing to a combination of factors, foremost amongst them the impossibility of taming toddy.