CASTE SYSTEM vis-a-vis ALCOHOLISM - Indian Experience

Having lived for 38 years among the natives of India as a Planter, the writings of Robert H. Elliot (1837-1914) offers a peek into the social life of India (Mysore)  during his time.  He recorded that , caste-laws produced a wholesome  effect  over Indian society.  Here he  notifies us, how caste laws and customs  prevented the abuse of alcohol, and men fearing loss of caste, refrained themselves for coming under alcohol’s baneful influences. Mr Elliot reminds us that since, - “a large proportion of the population of India are absolutely compelled to abstain from the use of alcohol, and that these being the very best, or at least equal to the very best, of the community, must always have exercised a large influence in discouraging the excessive use of intoxicating drinks,” -  the use of alcohol was  confined to only a few, maybe on the margins. Contrast this pre-modern period, to that of the  all pervasive abuse of alcohol and other intoxicating substances, even by  children , in  MODERN TIMES.  The situation has become much ugly and preposterous that MODERN GOVTS like that in the Indian State of Kerala and TN  almost exclusively depend on  revenue  got from the sale of liquor.

 

Excerpts- “ Having thus briefly glanced at caste law, as controlling the connection of the sexes, let us now look at it from another pointof view, which I venture to think is, as regards its ultimate

consequences, of even still more importance. If there is one vice more than another which is productive of serious crime, it is the abuse of alcohol; and there is no doubt that, to use the words of an eminent statesman, "if we could subtract from the ignorance, the poverty, the suffering, the sickness, and the crime now witnessed among us, (ie the English) the ignorance, the poverty, the sickness, and the crime caused by the single vice of drinking, this country would be so changed for the better that we should hardly know it again." Regarding it, then, in all its consequences, whether physical

or mental (and how many madmen and idiots are there not bred by drinking?  I observe in the Administration Report for Mysore, 1867-68, that nearly all the cases in the lunatic asylum were traced either to drinking or bhang-smoking), it is difficult to estimate too highly the value of caste laws that utterly prohibit the use of those strong drinks that are injurious in any country, but are a thousand times more so

under the rays of a tropical sun. And when we come to consider that a large proportion of the population of India are absolutely compelled to abstain from the use of alcohol, and that these being the very best, or at least equal to the very best, of the community, must always have exercised a large influence in discouraging the excessive use of intoxicating drinks, it is impossible to refrain from coming to the conclusion that this single fact is more than sufficient to counterbalance all the evils that have ever been said to arise from caste.”

 EXCERPT FROM

Robert H. Elliot. “Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore.” iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright. (From Chapter VIII.  CASTE)

( note. This book/resource is freely available on the net.)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8557215.stm