Description
Sober State: Origins of Alcohol Prohibition in India offers a comprehensive historical analysis of how prohibition emerged as a political force in India. Darinee Alagirisamy traces the complex origins of alcohol regulation from colonial times through India’s independence and into the post-colonial period, revealing how prohibition became intertwined with nationalist movements, social reform agendas, and political ideology.
The book examines the multifaceted motivations behind alcohol prohibition, including moral reform movements, public health concerns, and political mobilization. Alagirisamy demonstrates how diverse actors—from colonial administrators to Indian nationalists, religious leaders to social reformers—shaped and contested prohibition policies. The work situates India’s prohibition efforts within broader global temperance movements while highlighting the distinctly Indian political and cultural contexts that gave prohibition its particular character.
Through careful historical scholarship, this work contributes to our understanding of how state power operates through regulatory practices and how social movements can transform national policy.
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