Paradise for tipplers: Drunkenness among the native people was noticeable more in Ootacamund, especially on Tuesdays when the weekly market gathered. In 1860, the residents held a meeting and called for a law. The hill station was not free from illicit liquor either. It was smuggled from Ernad taluk of Malabar into O’Valley.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Drunkenness caused problems, but the British government, like the modern day governments, permitted breweries since the abkari revenue included income from the country spirit (arrack), foreign liquor, beer, and hemp-drugs. When there were many complaints, the government reduced the number of shops selling liquor. But it could not implement total prohibition.
Peaked on market days
According to the Nilgiris District Gazette by W. Francis, drunkenness among the native people was more noticeable in Ootacamund (Ooty), especially on shandy days, or Tuesdays, when the big weekly market gathered. “Shandy day is a kind of general holiday in the town, and domestic servants belonging to the plains, who are ever under the temptation to fortify themselves with strong waters against the unaccustomed cold and wet of the hill climate, take advantage of the fact; the cartmen who have travelled up with merchandise from the low country, tired and ill-clad as they are, fall with even greater readiness,” he writes in the book, which has been republished by the Tamil Nadu Archives and Historical Research Department. The book was first published in 1908.
Liquor shops situated on the main thoroughfares were used by Europeans. Drunkenness was thus brought to their notice. In 1856, the ‘Nilgiri abkari’ contract was, for the first time, sold separately from that for the rest of Coimbatore district. The price was ₹24,500 a year for a term of five years.
In 1860, drunkenness among the domestic servants of Europeans at Ootacamund was so noticeable that the residents held a public meeting. Attended by influential persons, the meeting adopted resolutions urging the government to legislate on the matter. The Board of Revenue consulted the Improvement Committee and the other residents of the town. The number of shops was reduced by 12.
Highly spirituous liquor styled ginger wine
“The smaller beer shops were put down, and a person who, under cover of a licence to sell ‘good wholesome beer’, was retailing a highly spirituous liquor which he styled ginger wine ‘was suppressed’,” writes Francis, who revised the District Manual of Nilgiris written by ICS officer H.B. Grigg in 1880. The reduction in the number of shops, however, failed to offer any solution. In 1892, drunkenness among the workers again attracted attention, and three more liquor shops were closed near the market. The district was not free from illicit liquor either. It was smuggled from Ernad taluk of Malabar into O’Valley, or Ouchterlony Valley, since it was cheaper. The government closed the three liquor shops at the request of the planters.
Writing about the district, Francis says one of the first things which struck the early visitors to the Nilgiri plateau was the possibility of making beer which in those days was regarded almost as a necessity and was imported all the way from England in bottles. “They saw that barley was already cultivated in large quantities and that the climate was cool enough for brewing. As early as 1826 extremely good beer was brewed on the Nilgiris from the barley malt of native manufacture and English hops,” he says.
Despite the recommendations of the Ootacamund Station Committee, no government brewery was ever established, and the real pioneer in the industry was Samuel Honeywell, who as early as 1857 started it at Aruvankadu, which is now the Castle Brewery. “His beer was a potent compound, containing nearly as much alcohol as inferior arrack, and in 1872, partly to protect the more highly taxed arrack and toddy, the government ruled that it must not in future contain more than 8 per cent of alcohol and imposed on it an excise duty of one anna per gallon,” says Francis.
In 1872, Captain Albert Frend started the Llangollen Brewery near Mavliinand. In 1883, the brewery was suppressed after the beer it made was found to be of very bad quality.
‘Gods not happy’
Toddy-yielding palms do not grow on the plateau and beverage was neither made there nor imported. But beer took its place. Sago palms were used for toddy-tapping. When the government prohibited toddy-tapping, the Kurumbas and other jungle tribes urged the government to rescind the ban, saying that their gods were displeased as they no longer received a strong drink as an offering at the periodic festivals, and were, in consequence, causing them misfortune. Finally, the government withdrew the order.
