Author:

Dr. Lab Mahato
Guest Faculty
The Sanskrit College and University
West Bengal, India

Email: labmahato23@gmail.com

Abstract:: This article analyses the temperance movement in Bengal between the 1880s and 1909, with special reference to Calcutta, highlighting the interaction between voluntary associations and colonial governance. Influenced by temperance campaigns in the United States of America and England, organised reform in Calcutta took shape through the Calcutta Temperance Federation, which coordinated bodies such as the Drink Problem Committee and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The article foregrounds children as central subjects of reform through the Band of Hope, school instruction, essay competitions, and vernacular literature. It also examines liquor trafficking investigations, revealing patterns of consumption across caste, class, gender, and religion. Finally, it situates temperance activism within legislative debates culminating in the Bengal Excise Act, 1909, arguing that temperance functioned as a moral, social, and regulatory project in late colonial Bengal.

Key Words:: Christian Missionaries Children, Colonial, Sobriety, Liquor, Prohibition etc.