In the 19th and 20th centuries, the temperance movement in India was well connected with the
Temperance movement in Great Britain and the missionary movements of the United States. The World
Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WWCTU) began organizing local unions there as early as August of 1887 with the arrival of
Mary Greenleaf Clement Leavitt who toured the country for nearly a year, leaving Mrs. M.D. MacDonald (a Scottish Presbyterian missionary) as the provisional national president. When
Pandita Ramabai opened her school for young Hindu widows in Mumbai in the spring of 1889, the WWCTU supported her work and commissioned her as a WCTU National Lecturer. In August 1893, the WCTU of India was officially organized and based in Lucknow with Jeannette Hauser appointed in a paid position as president. In 1907, Sir Bhalchandra Kishna, the president of the Bombay Temperance Council, said that the cause of temperance as one that would unite people from all castes and religions. In 1921,
William E. Johnson toured
India for the Anglo-Indian Temperance Society and the
World League Against Alcoholism, giving temperance speeches that were popular among crowds. It aided Indians, both Christian and non-Christian, in fighting against alcohol. The temperance movement in India became closely tied with the
Indian independence movement as
Mahatma Gandhi viewed alcohol as being a foreign importation. He viewed foreign rule as the reason that national prohibition was not yet established at his time. Their effort succeeded and when former Chief Minister
J Jayalalithaa was voted in, she shutdown five hundred liquor shops on her first day in office. they campaigned for the election of
Nitish Kumar, who upon the request of women, pledged that he would prohibit alcohol. == See also ==