The Anti-arrack Movement: Women’s Struggle for Prohibition in Andhra Pradesh

In August 1992, in a small village called Dubagunta in the Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh, a group of rural women decided they had had enough. Their husbands’ addiction to cheap country liquor was destroying their families, draining household incomes, and fuelling daily violence at home. What started as a quiet protest in one village grew into one of the most powerful grassroots women’s movements in independent India. The Anti-arrack Movement showed how ordinary, often newly literate women could challenge a powerful liquor lobby, push back against an indifferent administration, and ultimately force a state government to change its entire alcohol policy.

What was arrack and why did it become a crisis? 🔗

Arrack is a cheap, locally distilled liquor traditionally consumed by poor and working-class communities. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, it had become widely available in rural Andhra Pradesh, often sold in small, affordable plastic sachets. The state government had a near-monopoly over arrack production and treated it as a reliable source of excise revenue. Under Chief Minister N. T. Rama Rao, the government even ran a scheme that encouraged liquor production and consumption called Varuna Vahini, which roughly translates to “flood of liquor.”

The social consequences were devastating. According to local accounts, in Dubagunta around 90 percent of the men were habitual drinkers during 1988-92. For families of agricultural labourers, where the entire monthly income might be only a few hundred rupees, a man spending a large share of his earnings on arrack meant less food, no money for children’s education, and mounting debt. Worse, alcohol consumption was directly linked to a sharp rise in domestic violence, child neglect, and malnutrition.

There was a bitter irony that the women themselves often pointed out. In many villages, the public tap dispensed drinking water only once every two days, while the arrack shop received fresh supplies twice a day. Liquor, in other words, was easier to obtain than clean water.

How literacy classes sparked a movement 🔗

The movement did not begin with politicians or established organisations. It grew out of an adult education programme. In January 1990, the National Literacy Mission was launched in Nellore district, and state-organised mass-literacy campaigns brought women together in night schools and group discussions. For many women, this was the first time they had a public space to talk openly about their daily struggles.

The story of Seethamma 🔗

A key turning point came from a lesson in the literacy primer titled Adavallu Ekamaithe (“If Women Unite”). One chapter told the story of Seethamma, a woman whose life was destroyed by her husband’s drinking. The volunteers teaching the class asked the women a simple but provocative question: who was responsible for Seethamma’s death? As the women discussed it, they realised that Seethamma’s story mirrored their own lives. The lesson became a spark that connected their personal suffering to a shared, collective problem.

The educated awareness was crucial. Women began to see alcoholism not as an unavoidable private misfortune, but as a social and economic problem with a clear cause and a possible solution. This is what transformed individual frustration into organised action.

Rosamma and the women of Dubagunta 🔗

In Dubagunta, a woman named Rosamma led the women in destroying the pots used for distilling toddy and arrack. The women resolved that they would not allow arrack shops to reopen in their village. In a striking show of fairness, they decided each woman would contribute one rupee so that the contractor would not suffer a financial loss, but the shops would stay shut. This careful, disciplined approach set the tone for much of the movement.

How the movement spread across the state 🔗

What happened next was remarkable. The protest in Dubagunta spread rapidly through networks of kinship, friendship, and shared experience. Crucially, there was no single organised leadership at the start. Most of the groundwork was done through local initiative, with women in each village collectively protesting against arrack, and the agitation soon reached almost every district of Andhra Pradesh.

The tactics of disciplined resistance 🔗

The women used a range of non-violent and direct-action methods. They organised dharnas, or sit-ins, outside liquor shops. They physically blocked access to the outlets and persuaded customers not to buy alcohol. In many places, they would stand outside shops from early morning until closing time, making normal business impossible. They also pressured local authorities to take action against producers.

The economic message was sharpened into a memorable campaign. The women adopted the idea of saving the rupee a man would otherwise spend on drink, sometimes described as “podupu Lakshmi,” to build collective resources in their villages. This linked the fight against arrack to a broader vision of family welfare and savings.

Facing threats and resistance 🔗

The movement faced serious opposition. Liquor contractors, who initially did not take the women seriously, filed cases against them and petitioned the government to protect their business. The women also faced threats and intimidation from contractors and their associates. Standing up to these powerful, well-connected interests required tremendous courage from women who had little money, status, or formal power.

Some district officials, however, were sympathetic. The district administration in Nellore was supportive, with officials going into villages and engaging directly with ordinary people. This cooperation between the administration and the protesters helped sustain the movement’s momentum.

The role of the media and political parties 🔗

The press played a major role in amplifying the movement. Eenadu, the largest-circulating Telugu daily, was the first newspaper to report the early incidents and gave the agitation sustained, sensational coverage. By carrying the women’s stories to a mass audience across the state, the newspaper helped turn isolated village protests into a state-wide cause.

Political parties entered the picture relatively late, once the movement had already gained strength. The anti-arrack agitation became a dominant issue in the run-up to the 1994 Assembly elections. Telugu Desam Party founder N. T. Rama Rao, then in the opposition, was moved by the plight of the women and promised prohibition if his party was voted to power. He even declared dramatically that banning liquor would be the first file he signed as chief minister.

The policy victory: from arrack ban to total prohibition 🔗

The first major win came when the government bowed to pressure and banned the sale of arrack from 1 October 1993. But this partial ban had a loophole: with arrack gone, the consumption of toddy and other liquor increased. The women and various women’s organisations realised that nothing short of total prohibition would solve the problem.

The 1994 elections delivered a clear verdict. The Congress government lost power, and the Telugu Desam Party came to office. True to his word, within minutes of taking oath as chief minister on 16 January 1995, N. T. Rama Rao announced total prohibition in the state. For the women who had fought for years, this was a historic vindication of their struggle.

What prohibition achieved, and why it did not last 🔗

In the period after the ban, observers reported encouraging signs: declines in some forms of crime and improvements in literacy and household stability in parts of the state. The household savings, particularly in poorer families, were significant.

However, the victory proved fragile. The dry law was difficult to enforce. Bootlegging within the state and smuggling from neighbouring states grew, and the government faced large revenue losses. Prohibition was eventually lifted in 1997 under Chandrababu Naidu, who cited the financial strain on the state. The tension between alcohol as a revenue source and alcohol as a social harm has continued to shape liquor policy in the state for decades since.

Why the Anti-arrack Movement matters 🔗

Beyond the question of whether the ban lasted, the movement’s deeper significance lies in what it revealed about grassroots power. It challenged the common assumption that suffering, illiterate rural women were politically passive and incapable of organising without men leading them. Here, women not only led but did so with remarkable discipline and strategic clarity.

A model of non-violent activism 🔗

The movement echoed the Gandhian tradition of disciplined, non-violent struggle. The women relied on sit-ins, persuasion, social pressure, and economic logic rather than sustained violence. Their decision to compensate a contractor with a collected rupee, even while shutting his shop, reflected a moral seriousness about their methods. This connection to non-violent protest links the campaign to a longer history of women’s participation in anti-liquor agitations, including those during the freedom struggle of the 1920s and 1930s.

A foundation for women’s empowerment 🔗

The movement also had a lasting legacy in mobilising women. According to the World Bank, the broader women’s movement in Andhra Pradesh originated from the anti-arrack agitation, and the state later built on its momentum to launch large women’s literacy and self-help group programmes. The networks, confidence, and collective habits the women developed during the protests fed directly into one of India’s largest self-help group movements, which focused on savings, micro-enterprise, and the social and economic empowerment of poor women.

In this sense, the Anti-arrack Movement was about far more than alcohol. It was about who gets to define development. The women of Dubagunta and the thousands who followed them insisted that real development must include dignity, health, and safety in the home, not just state revenue and economic growth measured on a balance sheet. They forced policymakers to weigh social welfare against the lucrative excise income the government had long relied upon.

What do you think? Should a government prioritise the social well-being of vulnerable families over the revenue it earns from alcohol sales? And given that prohibition was so difficult to enforce, what alternatives might have addressed the harms of alcohol while respecting the demands of the women who started this movement?

References

1. https://fiftytwo.in/story/smashed/
2. https://feminisminindia.com/2019/06/14/anti-arrack-movement-women-andhra-pradesh/
3. https://thesouthfirst.com/andhrapradesh/politics-of-liquor-policy-in-andhra-pradesh-between-the-bottle-and-the-ballot/
4. https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/in-other-news/080816/anti-arrack-fighter-dubagunta-rosamma-dies-of-organ-failure.html
5. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11207308_From_Anti-arrack_to_Total_Prohibition_The_Women's_Movement_in_Andhra_Pradesh_India
6. https://thefederal.com/states/south/andhra-pradesh/prohibition-bound-andhra-to-take-up-retail-liquor-trade-a-la-tamil-nadu/
7. https://www.deccanherald.com/national/jagan-initiates-steps-towards-total-prohibition-737701.html
8. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2011/07/04/india-women-empowerment.print