Military Digest | Officers ‘indulge far too much’: Nehru’s push to curb alcohol in Indian Army

“I have no desire at this stage to interfere with the practice prevalent in the Defence Forces, but I have little doubt that this general policy will gradually have to be introduced in the Defence Forces also.”

In the letter, Nehru wrote that he had a feeling that Army officers “indulge far too frequently and far too much in alcoholic drinks”. Beyond the moral argument for prohibition, he highlighted a pragmatic security risk: secrecy.

“Any officer who so indulges in excessive alcohol can hardly be trusted with secrets. He is apt to be expansive and to say things which he ought not to say,” Nehru cautioned, seeking Gen Bucher’s advice on how to check a habit he deemed “neither good for the nation nor the individual” and “certainly not good for the Army”.

Gen Bucher replied the following day, explaining that alcohol was already strictly rationed. He suggested that commanding officers should more carefully scrutinise mess bills to ensure physical fitness and economic discipline.

Nehru agreed that immediate enforcement was not necessary but suggested “hints or good advice” be sent to officers. He was particularly concerned about “loose talk” and the public’s perception, noting that excessive consumption was not “in keeping with the general temper of the public”.

In a candid follow-up, Bucher shared a cultural observation on the effects of drink: “Indian officers, and especially those of certain classes, who consume fairly large quantities of alcohol become prolix and garrulous in speech, whereas similarly addicted Scots and Irishmen resort to pugnacity, Germans to self-pity, and Englishmen to gloom.”

A darker history: Opium and the 1833 ‘madness’

The debate over intoxicants in the Indian military predates the 1940s by over a century. In his study Intoxicants and the Indian Colonial Army, Christopher Cavin of the University of Strathclyde recounts the tragic case of Meer Emaum Ally.

In 1833, Ally was a celebrated hero who had saved his Brigadier’s life in battle, earning a gold medal. However, months later, after being reprimanded for “carelessness” during an exercise, Ally fatally shot the same Brigadier he had once saved.

Investigations revealed Ally was under the influence of opium, having worked himself up to “the point of madness”. To British officers, the incident proved that opium could instantly transform a “brave and capable sepoy into a murderer”.

In the same study, Cavin quotes Kaushik Roy’s work Coercion Through Leniency: British Manipulation of the Post-Mutiny Indian Army 1859-1913, Journal of Military History. Vol. 65, No.4, (October: 2001).

“Kaushik Roy stated that drunkenness was a common feature in the Indian Army in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Punishments for inebriety, however, declined in severity from outright dismissal in the late nineteenth century to more lenient punishments such as temporary suspension in the early twentieth century. He argued that drunkenness was particularly common among Indian officers who felt that they had been relegated to intermediaries between the European and Indian units rather than functioning officers,” he noted.

The culture of ‘pampering’

By the early 20th century, the issue shifted from opium to rum. In 1912, Commander-in-Chief Ge. Sir O’Moore Creagh criticised European officers for encouraging drinking habits among regiments such as the 1st Gurkhas.

The Adjutant General at the time, Lt Gen Sir Fenton John Aylmer, slammed the practice of medical officers signing off on daily rum rations for soldiers as “hypocritical”. He argued that many Commanding Officers viewed drinking as a “sign of superiority” in certain martial classes and sought to “pamper” their men.

As early as 1888, Field Marshal Sir Frederick Roberts noted that “serious crime within the Army is almost entirely due to the effects of drink,” leading to the establishment of the Army Temperance Society (ATS).