positive role of women in politics-- anti arrack and progressive era

In the beginning of the 1990s, liquor contractors belonged to the most powerful people of Andhra Pradesh. Government revenue from excise on arrack and IMFL had risen to 8.12 billion rupees in 1991/92 – from 390 million rupees in 1970/71 (Pande 2000: 132; Balagopal 1992: 2457). As mentioned above, many liquor contractors had become politicians and vice versa. They stood behind (and for) a very powerful system of consequent interaction or a combination of normally irresistible forces. Political and economic power are usually the defining and insurmountable hegemonic devices. They create the state and only equally powerful opponents should be able to resist or successfully fight them. So one could not expect a movement to become a threat to this alliance, which was started, as stated, by a number of low caste women in a remote village in Andhra Pradesh. Under normal circumstances, something so subaltern could not be of any relevance, let alone be able to overcome these forces. But this is exactly what happened – the ultimately powerless challenged those in power with the idea of taking away one of their most important sources of income, which for many was a sine qua non to finance political careers. Completely disillusioned and frustrated by the situation, these women wanted to totally ban alcohol from their villages. Applied not only to a few villages but to larger areas or to the whole of Andhra, this would mean the breakdown of the Varuni Vahini system and, in consequence, the end of the alcohol business, the loss of many jobs and a huge sum of revenue

Arrack is low cost liquor that is generally consumed by poor people. The anti-arrack movement started as a spontaneous movement in a remote village in Dubagunta in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh in India. It was a women's movement which saw the articulation of the issue of family violence in a public forum. The movement questioned notions about the political apathy of suffering masses and inability of women to take initiatives on their own without men's help. It is through this movement that rural women in the state of Andhra Pradesh created history. The movement grew out of the awareness brought about by the literacy mission the National Literacy Mission (NLC) was officially launched in Nellore District in January 1990.

As a result of the mission mass-literacy campaigns being organized in the state, women often got together and discussed their problems. They found that all of them had a common problem at home- alcoholism. Together, they decided to take a stand against all those who sold the liquor that ruined their families' lives. But gradually they have risen suddenly in revolt against the local bureaucracy, police officials and the Chief Minister. They had a simple demand complete ban on selling of Arrack.

 Interestingly, there was no organized leadership to start within the anti-arrack movement. Most of the work was done with local initiative. Political parties entered at the very last stage. Leadership was offered by many NGOs, women's associations and individual women. But here too the initiative came from local women. Most of the activities were planned and implemented by the women, be it canvassing, patrolling at night, organizing processions, stopping men from drinking and burning of liquor sachets.

In the initial phases, it was women from the lower sections of society, mostly the most-oppressed sections, who were involved in the movement. But soon, women from upper castes also joined that further strengthened the movement. Women came forward as a unit for the common cause.

The women collectively devised their own methods of imposing fines or punishing violators they organized street play and drams to portray ill effects of arrack consumption.

Newspapers also played a very important role in popularizing this movement. The Telugu newspaper Eenadu dedicated two pages everyday to cover each and every aspect of this movement.

With the movement gathering momentum in three districts Nellore, Chittor and Kurnool and its surrounding areas, Hyderabad, the capital of the state of Andhra Pradesh, became a meeting point for all the groups in the districts. Finally, the government had to bow to pressure and ban arrack from 1 October 1993.

Excise department was entrusted the job of preventing smuggling arrack from neighboring states. In order to create awareness among the people, the Information Department launched a massive publicity campaign against liquor. Huge cut-outs against drinking were to be seen all over the city. Banning of arrack was not effective as the consumption of toddy increased. So what was needed was total prohibition on sale.

Renuka Chowdhary of the Telugu Desam Party, then the opposition party in the state, and other women's organizations called for a meeting of all women fighting against arrack to form a common platform. And thus a Joint Action Forum of women was formed to press for 'total prohibition' and a memorandum seeking prohibition was submitted to the Chief Minister.

When the response from chief minister was not satisfactory, they decided to collect signatures, arrange meetings in the slums, and organize rallies, marches and picketing. At a rally on 2nd October 1994, N.T Rama Rao of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) proclaimed that if his party was elected to power he would declare total prohibition. Elections to the state assembly were held in December and the TDP was elected to power with a thumping majority.

In the beginning, the political parties were a bit wary of this commitment made by Rama Rao as it was the same N.T. Rama Rao who had introduced the Yarun Vahini scheme, making liquor available in people's homes by selling it in sachets, now emerged as a leader to demand prohibition. In fact, each and every political party from Right to Center to Left, be it the Telugu Desam Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Communist Party of India or the Communist Party of India (Marxist), made prohibition an issue during the elections. The women had achieved their victory.

 on could help to explain the ‘weakness of the powerful’ in this context. The approach I will use draws on Foucault, Laclau and Mouffe and the discussion starts at the nexus of power and authority. Traditionally, power is responsible for the repression of wills and desires and, when organised, consists of a network of censorship, prohibitions and

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The Progressive Era was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States, from the 1890s to 1920s .^[1] The main objective of the Progressive movement was eliminating corruption in government. The movement primarily targetedpolitical machines and their bosses. By taking down these corrupt representatives in office a further means of direct democracy would be established. They also sought regulation of monopolies (Trust Busting) and corporations through antitrust laws. These antitrust laws were seen as a way to promote equal competition for the advantage of legitimate competitors.

Many progressives supported Prohibition in the United States in order to destroy the political power of local bosses based in saloons.^[2] At the same time, women's suffrage was promoted to bring a "purer" female vote into the arena.^[3] A second theme was building an Efficiency Movement in every sector that could identify old ways that needed modernizing, and bring to bear scientific, medical and engineering solutions; a key part of the efficiency movement wasscientific management, or "Taylorism".