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173. Evidence of P. KESAVA PILLAI, Karnam, Pleater, and Honorary Secretary of
the Gooty People's Association.
1. Local enquiries made at Gooty.
2. The definitions accepted. Both charas and
bhang are not used here. They call plants with
seeds male, and with only flowers female. They
do not use female plants; and they remove them
as soon as they can distinguish male from female.
Flat ganja is known here as mandham, and the
round gaja as mulki.
7. It is limited to a few backyards and com-
pounds and sometimes in vegetable gardens.
8. The cultivation does not increase.
9. It is watered till it becomes fit for use.
10. Muhammadan fakirs as a rule.
And, if cultivators, if any grow it, they do it
for medicinal purposes and for giving it to bairagis.
13. It is cultivated here and there in small
patches. It is not restricted to any portions in
the district.
14. (a) Ganja, yes.
(b) Charas, no.
(c) Bhang, no.
It is for the use of the manufacturer and his
associates.
15. It is for smoking only.
16.
Bhang is not known here.
18. It is valued up to a year. Bats have a
great relish for it, as parrots covet it while grow-
ing in the fields.
19.
Ganja is used for smoking during the
summer; round ganja is used for drinking also.
After making it a paste, mix with water, and
strain it; and this is mixed with sugar and some
spices, and then taken as a cooling and stupefying
draught.
20. Muhammadans, Chetty balijas, fishermen,
males, madigas and linga balijas. In Gooty,
Pamidi Urnakondah and Guntakul, the majority
of the ganja users live. In almost every village
one or two may be found.
21. Now they get round ganja for smoking.
Flat ganja cannot be had. Round ganja is im-
ported in preference to the other for the reason
that there is very little demand for the latter.
22. No charas is understood here.
23. Bhang is unknown.
25, The smoking is on the increase. It is by
association with ganja smoker who by his appa-
rent liberality and profuse praise of its virtues
induce lazy loungers to begin to smoke. It is
dead cheap. They can gratify their desire for
getting intoxicated with a few puffs of ganja
smoke when they cannot afford the luxury of
drinking spirituous liquors and toddy. There are
some ganja smokers who do not drink.
It does not supersede drinking gradually.
26. Consumers are all habitually moderate.
We do not hear of habitual excessive consumers.
Unlike opium smokers, ganja smokers can occa-
sionally smoke and give it up.
27. Vide remarks against question 20. Lazy
habits of people who resort to places where fakirs
and such people lounge.
28. Three to six pies for both morning and
evening for habitual moderate consumers ; and
1 to 2 pies for a beginner.
29. Tobacco is mixed with it to give it a better
flavour and neutralize its bad effects. No dhatura
here.
30. As a rule, they smoke in company. Only
males use it; children do not smoke it.
31. They can break off the habit without diffi-
culty. They say that there would be no harm to
their constitutions. Bairagis may feel it diffi-
cult to break off the habit.
32. It is not associated with any social or re-
ligious custom. Almost all the bairagis use it,
and passionately like it for the reason that it is
an effective preventive against fevers as well as
the effects of cold and of drinking all sorts of
water in their wanderings.
33. (a) In these parts the consumers are held in
contempt, and a ganja smoker himself would not
proclaim his habit, and feels it a disgrace to be
known as a ganja smoker ; but this remark is not
applicable to fakirs and lowest classes of people.
(b) The public sentiment against it is due to
the feeling that a ganja smoker is known to be a
lazy and never-well-to-do fellow, and has little
credit. No doubt a ganja smoker is a better
member of society than a drunkard; neverthe-
less, he is not considered to be a morally sensitive being.
(c) No custom of worshiping the plant exists
anywhere here.
34. Except to bairagis and fakirs, and perhaps
to fishermen, the rest would not feel it as a great
privation.
Bairagis are wanderers and often they have
spare clothing. They think it a great preventive
against the effects of climate, etc. It also warms
them up ; therefore some cultivators make it a
point to cultivate ganja, and consider it merito-
rious to make doles of ganja leaves to the bairagis.
Fishermen, but only very few, to warm themselves
after their labour in water. Fakirs to while away
their time.
35. It is feasible here. There will not be any
political danger ; but the bairagis and fakirs who
wander from place to place have to be reckoned
with, in case it is prohibited every where and not
allowed to be imported. Yes, the consumers, at
least the majority of them, will take to the worse
habit of drinking liquors.
36. I don't think that the drug to any extent is
substituted by liquor or vice versa. In spite of
their cost, toddy and liquor are drunk largely, and
the number of their consumers are on the increase.
40. (a) Yes.
(b) It is used for cattle disease.
41. (a) Yes, by the consumers.
(b) Yes.
(c) Yes.
42. It is believed that it makes the ganja
smoker stupid and idiotic.
43. Yes.
44. The immediate effect is stupefying the
intellect on a beginner. Bairagis say that it
allays hunger to some extent, and that it is also
refreshing. Want of subsequent gratification
will produce longing for it as much as a habitual
tobacco smoker feels for tobacco.