235
EVIDENCE. OF SIND WITNESSES.
1. Evidence of MR. H. E. M. JAMES, Commissioner in Sind.
25. The consumption in Sind of ganja, charas
and bhang is not increasing to any appreciable
extent amongst classes not hitherto accustomed
to the drugs, according to the best of my belief;
based on enquiries rom Natives well able to
judge.
The population has increased in round figures
from 2,200,000 in 1872 to 2,870,000 in 1891.
In 1878 through communication by railway was
opened between Sind and the rest of India.
Partly then, owing
–
(a ) to increase of population,
(b) to the greatly increased comfort of the
population ( the doubling of them land
revenue in twenty years, and the great
rise in wages are evidences of this),
(c) to Sind having been rendered easy of
access to the consumers of these drugs,
(d)
an increase in revenue from hemp drugs was
to be expected ; and we find accordingly that the
revenue has increased in nineteen years from
Rs. 76,680 to Rs. 165,310, i. e., it has more than
doubled. Factor ( c) is, however, undoubtedly the
most potent 'of the three. No one who revisited Sind
as I did in 1891, after an absence of seventeen years,
could avoid being struck with large number of
g o s a i s f a k i r s a n d w a n d e r i n g a s c e t i c s w h o n o w
throng the province. Partly because Sind is on
the way to Garh Hinglaj (a shrine in the Persian
Gulf) and partly because the Hindu tradesmen
of Sind, formerly very lax observers of their
r e l i ¬ g i o n , a r e n o w p a y i n g g r e a t e r a t t e n t i o n t o i t a n d
imitating the orthodox of India proper, gosais
visit Sind in much larger numbers than before,
and they meet with much favour from the Hindu
community, which is growing in wealth. The
small indigenous colonies of beggars have also
been largely recruited. The beggars who, as a
class, consume hemp drugs, are for all these
reasons, both much more numerous and better off
than before, and so the consumption of the
drugs appears to be larger than the increase
in population itself would naturally warrant.
Briefly stated, the classes in Sind principally ad-
dicted to the drugs, i. e . the different classes of
ascetics, have increased largely in numbers
and prosperity and their total consumption has
increased proportionately. The census figures of
1891 show 18,594 devotees, singers and sadhus
(holy men or gosais) in Sind.
I learn at the same time, on good authority,
that in the large towns of Sind, and even in
rural tracts near Baluchistan, the use of both
bhang and ganja is extending amongst the labour-
ing classes. Seedees (men with African blood
in them, the descendants of former slaves) have al-
ways been addicted to the drugs and so have the
Brahuis of Kalat and Afghans of Kandahar, from
which, the last-named place, charas comes to Sind.
And the unprecedented rise in wages during the
last few years has led to the use of the drugs be-
coming more fashionable amongst men of the
vol. vii.
poorest coolie class. On the other hand, there are
persons who maintain that the repression of
smuggling has of late enhanced the drugs in price
and actually deprived some off the poor of a
luxury which was formerly, within their means.
On the whole, I should say that the labouring
classes of Sind consume hemp drugs more than
they did twenty years ago. There is, I believe,
some consumption of the drugs in the Native
Army.
35. (a ) It would certainly be most difficult
indeed—I should say absolutely impossible—to en-
force total prohibition, as distinct from checking
the trade by increasing the price, because hemp
drugs are small in bulk and smuggling would be
very easy and an army of Native subordinates
and preventive officers would be needed.
(b) Illicit consumption would surely go on,
just as the consumption of liquor has (I un-
derstand) in American towns where total prohibi-
tion has been tried.
(c) The only way of enforcing prohibition would
be by forbidding the growth of the plant, making
the importation or possessions or preparation of it
punishable by law, and giving the Police power
to search individuals, not only on frontiers, but
everywhere in the country itself. These measures
would be very unpopular, and even then they
would be ineffectual, because the plant is found
in Native States, and also grows wild in large
quantities in Kashmir and Northern India, as
well as (so I am told, but I doubt it) in Balu-
chistan.
(d) Of course consumers would be very discon-
tented if their supply of drugs were cut off.
And the large number of respectable people who
take bhang in water as a refrigerant in the hot
weather would be justly incensed.
(e) Yes —Every wandering fakir ( and the
Commission must know how, all over India, the
richest and most enterprising of merchants, and
in Native States, even high officials pay abject
homage to these ascetics) would preach to his
disciples the " zoolum " of the Sirkar, and say it
was only another step to interference with
religion.
We are accustomed to despise this
kind of thing too much. Taken with other
things the stoppage of the drugs would be poli-
tically dangerous.
(f) I cannot say how far the prohibition of
drugs would lead the consumers to take to alco-
hol or other drugs. The tendency would be for
the poor to adhere to their use, as, even if
smuggled, they are cheaper than spirits. The
better-to-do might in time take to alcohol.
41. The moderate occasional use of bhang is
undoubtedly believed by the most sober and well-
conducted of natives to be beneficial in cooling
the blood in the hot weather. I have found this
both in Guzerat and Sind. Ascetics, who
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