CH. IV.] REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. 39
Raja of Gangpur some five or six months ago applied for permission to
import ganja. On the other hand, reference may be made to a report of the
Commissioner of Chota Nagpur in 1889: "The result of the inquiry was to
show that a good deal of ganja was being grown, and was being sold in the
Gangpur bazars to be brought into Sambalpur for sale," qualified by the follow-
ing: "I have just passed through the Gangpur State, but have not visited the
parts immediately bordering on Sambalpur. So far as the State generally is
concerned, I have not been able to hear anything of a general cultivation of ganja,
and I think it probable that the plant is grown chiefly on the borders of Sambal-
pur." No more definite estimate can be formed of the extent of the cultivation
than that it is very considerably less than in the Garhjat States. The Chief of
Jashpur, the State memoranda from Seraikela and Kharsawan, and other infor-
mants from Gangpur and Sirguja state that there is no cultivation at all, and
it is said that in Sirguja the consumer has to import the drug. This evidence
would indicate that in a great part of the country the practice of cultivation
must be quite uncommon.
Hill Tippera.
100. Several witnesses speak to the cultivation of the plant in Hill Tippera,
but they give little detail. It can be gathered, how-
ever, that the cultivation is of the ruder sort, the seed
of the wild plant being often used. It is probably inferior to that of the Garhjat and
the casual yard cultivation of the plain country. Otherwise it would have attract-
ed the attention of Government, and the witnesses would have had more to say
about it. Regarding the extent of cultivation, the evidence of a local officer, Babu
Govind Chandra Basak (44), is probably the best. He says: "Very little
ganja, say a few sérs, are grown in the Tippera Hills. The quantity is very
small, for the hill authorities now import ganja under a pass from the Sudder
(Tippera) golas." Still a small amount of smuggling into the plain country,
both of Bengal and Assam, is said to occur. The State memorandum reports
that "the cultivation of hemp is not carried on in the State."
Assam.
Cultivation prohibited and clandes-
tine cultivation unimportant.
101. There is no authorized cultivation in the districts of Assam which are
under settled administration, and prosecutions are
regularly instituted against persons in whose ground
the plant is found growing, if it bears any sign of having been nurtured
and tended. The result is, in Mr. Godfrey's words: "This sort of cultivation is
kept in check by the district officers, so there is no considerable area of it."
This opinion is to be accepted rather than that of Mr. Gait, which has been quoted
above, that the growth is very actively tolerated by the villagers. The plant
sows itself and grows vigorously all over Assam, and there must, of course, be many
instances of the desultory sort of cultivation, for the produce of the untended
growth is very inferior, and the temptation to nurse a few plants is great. But
there is no winking at the practice, and it cannot be regarded as important.
Cultivation in the hill ranges in
and bordering the province.
102. In the Himalayan region on the northern frontier the regular cultivation
probably resembles that which prevails throughout
those parts of the same mountains about which
there is more complete information, and consists of the more or less skilful
cultivation of small patches in the immediate neighbourhood of homesteads; and
it doubtless extends to the extreme north-east of the province, for there is
evidence of it as far as the country of the Miris. It will probably be found
also in the lofty ranges towards the Hukong valley and the north of Burma,