240
REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94.
[APP.
REPORT BY MR. H. M. LAWRIE, C.S., OFFICIATING DEPUTY COMMISSIONER,
BHANDARA, CENTRAL PROVINCES, ON THE CONSUMPTION OF GANJA
AMONG THE POWARS.
In accordance with the instructions contained in your office letter No. 4259, dated the
10th September last, I have the honour to report that a careful inquiry has been made by
Mr. Gokhle, Extra-Assistant Commissioner, as to the alleged increasing use of ganja among
the Powars. The conclusions arrived at by Mr. Gokhle are as follows:-
2. It is true that there has been an increase of ganja consumption among Powars in this
district, but not more so than among other classes. The increase of consumption among
Powars may have attracted greater notice than that among others on account of the higher
position of this caste in the social scale. It is perhaps erroneous to say that Powars had a
prejudice against the use of the drug: what prejudice they may have had was merely that
entertained by people generally, and might be more correctly described as want of familiarity
with its use than any objection to it.
3. Purchases by Powars do not always represent consumption by them. There are a
number of Powars who are large rice cultivators, and who in the transplanting season have to
supply their labourers with some stimulant. Finding ganja to be cheaper than country liquor
and quite as acceptable to their workmen, some Powars appear to have in this way made large
purchases of ganja-not for their own use. The character and habits of Powars have not varied
at all, so far as can be ascertained, in consequence of the more extended use by them of ganja.
It has been mentioned that there is now a saying among Powars that a man who does not take
ganja is nothing but a girl, but it does not appear that the taking of ganja has made these
people more manly. It does not mean much more than that to take ganja is looked on as
the sort of thing a grown man does, just as in England among boys smoking is sometimes
looked on as a sign of emancipation from the school-room. It may to a certain extent refer
to the supposed aphrodisiac qualities of the drug.
4. From the accompanying statements which Mr. Gokhle has had prepared, it will be seen
that while the increase of ganja sales in shops where there are many Powars from 1891-92 to
1893-94 is only 31 per cent., that in shops where there are comparatively few Powar customers
is, for the same period, 42 per cent. In the case of shops where there are no Powar purchasers
the increase is only 12 per cent.; but this does not appear to be connected with the fact of the
absence of people of this caste, but to be dependent on other circumstances. Among Powars,
as among people of other castes, there has been an extension of the use of this drug in the last
ten years; but the figures given in Mr. Gokhle's Statement II must not be taken to show a
real increase in consumption to the extent of the increase in sales, since there is no doubt that a
considerable amount of the increase is to be accounted for by the better arrangements now in
force for the prevention of illegal ganja consumption. It is said that in the zemindaries on
the south-eastern border of the district there used to be a good deal of ganja cultivation which
has now been stopped, and that this ganja used formerly to be introduced into this district.
But Mr. Gokhle's enquiries lead him to believe that, during the last four or five years in parti-
cular, the use of ganja has become more familiar to Powars, as well as to members of subordi-
nate castes.
5. The reason why the report was not submitted by the date mentioned in the concluding
portion of your letter was partly the fact that Mr. Gokhle was temporarily transferred from
the district for two months in the close of 1893, and the enquiries on this subject consequently
interrupted. Recently Mr. Gokhle has been on tour in the Tirrora tahsil, which is under his
charge, and where the Powars are in great number, and he has thus had a good opportunity of
ascertaining by personal enquiries how the matter stands.