CENTRAL INDIA MEMORANDUM.
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12. Inveterate smokers of charas appear to be found only among the religious mendi-
cants, fakirs, gosains, sadhus, and viragis. Most cultivators in Bhopawar smoke ganja
occasionally; but nowhere else in Central India are the cultivators said to be ganja-smokers.
The Indore Minister particularly says that the agricultural classes rarely use ganja.
In
the Baghelkhand, Bhopal, West Malwa, and Guna Agencies, the ganja-smokers (other than
fakirs, etc.) are said to be chamars, mehters, and other low caste people. Some witnesses
give figures. In Dewas about 1 per cent. of the population are said to be ganja-smokers.
In Rutlam (population 89,160) there are said to be 500 ganja-smokers and 50 charas-smokers.
In Indore it is supposed that 2 per cent. of the male population smoke ganja and that
barely one in a thousand smokes charas. The smoking of both is generally more common
in towns than in villages. In Charkhari (Bundelkhand) all sadhus, etc., 30 per cent. of the
low caste people, and 5 per cent. of the rest of the population are said to smoke ganja.
13. The flat ("chapta") variety is the only ganja generally used in Central India.
In Indore it is called hari.
The Superintendent of the Sehore Bazaar says that chur is
cheaper and that poor people sometimes use it for bhang.
14. The little charas that is used in Malwa comes mostly from the Punjab or the North-
West Provinces, being imported by Vilayatis or Afghans. What is used in Rewah comes
mostly from Patna. It is only in Bhopawar that there is any manufacture of charas, and
there, as has been already said, it is prepared for personal use only.
15. In no part of Central India is bhang said to be used for smoking. Bhang is to
some extent eaten and largely drunk all over the Agency. Some figures are given. In
Indore 5 per cent. of the population are said to be drinkers and one in 5,000 eaters, of bhang.
In Rutlam (population 89,160) 1,500 people are said to drink and 500 to eat bhang.
The drinking of bhang is supposed to be common among all the higher castes of Hindus—
Brahmans (especially those of Malwa), Banias and Rajputs—at times of rejoicing, and for a
cool drink in the hot weather. Ujjain and Maheswar are mentioned by one of the Indore
witnesses as places where bhang is largely drunk. In Charkhari bhang is said to be "eaten
only by hardened drinkers of the drug." In the Dattia evidence it is said that the same
people who would drink bhang in the hot weather would eat it in the cold whether or the
rains. In Bhopal about 100,000 are said to use one or other of the hemp drugs; charas
being expensive is said to be the least used of the three.
16. Taking Central India as a whole, the use of hemp drugs appears to be either station-
ary or on the decrease. In Rutlam the decrease is said to be due to the fact that the use of the
drugs is disreputable; in Rewah to the fact that the drugs, being imported, are dear; and in
Indore the Minister thinks that the clear decrease is due to the increased use of cheap
adulterated liquor.
17. Occasional consumers of ganja are very rare and occasional consumers of bhang are
very common. It is reckoned both for Indore and Dewas that 90 per cent. of those who use
bhang or ganja are habitual moderate consumers, and 10 per cent. habitual excessive consu-
mers. The habitual excessive consumers of ganja are almost all religious mendicants. The
use of ganja by such men is said to enable them to endure abstinence from food and water, and
also to resist malaria. Apart from its use by religious mendicants, ganja is largely used by
labourers and by the lower orders of domestic servants. It is more easily prepared than bhang,
and it produces a more immediate intoxication. The habitual use of bhang is said to be
common among Pujaris and Brahman priests; otherwise bhang is a luxury of the well-to-do
Hindu. Sometimes it is taken merely as an appetiser. A dose of it is supposed to enable a
man to concentrate his faculties. It is largely used by Hindu jewellers, by whom it is sup-
posed to steady the eye.
18. The average allowance and its cost for bhang and ganja respectively are very
variously stated. In Indore the habitual moderate allowance per diem is said to be half
a tola, costing one pice; and the habitual excessive allowance one tola and a half, costing
three pice. In Dewas the habitual moderate allowance is said to be one tola, costing three pies,
and the habitual excessive allowance twelve tolas, costing three annas. In Indore the habitual
moderate drinker of bhang is said to take three tolas, costing half an anna, every day; in
Dewas the dose is said to vary from one tola, costing half a pie, to four tolas, costing two pies.
In Bhopawar habitual moderate consumers of bhang are said to take daily a quarter of a tola
which, with the various admixtures, costs one anna; while excessive consumers take as much as
five tolas, the cost of which, with admixtures, is eight annas. In Charkhari two tolas of bhang
are said to cost one anna, the same being the price of one tola of ganja.
19. Ganja is smoked along with tobacco, the object of the mixture being, according to
some, to bring out the full effect of the ganja, and, according to others, to mitigate its bad
odour. The method of using the drugs in Bhopawar is thus described:—
Ganja is for smoking mixed only with tobacco.
Charas is generally put on the top of the filled hookah (five to twenty grains weight).
Pepper, anise-seed, cucumber seed, almonds, cardamoms, rose leaves, lilac flowers, are all
classed as "bhang massala," but ordinarily only the first two are used. Bhang is also taken
with milk and sugar or boiled in milk. An infusion of one to two scruples in two or three
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