NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES AND OUDH MEMORANDUM. 27
happens in a few
districts, it may happen in any district. There can be no doubt it
would
happen very generally if the import of ganja were prohibited. The
distinction between the
male and female plants is everywhere recognized (though the names
are sometimes transposed),
and it is generally known that the latter yields ganja and the
former bhang only. But as
yet it is not everywhere or generally known that proper ganja can
only be made from the
unfertilized flower. Such knowledge, however, would soon
spread.
Ganja of a certain sort
is also made in Nepal territory, and there is reason to
believe
in the adjoining parts of this territory. It is introduced by
Nepalese who come down for
one reason or another and who primarily bring it for their own use,
but possibly also do a
little trade in it. I will submit a specimen which was procured by
the Collector of Basti from
a fakir who wanders in and out of Nepal and could not clearly say
on which side of the
frontier it was grown. The ganja is no doubt very inferior, but
compared with the purely
wild female plant it seems to me to indicate some preparation from
a plant specially grown
or tended.
17. Besides these
cases it has also been ascertained that wild ganja is collected and
used in
the Kheri district. I have procured a specimen of this and
submitted it to the Commission.
It is simply the unprepared flower of the wild female plant
fertilized and fructifying. The
Deputy Commissioner reports that the people do not understand the
necessity for keeping the
flower barren. This stuff is locally smoked as ganja, but it is
recognized to be of very inferior
quality and has no commercial value. In Bara Banki also the wild
female plant is
collected and smoked under the name of ganja. The specimens
indicate an absence of any
form of special cultivation or manufacture. There are indications
that wild ganja is similarly
used in other districts, but the matter is not certain, and I have
seen no specimens. The
Kheri experience shows that the produce of even the wild plant can
be used as ganja at
a pinch, and raises an inference that ordinary bhang could be
smoked if ganja were not
procurable.
18. The hemp
plant is cultivated for its fibre in the Almora and Garhwal
districts, and
yields charas generally as a subsidiary product. Some description
of the process will be found
in the North-Western Provinces Gazetteer, Volume X, pages 760 and
seq and 799 and seq.
The information now
supplied to me by the local authorities and gained by my own
enquiries
shows that the charas is extracted by rubbing in the hands the
flowers of the female plant
after it has been cut and scraping off the resin which adheres to
them. A certain amount is
also said to stick to the hands when the stalk is manipulated for
preparation of the fibre, but
this requires confirmation. No intentional effort seems to be made
to keep the female plant
from being fertilized, but the male plant matures a month or six
weeks before the female
plant, and is then cut to prevent deterioration of the fibre. Where
the primary object of the
cultivation is charas, the male plant is similarly removed to give
the female room to spread. This
practice may act to check fertilization, but obviously does not
prevent it, as the female plants
are said to always produce seed. Moreover, the wild plant grows
round about and presumably
its pollen would fertilize the cultivated plant. Charas is also
extracted from the female
flowers of the wild plant which must of course be fully fertilized.
Such charas is esteemed to
be of inferior quality. In a letter from the Political Agent and
Superintendent of the Punjab
Hill States it is said that in Bashahr a resin is extracted from
the terminal leaves of the wild
female plant by rubbing them between the palms of the hands till
the resin adheres. It is
then scraped off and smoked like charas. Each man makes his own in
this fashion. This
private manufacture of the drug in a small way is common. This
account agrees exactly
with the description given of the preparation of charas in the hill
districts of these provinces
and in Native Garhwal. Charas, which is a resinous secretion of the
female flower, would
seem scarcely distinguishable in its properties and effects from
ganja, which is the female flower
with its resinous secretion still present.
IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.
19. The
imports of bhang may be very briefly stated. Nearly the whole of
the bhang
consumed here is grown in the provinces. A certain amount is
imported from the Punjab,
coming chiefly from Jagadhri, Kalsia, Umballa, and some from
Amritsar, Hosbiyarpur. Nearly
all of it goes to a few of our western districts. This is not
because of any failure in the local
supply which is unlimited and inexhaustible, nor because of any
superiority of the Punjab
article, but apparently on account of the trade connection of some
of the contractors with the
Punjab. These imports are made under pass in the manner prescribed
in rule 98, Chapter
X, of the North-Western Provinces Excise Manual. No import duty is
levied. A little
bhang also occasionally comes from Bhartpur and Jeypur and perhaps
from a few Bundel-
khand Native States, but in that direction we give more than we
get. The amount is not
considerable and seems to be diminishing. Some of the bhang from
Gonda and Bahraich is
really grown on the Nepal side of the border. The Nepalese
officials are said to exact a trifling
duty of one or two annas per maund. The plant is treated in the
same way as the growth of
our own villages. A certain amount of bhang finds its way out of
the provinces to the
neighbouring districts of Bengal, the Punjab, the Central
Provinces, and the Bundelkhand
States.