REPORT BY Mn. II. M. L AWRIE, U.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 Powers. 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 prejutlice 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 Powers 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 Power 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 particular, the use of ganja has become more familiar to Powers, as well as to members of subordinate 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 a ascertaining by personal enquired how the matter stands.