Talk:Garhjat ganja

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Discussion for: Garhjat ganja • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

Garhjat ganja covers the name Garhjat ganja and the product it named: its spellings, how the drug was made and how it looked, how Bengal taxed and regulated it, the question of whether it was drunk or smoked, its use at Puri, and what witnesses said of its strength. How the plant was grown in the Tributary States, and cannabis growing in the region today, are treated at Garhjat.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Sources and how they were read

Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, vol. I (Report). Ch. V para. 153 (p. 59), ch. XV para. 596 (p. 293) and ch. XVII paras. 732–733 (pp. 353–356) were read on the page images. In para. 732 the machine-read text gives the year of the Bengal Government's second view as "1899"; the printed page reads 1890.
Vol. III. K. G. Gupta's Bengal memorandum, paras. 18, 22, 31, 36, 43 and 44 (pp. 5–10), and H. V. Drake-Brockman's Central Provinces memorandum, para. 64 (pp. 73–74), read on the page images.
Vol. IV. The evidence of Westmacott (witness 2), Toynbee (4), Cooke (8), Stevenson (14), Gupta (17), Walsh (27), Coxe (28), Sen (62), Mukerjee (63), Brajendra Nath Ray (70) and Nityananda Dass (198), read on the page images at the passages the article uses. Witness numbers and pages are those printed in the volume.
The 1893 return to the House of Commons. The Board of Revenue's report of 20 July 1871 (pp. 67–71) and Kerr's report of 1877 (para. 30, p. 107), read on the page images of the printed return.
Prain. Report on the Cultivation and Use of Gánjá (1893), pp. 10, 29–30 and 33, read on the page images.
Chattopadhyaya. Ganja Matters (2026), pp. 13, 100 and 106.

Title and spellings

The commission's report, the Bengal excise memorandum, the Government of India's Resolution of 1895 and Chattopadhyaya write Garhjat; the region page on this wiki uses the same form. The witnesses, the Excise Manual as Prain quotes it, Kerr and the 1871 report write Gurjat. The 1871 report is the earliest source read, and it has both Gurjat ganja and Gujrat ganja. The title follows the form of the commission's report and of the region page, so that the product and the region it is named after carry the same spelling.
Gurjat ganja, Gurjati ganja and Garhjati ganja redirect here. Gujrat ganja is not redirected, because it reads as a reference to Gujarat.
No disambiguator is needed: the bare name Garhjat is the growing-region page, and Garhjat ganja names only the product.
The first-recorded year is 1871, from the Board of Revenue's report, which speaks of "what is called Gurjat ganja". The same report says that the Board had already reported on ganja in a letter of 5 February 1861; that letter was not read.

Kind of page

The name joins a place to the word ganja, and in the sources it worked as the name of a separate excise article, with its own duty, pass rules and limit of possession. The page is therefore a product name. No accession on the wiki carries the name.

Where the sources differ

Form. The excise memorandum and Gupta's evidence call it flat ganja only, as do Wylly and Das (see Garhjat). Prain found the heads of his two samples prepared to look somewhat like round ganja, tied in bundles like flat ganja. The ganja of Sonepur, before 1889, was round ganja (see Sonepur).
Drunk or smoked. The Bengal Government's view of 1889 that it was drunk, not smoked, was reversed in 1890. Witnesses then divided by place: drunk as bhang at Puri, smoked in Cuttack district and in the States (Sen); smoked mainly, and drunk only as Rajshahi ganja also was (Coxe, Collector of Puri).
Strength. Gupta and the Bengal Government of 1890 called it inferior to Rajshahi ganja; Nityananda Dass put it between Rajshahi siddhi and Rajshahi ganja. Sen, the smokers he questioned, and the old smokers and licensees asked by Brajendra Nath Ray called it stronger; the Sambalpur enquiry found that it gave a more lasting intoxication. Prain's analysis found less ethereal oil in it than in the Bengal samples. The article reports each view without ranking them.
Dates of the rules. The commission's report dates the cut in the possession limit to May 1892; Stevenson gives the Board's orders of 13 April 1892. The report says the import ban of June 1882 was not enforced until 1884. The duty of Rs. 2-8 a seer was asked for in 1890 (report) and fixed from 1 January 1891 (excise memorandum).
Duty before 1878. The 1871 report gives eight annas a seer. The excise memorandum's table gives eight annas before 1 January 1877 and one rupee from that date; the commission's report puts the duty before 1878 at one rupee.

Not used, and why

Deaths at Puri. Nityananda Dass said he had heard that some six people died after drinking Rajshahi ganja in place of Gurjat ganja. Hearsay, not used.
Smuggling estimates. Witnesses' estimates of the share of smuggling detected (one-twentieth, sixty per cent, ten or twenty per cent) disagree and are not used.
Madras. Some witnesses include ganja smuggled into Orissa from the Madras side in what they say of Gurjat ganja. The article uses only what they say of the Tributary States.

Wikipedia

English Wikipedia has no article on the name and no mention of it, in either spelling (search of 21 October 2026).