Antri
More actions
| Antri | |
|---|---|
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Gene Pool | South Asian Gene Pool |
| Geography | |
| Country | India |
| Province/State | Madhya Pradesh |
| Districts | Gwalior District, Shivpuri District |
| Coordinates | 25.57, 77.91 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 14,800 km² |
| Terrain | Approximately Gwalior and Shivpuri districts, which hold the Antri, Sipri (Shivpuri) and Kolaras tahsils of the 1890s |
| Growing history | |
| Earlier names | Antri, Sipri and Kalaras tahsils of the Gwalior State; Gwalior ganja |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Antri is a landrace cannabis growing area in the north of Madhya Pradesh, India, named after a village and railway station of the Gwalior State. It is drawn on Gwalior and Shivpuri districts. In the 1890s the Gwalior State grew ganja in three tahsils, Antri, Sipri and Kolaras, on about 400 acres. Of the 540 acres of regular cultivation the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission could establish in the States of Central India, 400 were in Gwalior.[1] The drug went out by rail from Antri and was sold in the North-Western Provinces as Gwalior ganja.[2] In 2025 police in Shivpuri district reported three ganja fields at Umargarha, under Pichhore police station.[3]
The tract
Mahomed Hassein, a drug contractor of Lucknow, placed the Antri tahsil in "Pargana Gurd",[4] and Pandit Gopal Ram, assistant to the State's Director of Land Records and Agriculture, placed Kolaras in "district Narwar".[5] The Gwalior State's district table of 1902–03 lists Gwalior Gird and Narwar among its districts.[6] The town of Sipri is today's Shivpuri.[7] Antri lay on the Indian Midland Railway, and the Commissioner of Excise of the North-Western Provinces, T. Stoker, wrote that Gwalior ganja was "as a rule" despatched by rail from its station.[2]
Cultivation in the 1890s
The Gwalior State sent no return of its own to the Commission.[8] Its Director of Land Records and Agriculture, Colonel Pitcher, supplied Stoker with Gopal Ram's memorandum on the crop.[2] Gopal Ram wrote that ganja was sown as a kharif crop in the tahsils of Antri, Sipri and Kalaras (Kolaras), and counted 250 bighas in Antri and 253 in Kolaras in the last season; the Sipri return had not come in, and he estimated it at about 300 bighas. A Gwalior bigha was half an acre.[5] The Commission's own inquiry put the Antri pargana at 265 bighas and noted cultivation elsewhere in the State, extensive at Ujjain and Sipri, with a slight tendency to increase.[1]
The crop was grown "chiefly by Kachis", the Kachhi cultivators, on fields rented from the zamindars at 10 to 14 rupees a bigha. The fields were manured and ploughed at least three times, sown in July, weeded in August and September, then ploughed again and watered four or five times in November and December. Every male flower was cut out as soon as it appeared; Gopal Ram wrote that "Even a few of the male flowers may destroy a whole field". The ganja was cut, bound in bundles of about a seer and trodden while green; some cultivators sowed wheat in the ganja fields in October and November. He put the yield at 7 maunds 20 seers a bigha and wrote that ganja "cannot be procured from the wild plants".[5] The Commission put the cultivation season at July to December.[9]
The witnesses disagreed about the seed. Gopal Ram wrote that "Ujjain and Khandwa seed is always sown in Antri—Antri seed does not answer the purpose".[5] Mahomed Hassein said that the seed of self-grown plants in Ujjain and Malwa was gathered for sowing in Gwalior and Khandwa.[4] H. O. W. Robarts, the excise officer of the neighbouring Jhansi district, had heard instead that Antri grew the plant almost entirely for its seed and supplied nearly all the seed for ganja used in the State.[10]
Some charas came from the harvest. Cutters scraped off the resin that stuck to their hands; in Antri the cultivators did not care much about it, but in Kolaras, Gopal Ram heard, a little was made "by the same process as in Kumaun and Garhwal".[5] The Commission thought the amount "quite inconsiderable".[11]
Gwalior ganja
Stoker described Gwalior ganja as the same in character and appearance as the pathar of the Central Provinces, sold under the same name to the same consumers, and "the product of careful cultivation and preparation".[2] The Commission reckoned Gwalior "the most considerable source of the ganja supply" of the North-Western Provinces, larger than Khandwa and far larger than Bengal, and Stoker thought it had gained ground with the building of the railway.[12] It estimated that the 400 acres might yield as much as 3,500 maunds of ganja and bhang, largely exported to the North-Western Provinces and to the States of Rajputana and Central India.[11] The Dholpur State imported some 39 maunds of ganja from Antri and Kerowli 10 maunds from Gwalior.[13]: 124
Gopal Ram wrote that the State exercised no control over the cultivation. It levied a duty of 5 rupees a maund on ganja exported to British territory and 2 rupees 8 annas on ganja carried to other places in the State, and farmed the customs of each tahsil to a cultivator.[5] The Commission learned that the cultivator could sell only to a licensed vendor and paid 12 rupees an acre above his rent, and that the State was bound by a special arrangement to prevent export into British territory.[14] Stoker wrote that the Darbar had been reminded of the treaty in 1887 and had responded by doubling the duty on ganja exported to British territory.[2]
After 1894
The Imperial Gazetteer of India of 1908 recorded that "a considerable quantity of Indian hemp" was produced in the country round Gwalior city for ganja and bhang.[6]
In February 2025 Patrika reported that police in Shivpuri district had raided ganja fields at Umargarha, a hamlet of Karakheda village under Pichhore police station, and seized 613 kg of ganja from three fields.[3]
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No news items are recorded for this growing area yet.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. IV, "Extent of cultivation, and its tendency to increase or decrease", paras. 142–146, pp. 55–56 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Memorandum on hemp drugs in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, by Mr. T. Stoker, Commissioner of Excise". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. paras. 23–24, p. 29 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Astha Awasthi (14 February 2025). एमपी में खेत देखकर उड़े पुलिस के होश, लहलहा रही थी 61 लाख की ‘गांजे की फसल’ [In MP the police were stunned to see the field: a ‘ganja crop’ worth 61 lakh was flourishing]. Patrika (in हिन्दी). Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of M. Mahomed Hassein, Drug Contractor, Lucknow". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. V: Evidence of Witnesses from North-Western Provinces and Oudh and Punjab. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 253, pp. 341–342 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Memo.—Ganja cultivation in Gwalior State, by Pandit Gopal Ram". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. pp. 42–43 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Gwalior State". The Imperial Gazetteer of India. Vol. XII (New ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1908. p. 429 – via Digital South Asia Library.
- ↑ District Administration, Shivpuri. "History". District Shivpuri, Government of Madhya Pradesh. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Memorandum by Mr. R. H. Gunion on hemp drugs in Central India". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. p. 158 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. V, "Methods of cultivation and matters connected therewith", para. 215, pp. 82–83 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. H. O. W. Robarts, Officiating Joint Magistrate and Excise Officer, Jhansi". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. V: Evidence of Witnesses from North-Western Provinces and Oudh and Punjab. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 32, p. 37 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. VII, "Trade and movement of the hemp drugs", para. 331, p. 125 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. VII, "Trade and movement of the hemp drugs", paras. 289–291, pp. 109–111 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. VII, "Trade and movement of the hemp drugs", para. 330, p. 123 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. XVII, "Systems of Native States", para. 705, p. 347 – via Internet Archive.
