Fatehgarh
More actions
| Fatehgarh | |
|---|---|
| Farrukhabad | |
| HistoricalGrown here in the past; no recent record either way | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Gene Pool | South Asian Gene Pool |
| Geography | |
| Country | India |
| Province/State | Uttar Pradesh |
| Districts | Farrukhabad District, Kannauj District |
| Coordinates | 27.23, 79.57 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 4,300 km² |
| Terrain | Approximately Farrukhabad and Kannauj districts, west of the Ganges; the Katiari pargana of Hardoi across the river is not drawn |
| Growing history | |
| Grown | 1879[1]–1894[1] |
| Earlier names | Farakhabad or Fatehgarh district; Fatehgarh bhang; tatia |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Fatehgarh is a historical landrace cannabis growing area on the Ganges in Uttar Pradesh, India. It is drawn on Farrukhabad and Kannauj districts, which made up the Farrukhabad district of the 1890s; the excise memorandum of the time calls the district Fatehgarh, the name of its headquarters town. In the 1880s and 1890s hemp was grown there as a field crop for bhang and also across the river in the Katiari pargana of Hardoi. Part of the Hardoi crop was carried over the river and sold on as "Fatehgarh bhang".[1][2][3] The Commissioner of Excise of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh called it the only case in the provinces, outside the hill districts, where hemp was openly cultivated for commercial purposes.[2]
The tract
Farrukhabad and Fatehgarh are two towns about 5 km apart; Fatehgarh, named after an old fort, is the headquarters of the district. The Ganges and the Ramganga flow in the east of the district and Hardoi adjoins it on the east.[4][5] Kannauj district was carved out of Farrukhabad on 18 September 1997; the Ganges forms its north-eastern border.[6]
Cultivation
The excise inquiry of 1883 in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh recorded hemp cultivated in Farrukhabad, Hardoi and hill Garhwal.[7] The official returns of regular cultivation in the district, which the Commission reproduced, ran for fourteen years, between 72 and 336 acres a year: 195 acres in 1879–80, 72 in 1890–91 and 336 in 1892–93. The district's Joint Magistrate and Excise Officer gave figures that fell instead, from 691 bighas in 1891–92 to 561 in 1892–93. The Commission saw no reason to set the official return aside and read it as a decided tendency for the cultivation to increase.[1]
T. Stoker, the Commissioner of Excise, described the crop for the Commission. Hemp was sown alone or with the spring crops and harvested after they had been reaped, with no care beyond what the crops around it received. In Hardoi, and probably in Fatehgarh, self-sown plants about wells and houses and on waste patches and headlands added to it. All of it was made into bhang of a superior kind known as tatia, after a village in Fatehgarh district, which fetched a much higher price than the wild bhang of the districts below the hills. Stoker put the yield of the two districts at about 1,000 maunds a year.[2]
Two witnesses from Kannauj described the same crop. Lachmi Narain, a zamindar, said that bhang was sown in Kartik with the rabi crops and reaped in Baisakh after they were cut and that the roots sprouted again, so that one root could give bhang two or three times. He put the yield at 1,000 maunds in Farrukhabad and 200 in Hardoi.[8] Sheikh Hifazat Hosain, a pleader, gave 1,500 maunds in Farrukhabad and 250 in Hardoi. In his account ordinary cultivators grew bhang like any rabi crop and prepared it in the fields where it grew.[9] Hakim Asghar Hosain, a physician of Fatehgarh, knew of cultivation for bhang in the district but not where or how much.[10] A deputy collector in Lucknow, Rughober Dyal Misra, had heard of about 300 acres grown for bhang in Farrukhabad and of no other hemp grown for the drug in the provinces.[11]
Fatehgarh bhang
Part of the Hardoi crop was carried across the Ganges into Fatehgarh district and sent on from there as Fatehgarh bhang. Stoker put these exports at about 800 maunds a year.[2] He listed Fatehgarh among the chief districts from which bhang was exported.[12] The Commission thought that a system of practical restriction was tending to confine the cultivation to Farrukhabad and Hardoi.[1]
Katiari
On the Hardoi side the crop was grown in the Katiari pargana. Hakim Muhammad Ali, a physician of Hardoi, said that Katiari produced about 200 maunds a year, against 1,000 maunds in the past. The bhang was sown with the wheat and came up after the wheat was reaped and the old hemp growers had turned to poppy and sugarcane.[3] Raggha, a Brahman cultivator of Chochpur, said that bhang was cultivated in his village and in Katiari, sown in the rabi in wheat or barley fields by ordinary Kachhis (vegetable growers) and that the cultivation had largely been given up.[13] Shimbhu Nath, a Hardoi banker who had once held a ganja contract for a year, gave a reason for the decline: the contractors used to advance money to the cultivators and had stopped doing so.[14] Lachmi Narain said that the land once under bhang in Hardoi was now under sugarcane.[8] Two drug contractors, Thakur Parshad of Hardoi and Sarupchand of Lucknow, said that the Hardoi crop had shrunk because more bhang was now brought in from outside; Sarupchand named Bahraich.[15][16]
The official return for Hardoi showed only one acre in 1891–92. The Commission thought that the crop, often sown mixed with others, could not be measured and noted that several witnesses said it was decreasing.[1]
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No news items are recorded for this growing area yet.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 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. 103–108, pp. 40–42 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 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. para. 9, p. 25 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Hakim Muhammad Ali, Pathan, Yunani Doctor, Hardoi". 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. 175, pp. 242–243 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ District Administration, Farrukhabad. "About District". District Farrukhabad, Government of Uttar Pradesh. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ District Administration, Hardoi. "About District". District Hardoi, Government of Uttar Pradesh. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ District Administration, Kannauj. "About District". District Kannauj, Government of Uttar Pradesh. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. III, "The existence, prevalence, and character of the spontaneous growth", paras. 41–44, pp. 23–24 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Lachmi Narain, Brahmin, Zamindar and Mukhtar, Kanauj (Farukhabad)". 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. 238, p. 323 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Sheikh Hifazat Hosain, Zamindar and Pleader, Kanauj (Farukhabad)". 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. 235, p. 316 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Hakim Asghar Hosain, Sheikh, Native Physician, Fatehgarh, Farukhabad District". 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. 174, p. 242 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Pundit Rughober Dyal Misra, Brahman, Offg. Deputy Collector, 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. 48, p. 73 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 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. para. 20, p. 28 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Raggha, Brahman, Cultivator, Chochpur, Hardoi". 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. 217, p. 291 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Shimbhu Nath, Banker and Cloth Merchant, Harodi, Agarwala, Bania". 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. 256, p. 349 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Thakur Parshad, Hemp Drug, etc., Contractor, Hardoi". 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. 251, p. 340 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Sarupchand, Khattri, Hemp 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. 252, p. 341 – via Internet Archive.