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Surat Port was contraband centre high on opium |
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SURAT: While present day's contraband crorepatis have made their moolah selling drugs online and 'pure maal' marijuana is sold surreptiously in the bylanes of Pandesera, the opium merchants of Surat made their millions trading it legally in earlier centuries.
'Indian hemp' or opium was known as Aphioen to those visited Surat to purchase goods for global trade. Initially, grown in small amounts within Gujarat to cater to local needs, once international traders began demanding the 'miraculous herb with medicinal qualities', opium - which was then classified as a commodity, shot up in demand within the Eurasian trade.
Opium's history states that the Dutch bought it at Surat as early as 1620. Surat's merchants procured from Malwa and also from Misr (Egypt), the quality called Misri. When VOC directors in Amsterdam were informed that this herb helped keep soldiers alert and free of pain, the demand went up from a mere 187 pounds to 1187 pounds.
The Dutch soon began trading it for pepper at Malabar and also introduced it to the islands that the VOC traded with. In 17th century, due to its low bulk, opium got away with being traded in vast quantities. Being popular on the Malabar coast, it was not seen as a contraband or its merchants deemed smugglers.
Surat's cannabis caused the consumer to create quite a racket, as John Henry Grose, a civil servant in the East India Company wrote later, "A temporary madness that in some, which designedly taken for that purpose, ends in running what they call a- muck, furiously killing everyone they meet, without distinction, until themselves are knocked on the head, like mad dogs."
Locally called ganja, the herb was a luxury for royalty to relax while it was a lifeline for fakirs to fight hunger and pain. The Theosophist Vol.IV dated March 1883 records comments of H.P.Blavatsky on a Hindu ascetic, who arrived to live in Surat, "He does not receive alms but only accepts drugs like ganja and sooka. He does not require any food. Hundreds of thousands of pointed nails were fixed on the wooden shoes he wears and bench he sleeps on."
The tincture cannabis Indica soon found major demand and profits in Eurasian trade, especially China. "By 1803, custom masters of the English company at Surat and Bombay were warned against import and export of opium except what was purchases at company sales in Bengal," writes Celsa Pinto in 'Trade and Finance in Portuguese India'.
H Munro noted in 1803 that Indian merchants exported opium in wooden boxes. Surat's measure of 4 maunds equalled one chest. Also, the merchants of Cannaur were the main importers at Surat.
Virji Vora, a few Jew merchants, and several Parsi traders, especially the Ready Money family made neat fortunes out of opium trade functioning from Surat, Daman, Bombay and Goa before the British took advantage of exclusively exporting opium to China.
Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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