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#ExpressResearch | Cannabis is illegal in India. Still, its prevalence is remarkable across the social and spiritual landscape of India. A variant called ‘bhang’ is frequently consumed and offered as part of festivities. | @AdrijaRoychow https://indianexpress.com/article/research/cannabis-in-india-a-rather-long-story-with-its-highs-and-lows-6592020/
So deeply intertwined is cannabis with religion in India, that one of the principal deities of Hinduism, Shiva, is given the sobriquet: ‘Lord of Bhang’. And this stems from the rather long history of the plant in the subcontinent.
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Given its religious significance, weed is also ritually consumed by ascetics or sadhus. More often they smoke the highly resinous buds of the female plant or the resin itself (hashish) in small clay pipes, which are locally referred to as chillum.
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Cannabis consumption in India caught the attention of Europeans soon after they landed. The British too were astonished by the popularity of cannabis in India. In 1798, the British Parliament passed a law to tax bhang, ganja and charas.
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In the course of the 19th century, several attempts were made by the British at criminalising cannabis in India. https://bit.ly/3mhnS1m
The first real push to criminalise cannabis consumption in the country came in 1961. USA's war on drugs was instrumental in this. “The US war on drugs started off as a patently racist propaganda against the African-American and the Hispanic population" https://bit.ly/2DQ3vad
A 2019 report by AIIMS noted that about 7.2 million people in India are addicted to cannabis. But the impact of the legislation against cannabis is most strongly felt by the poor and marginalised in the country. https://bit.ly/2DQ3vad
