An Historical Overview of Opium Cultivation and Changing State Attitudes towards the Crop in India, 1878–2000 A.D.

Abstract

The opium trade yielded enormous profits to the British imperialists during the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. While China was forcibly converted into the largest market for opium by the British from the early nineteenth century, India emerged as a fertile ground for the cultivation of poppy and manufacturing of opium under British monopoly during the colonial period. British rule in India and British control of the Indian princely states ensured a steady supply of opium from India to China, thereby facilitating the transfer of economic surplus from China to Britain. So profitable was the opium trade that the cultivation and production of opium in India was carefully monitored by the colonial state. The aim of the colonial state in India was profit maximization from the production and sale of opium but gradually, under growing international pressure after the First World War, feeble measures were contemplated to scale down the opium trade. The Indian nationalists, however, were firmly opposed to opium and tirelessly criticized the colonial discourse and policy on opium. Following this, after independence, the government of India became committed to the imposition of severe restrictions on poppy cultivation and opium production. From 1947 poppy would be grown in India under strict government control and only for medicinal purposes. Thus opium production was subjected to state monopoly during the colonial period and in independent India for different reasons. On the other hand opium smuggling, as a breach of state monopoly, remained widespread during the colonial period. Similarly, and despite the costly efforts made by the post-colonial state in India, substantial leakages into the illicit opium market have been reported by the sources since independence. This article narrates the story of attempted state control of poppy cultivation and opium production in modern India in the context of the challenges posed to the eradication of opium addiction by the politics of the Cold War and globalization eras