National

Palm Spring

Though it gave Jaswant Singh no high, offering opium is a tradition in Rajasthan

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Palm Spring
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It is a little after 9 am on a pleasant November morning as we are ushered into the courtyard of a village home, somewhere in western Rajasthan. A group of Rajasthani men sits around, their grizzled faces darkened by the harsh sun, heads swathed in colourful safas. An easy desert camaraderie belies their varied caste/religious affiliations. And there is happy anticipation in the air.

As we watch, one of them places what looks like lumps of coal tar in a small, carved boat-shaped wooden bowl called a khurd, picks up a wooden pestle, and grinds the lumps first into a smooth paste, and then into a thick liquid with some water. Next, he turns to an aluminium stand, topped by a miniature temple—complete with a minuscule Nandi bull and a Shivling. From it is suspended a gunny or a camelskin funnel, into which the mixture is poured. A few seconds later, a golden coloured liquid drips into a vessel held below, from which it is transferred to a khurd. The first drop is offered to Lord Shiva, the god of all things intoxicating, and then the ambrosial liquid is poured through a narrow pipe abutting one end of the khurd into a waiting cupped palm. The host then extends the palm ceremoniously to one of those gathered, offering an amal ka manohar or an offering of opium, for that is what the dark lumps are—opium resin mixed with jaggery.

The guest first dips a finger into the potion, and flicks it a few times, invoking various gods and ancestors. Then he bends and slurps up the liquid from the open palm. This is repeated three times with each guest, in the name of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh. And so it is that the opium ceremony or the amal sabha (as it is described in Jodhpur) or a riyan (as it is known further west in Jaisalmer and Barmer) gets under way.

A few rounds later, someone lights a chillum, and it is passed on from hand to hand. Others help themselves to bidis or cigarettes, neatly laid out on a thali with coloured saunf and wedges of gur, the last to counter the bitter aftertaste of the amal. Some light up, inhale deeply, looking utterly blissful.

This opium ceremony is not unlike the one former foreign minister Jaswant Singh organised on October 31 at his ancestral village of Jasol in Barmer district, one that has placed him on the wrong side of the law. A Jodhpur special court has since heard a petition filed against him under the harsh Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

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The controversial photo of Jaswant allegedly serving ‘amal’

That day, Jaswant allegedly served his guests—a gaggle of BJP leaders, all apparently from the anti-Vasundhararaje camp—an opium-laced brew from his cupped palm, photographs of which were splashed across local newspapers. Jaswant—and his guests—have since then vehemently denied the presence of opium in the drink, saying it was a far less potent mixture of kesar.

Interestingly, while opinion in western Rajasthan is divided on what Jaswant served—depending on whether one is CM Vasundhararaje's supporter or his—all uniformly say that though the law has outlawed opium, the amal sabhas/riyans are part of a cultural tradition that goes back a few hundred years, and they see nothing wrong in them.

"It started as a tradition among Rajputs off to battle," Thakur Manvendra Singh, who runs a lovely heritage hotel in his ancestral home in Rohetgarh, tells us. "It was both symbolic—it symbolised honour, commitment and camaraderie—and therapeutic, as it drove away fatigue and injected energy into the soldiers."

The wars got over, but opium by then had acquired an auspicious halo and began to be served on a variety of social occasions—at marriages and funerals, during festivals and on Akha Teej—and to end feuds and seal friendships. In addition to its healing properties—whether as a painkiller or to check diarrhoea or control diabetes—opium began to be seen as something that helped create a sense of well-being. In fact, describing his grandfather's weekly head massage in his book, A Call to Honour, Jaswant Singh says, "A unique and exotic mix was prepared for this massage. It had as ingredients...Multani mitti...sandalwood paste and...the most important—just the right quantity of opium...". "This was the day," he goes on to add, "grandfather got his 'fix'.... The astute and the knowing in the village would then come into action, as this was the right time to do business with (him), to ask favours...for it was at such occasions that they found him..at his most generous." Even today, in western Rajasthan, people wax lyrical about opium's magical properties, including its aphrodisiacal qualities, and urged this correspondent to tell authorities to ban alcohol, and legalise opium. Alcohol, they all said unanimously, leads to quarrels and bloodshed; opium, they claim, helps people bond.

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Kill the pain An amal sabha in progress

Amal sabhas, therefore, continue to be part of the cultural landscape of western Rajasthan, with all castes—and even some Muslims, such as the Ganchis—adopting an originally Rajput custom. Elections in this region can be expensive, as amal sabhas are almost mandatory to gather voters, and a kilo of opium can cost anything between Rs 45,000 and Rs 75,000, depending on its purity. Of course, the prohibitive price has reduced consumption—it is confined largely to rural Rajasthan and according to one official estimate is under 10 per cent. Also affecting consumption is the difficulty in procuring unadulterated opium and growing awareness about the dangers of opium abuse—in recent years, there have been caste panchayats exhorting people not to feel pressured to hold amal sabhas, while those like Narayan Singh Maniklao, a BJP-nominated MP, have had some success with deaddiction camps since 1978.

However, declining consumption has not meant the end of the amal sabhas. Since they are so inextricably linked with local culture and folklore, even the authorities tend to turn a blind eye. Says Bhanwar Singh Rathore, an advocate who practises at the Jodhpur high court and specialises in narcotics cases, "In the last decade, there has been only one case about an amal sabha. The supporters of Gangaram Chowdhury, a sitting mla, were caught redhanded by the SP himself at a riyan on the day of his nomination." But eventually, since "conscious possession" was not proved, the case fell through. So what is the law? Possession of a commercial quantity—more than two-and-a-half kg—could result in 10 years of RI and a fine of Rs 1 lakh for the offender; possession of a non-commercial quantity or less than two-and-a-half kg could entail up to 10 years' RI, and of a small quantity—up to 50 gm—could end in a six-month sentence. There are about 100 cases pending at the Jodhpur high court against couriers—those who transport the opium from the farmlands of eastern Rajasthan to the consumers in the west. And the conviction rate? "Barely 20 per cent," says Bhanwar Singh, shrugging his shoulders.

How does the trade work, given that there is a legal ban on opium use? As Jodhpur district excise officer Shakti Singh Rathore explains, opium is grown under a Government of India licence, renewed annually, in certain parts of India, including the eastern Rajasthan district of Chittorgarh and a few adjoining tehsils. The licensed opium farmers sell their produce to the government, which then provides it to pharma companies. But typically, the farmers grow a bit on the side which then enters the illegal trade, which earns them far larger sums. This illegal opium could end up at amal sabhas, but also with the big sharks, who use its resin to make heroin, a far more dangerous drug.

Besides, the state government permits the sale and use of dodapost—the husk of the kernel from which the resin is extracted—earlier thrown away as waste. Though lacking the potency of pure opium, dodapost, which looks like a pile of wood shavings, is a highly prized commodity. Technically, only someone who has a certificate from a government doctor can get an annual permit to purchase two kg of dodapost a month from a government shop. The government stopped issuing such permits since 2003, since it wants to phase out the use of dodapost. Meanwhile, one only has to drop in at the nearest sarkari outlet to get one's fix.

As we did. Walked into the local Dodapost Sarkari Dukan, standing cheek by jowl with an overflowing kirana store in the main market area of a tehsil town, and retailing its wares at Rs 660 a kg. On the floor in one corner, on a dirty durrie, sat a salesman, a weighing machine, a money till and an open carton of dodapost. Sealed bags of black plastic—like those used for bin liners—filled with dodapost stood stacked on the cement shelves behind him. No permits were shown; no entries made. Those who wanted smaller amounts got them from the carton. Even we were offered a kg, quite willingly. Nothing is surreptitious in what the authorities claim to be a highly restricted business.

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