Posted on: 8 March 2014

Digital Rare Book:
The Truth about Indian Opium
By G. Graham Dixon
Published H.M. Stationery Office, London - 1922

Read Book Online:

http://bit.ly/1cknMA7

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http://bit.ly/1cElagZ

Image:
Opium being created ready for despatch, Patna, ca.1857
By Shiva Lal

This Company Painting (a painting made by an Indian artist for the British in India) is done on mica (talc) and comes from a series of nineteen illustrating processes in the manufacture of opium at the opium factory at Gulzarbagh in Patna, Bihar. According to the artist Ishwari Prasad, his grandfather, Shiva Lal (c.1817-1887), began to make the designs for these paintings in 1857. They were commissioned by Dr D. R. Lyall, the personal assistant in charge of opium-making, for a series of wall paintings in the Gulzarbagh factory. However, Lyall was killed in 1857, during the so-called Indian Mutiny, and the scheme was abandoned.

This picture shows balls of opium being weighed on a pair of scales.

Copyright: © V&A Images


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Interesting statistics on pages 6 - 10, viz : The land given over to opium production in ' India ' decreased from 613,000 acres in 1905 - to about 150,000 acres in 1920. While, during the same period, government revenue from opium production continued to increase. Clearly, the ' Raj ' was trying to tax the opium trade out of existence.

Intriguing how in most of this series of paintings, the guy doing the measuring is double the size of the poor seller, depicting the hugely unequal power equation...Looks like the middle man concept of exploitation has continued to this day... Does anyone know more about the painter ?

amal ka kanta... baleance of opium in udaipur a spot/ palece