Ghazipur, The Opium Mint: From 1820 to the Present

Introduction

Built in 1820(?) by the East India Company, the sudder opium factory at Ghazeepore, the central factory of the Benares opium agency, came to embody none of the early Victorian industrial grandeur, innovation and proficiency. Nonetheless, it was renowned for its massive expanse, spread over an area of forty-five acres, for its gigantic opium godowns, the massive import shed, and the galvanised cake storage godowns. A question of prime importance that first engaged my attention was how does one establish that the Ghazipur opium factory was set up in the year 1820? Sadly, the government documents and memoirs are silent regarding the exact date and year of the establishment of the factory, yet, here and there in the official correspondences, we do find references which indicate that the opium factory began much before 1820 and in the course of expansion was shifted to its current location in the year 1820. My visit to the factory also helped validate that it was indeed before 1820 or so. It is evident that to begin operations, it was first located in an enclosure on the east of the city, which was afterwards used as a charitable dispensary and subsequently sold. The factory was moved into a building which later included the premises of the district jail. The site where the present factory is located was ‘selected’ in the year 1820 when the expansion of the factory was necessitated on account of its specialised manufacturing. Interestingly, the bungalow of the Superintendent of the Opium Factory, could be located at the present-day site, though in a dilapidated condition- marked building number 20 and built in the year 1810 at an estimated cost of rupees 38, 734. Does it lend credence to the hypothesis that the opium factory came up prior to 1820? We can only speculate, until more evidence is forthcoming.

The proliferation of the buildings which began with rapidity post 1857 was carefully orchestrated. Very soon, the site of the factory was turned into a huge complex, housing approximately more than a hundred buildings. A building which was formerly a cake godown (currently houses the department of Opium Alkaloid and Manufacturing) is numbered building No. 109, which was established in the year 1907. Except the Superintendent’s bungalow, the buildings are uniform in design. Much of the expansion of the factory, including the construction of the various godowns, the caking rooms, the workshop- happened between 1855 and 1906, which indicate the factory has continued to expand, either in terms of infrastructure or modernization of equipment and technology till recent times, so that the integration of production is maintained to ensure standardisation of the product (opium cakes). As the manufacturing of opium cakes for provision and excise opium declined during the mid-nineteenth century, it shifted the skill and expertise of the workers to the manufacture of alkaloids of opium. Thus, was the Ghazipur opium factory able to withstand the vicissitudes of time and survive and continue to the present times. This is a facet which makes the Ghazipur opium factory different and significant.

As mentioned, the structures which house the various production facilities pertaining to the opium factory are all numbered, the numbers embossed along with the year and the cost of construction. Some of them are in a dilapidated condition but most of them as the Factory Superintendent’s bungalow, the caking room, the yard where the opium was kept to dry, the opium godowns, the sentry outpost, the workshop and engineering works section, the alkaloid section, the Chubbs lock on the gate inside the factory, the railway sidings where the wagons are shoved from the station to the factory (functional up to 2003) have been well maintained, with a few repairs and whitewash. The Superintendent’s bungalow, the Dispensary, the fire brigade quarters and the staff quarters are very much intact though in need of repairs. The structures which comprised the main building of the factory- godowns for storing the leaf, the empty chests and the chests of the opium cakes, the fire engine house are all undamaged. The up-to-date fire engine department is now manned by the Central Industrial Security Force which is also in charge of the security of the factory. Most of the buildings of the inner enclosure have also survived. This includes the import shed with brick flooring, the malkhana, the allegation room and the cake storage godowns. The buildings meant for the manufacture of excise opium lie in a run-down state but the platforms with the trays and the laboratory for the assay of opium and the manufacture of alkaloids are functioning in the same building to date. Over the years there were incremental improvements, but no radical shifts, like the construction of a three-storied building to house the Research and Development section, equipped with the latest instruments such as the HPLC, Ultrasonic bath, Water Purification Unit, Water Distillation Unit, Centrifuges, Moisture Analyzer, Digital Polarimeter, FTNIR, UV-VIS Spectrophometer, Digital Melting Point Apparatus, etc.¹

Shorn of architectural elegance and grandeur yet striking; the durable brick, lime and mortar structures of the opium factory were all ‘purpose-built.’ In the Ghazipur opium factory were made the most unique Benares’s opium cakes. The Chinese preference for them was legendary. There were varying opinions on the reason for this fondness. While it remains a matter of conjecture as some held that it was valued for its greater proportion of consumable material; others believed it contained more nicotine or morphia; while some asserted the Chinese loved it for its resin. However, as W.C.B. Eatwell remarked, ‘The real truth, we take it, is that the drug prepared at the Government factory, tested, purified, dried and manipulated, attains a firmness and a consistency, not equaled in any other country or by any other process of manufacture. It is as champagne to cider or bottled bass to small beer.’² He elucidates on how the ‘treatment of the cakes’ at the Ghazipur factory rendered it the richness of aroma, taste and consistency.³

This diversity of treatment occasions a difference between the hygrometric properties of the cakes of the two agencies; the Behar cakes acquiring a more speedy but less permanent hardness than the Benares; whereby, though firmer in the shell towards the end of the hot winds, they are more liable than the Benares to soften and lose their shape during the rains. It will thus be found, that in the Benares shells, the lewa remains visibly interstratified with the petals, dark-coloured and tenacious, while in the Behar, it is in a great measure absorbed by the petals, which are apparently in intimate contact with each other, and is not to be distinguished from them; the combination being more easily effected by hygrometric changes of the atmosphere than the independent strata of the leaf and the lewa in the Benares cake. - W.C.B. Eatwell.

The Ghazipur factory in fact, had three specimen cakes of well-dried opium kept for fifteen years, in perfect condition, cakes, believed to be as solid as balls of wood, which could be thrown from a height on to a stone floor without injury.’ These opium cakes raked in a staggering amount, estimated at more than two and a half millions of pound sterling for the colonial regime. Not without reason, it was hailed as the ‘one branch of the culture system in full operation in India-the opium culture, is the happiest feature in our revenue sheet.’⁴ This was all that mattered to the colonial government and this all-absorbing concern persisted till the end of the China trade. The Chinese embargo on the British opium trade resulted in the closure of the Patna opium factory in December of 1911. Following the pause in the trade with China, the production concerns shifted to the manufacture of alkaloids and the manufacture of excise opium for domestic consumption. The period following the outbreak of the Second World War saw a drastic change in the factory.

Post-independence, in 1950, the opium factory of Ghazipur was wholly nationalised. Further, the cultivation of opium was also brought under the control of the Government of India. In the year 1959, when the political climate in the country was surcharged with prohibition of liquor and opium, the existence of the opium production was challenged and so was the cultivation of opium. The period between 1959 to 1973 has witnessed the most virulent debates in the Parliament regarding the production, exports, sales, revenue, expansion and particularly the future of the opium factory. Often the discussions centered on the ‘queer sort of arrangements which exists that all the opium practically is produced at Neemuch, processed at Neemuch and sent out in issued parcels from Neemuch to Ghazipur,’ reverberated in the floor of the house. They deliberated on the viability of shutting down operations at Ghazipur opium factory and relocating them to the factory at Neemuch (it was founded in the year 1933, though operationalised in 1935).

The Government of India clarification was reassuring and useful,⁵

Opium cultivation is a centuries old tradition in India. Since India has been manufacturing and exporting even prior to the UN Convention of 1961, it was at liberty to export its production. As the opium cultivation has been providing livelihood to thousands of cultivators and is also the source of Government revenue, besides being the source of several opiate alkaloids used for medicines, therefore its production was continued.

This should lead us to a very brief survey of the system of opium cultivation which under Article 59 of List 1, Union List-in the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution, was brought within the purview of the Government of India as it assumed the monopoly of ‘Cultivation, Manufacture and Sale for, Export of Opium.’ Thus, the following matters fell within the purview of the Central Government; a] fixation of acreage to be put under poppy cultivation in any particular area in the various cultivating units, b] the manufacture of opium received from cultivators into excise opium, suitable for issue to the State Government excise shops, or for export, c]the fixation of issue price to State Governments and of sale price to foreign countries and d]the fixation of quantities to be exported. Production of opium in India (permitted only in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh) is regulated under strict licence, control and supervision by the Central Government, which inter-alia includes 100% measurement of each plot on which poppy cultivation is undertaken by the cultivator-by the supervisory officers, constant monitoring of the crop conditions by senior departmental officers and daily weighment of procedure of each cultivator during the period of lancing. Prevention/enforcement activities are intensified in and around the poppy growing areas during the harvesting season and stringent penal measures are taken under the NDPS (Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances) Act 1985, for any violation. The qualifying yield for licence is also fixed every year that the cultivators are discouraged from diverting any part of their produce. Incentives on the other hand are provided under the licensing policy for tendering high yield by the cultivator. Centuries later, just like his predecessor, the poppy rayat, the present-day opium cultivators are a dissapointed lot. The debates in the Parliament regarding the condition of the opium growers illuminate the nature of troubled relationship between the poppy growers and the successive governments over the opium policy. Difficult questions and tough decisions have remained the hallmark of the Government opium policy much to the chagrin of the poppy cultivator. In 2010, Member of Parliament, Dushyant Singh demanded a fair and sustainable opium policy from the Government of India. He stressed on the need for a comprehensive policy to regulate the procurement procedure of opium in order to safeguard the interests of the opium cultivators in the country. It was felt that the cumbersome procurement procedure set by the Union Government had prevented the opium farmers from profits. He demanded that the Government must provide indigenous set-ups for the pharma processing of opium and fair prices for the farmers. It was further suggested that the Government should lay down a mechanism where the linkage between suppliers and pharma companies are based on free market price behaviours.⁶ Thus, the intertwined fates of the poppy growers and the opium factory at Ghazipur in contemporary times, echo the rants of the poppy rayats of the colonial times. What would be the opium factory without the poppy rayat? What of the poppy without the opium factory?

Presently, India faces a tough challenge from countries like Turkey, Australia, France, Spain and Hungary which are now the major cultivators of legal opium in the world. A report on the ‘Management of Narcotic Substances (Department of Revenue)’ Report No. 12 of 2014, Union Government (Indirect Taxes-Customs), revealed how the absence a clear policy framework aimed at generating revenues and foreign exchange savings through sale of finished opium-based pain relief chemicals and indigenous production of opium seeds along with a commensurate incentive structure for the cultivators and drug producers, respectively, had become the bane of poppy cultivation and opium production in the country. Highlighting the need for clarity of policy, it asserted,⁷

The controlled exploitation of poppy as a natural resource already brings considerable amount of precious foreign exchange to the country. It also helps producing competitively priced poppy-based medicines for severe pain relief by the Indian pharmaceutical industry and the popular poppy seeds for domestic consumption. Licensed poppy cultivation has also had significant socio- economics benefits for Indian farmers. A well-regulated and controlled narcotic policy framework could effectively break the nexus between the illicit flows with its far-reaching global ramifications and augment the licit production for pharmaceutical and scientific uses. Though the production of opium is subdued and dwindling over the years, more than 50 percent of the opium stock of India is still exported. Manufacture, sale and export of the narcotic alkaloid extracts higher up in the value chain has the potential to provide exponentially higher economic returns of the poppy plantation, save foreign exchange in procuring poppy seeds in the traditional hinterlands, using modern technology, scientific research, efficient management structures, commercial models and international trade negotiations.

Undoubtedly, the issue of upgradation of the infrastructure, facilities and the modernisation of the equipment and machinery is the crux of the matter in the Ghazipur opium factory of today.

Th present work is an attempt to revisit and uncover the many trajectories of the opium factory at Ghazipur, which still remains a site of production at the time of writing in the twenty-first century. In part, it is an exploration of the magnificence of production and at other times, of ambitions and human suffering. Discussions in Chapter One of the book centres around questions of prime importance which include, firstly, ‘Why an opium factory?’- its genesis the development, secondly, issues connected to defining the architecture of opium production- was it a factory, a mint or a storehouse, was it cake making or manufacturing etc. Chapter Two is an ode to the metamorphosis of Ghazeepore from a city manufacturing golaabee paanee from the ‘Damascus roses’ to the city of black gold. The Ghazeepore of nineteenth century has been described as a city with exceedingly ‘pretty environs’ and ‘sweet water,’ which suited the European physical constitution and tastes. Ghazeepore was ‘neat, well-supplied’ and boasted of a rich cultural heritage. This chapter likewise, intends to present a historical narrative of the city of Ghazeepore and its significance to the British empire as a trade centre and an important industrial district. The Third Chapter is a narrative of the cultivation of the white poppy alongside the hopes, aspirations and the struggle of the poppy rayat and the intertwined interests of commerce and policy which will be the focus of study in this chapter. Outlining the operations of opium manufacturing inside the opium factory is the core of Chapter Four. It includes reminiscences including, reports, memoirs and accounts of visitors including Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens and of the various officials including the opium agents and the Superintendent of the opium factory- Rivett Carnac, J.W.S McArthur etc., which provide interesting glimpses into the life inside the opium factory- a peek into the anatomy of opium manufacturing. The establishment of the sudder opium factories at Ghazipur and Patna and subsequent innovations, experiments and expansion of the factory gave rise to the opium bureaucracy. The position of the Opium agent and that of the Factory Superintendent along with other official appointments in the Opium Service was coveted and it came with alluring perks and incentives. This often entailed a lot of political lobbying and wrangling for the sought-after appointment in the Opium service. This was particularly evident when the opium agents and ‘responsible officers of the department’ vociferously protested to higher employment of natives in the opium department and also when the British Government of India, sought the recommendations of the Public Service Commission regarding the introduction of open competition for appointments to the Opium Service. This forms the foci of Chapter Five which offers a stirring account of the workings and the manipulations of the opium bureaucracy. Colonial research focussed on extraction of alkaloids to meet the growing demand of medicinal opium and its imports to England during and after the Second World War and ensured the unique metamorphosis of the opium factory at Ghazipur. From a site of manufacture of crude raw opium, it evolved into a factory of prime importance manufacturing raw materials required by the pharmaceutical concerns which was totally redesigned and re-equipped. The discussions regarding the manufacture and shipment to London of morphia and narcotine, another alkaloid of opium manufactured at the Ghazipur opium factory can be gleaned from archival documents challenges us to think beyond; it tells a different story of science, technology and imperialism which will be elaborated in Chapter Six.

A host of changes- social, economic and political attendant upon the alteration in nomenclature of the Ghazipur opium factory (GOF) to the Government Opium and Alkaloid Works (GOAW), India, forms the subject of discussion in Chapter Seven. The All-India Opium Conference of 1949 followed by the All-India Narcotics Conference of 1956 determined the ‘philosophy of manufactures’ at the GOAW. Stringent national legislation derived from international treaties and conventions drastically modified the terms and conditions of the production and manufacture of opium. The opium factory is facing its own set of challenges-aging infrastructure, decreased output, lackadaisical quality control, pollution issues, stiff competition from countries like Turkey and Tasmania etc., which led to interventions by the Government of India to revamp the biggest opium factory in Asia. Its importance is immense- as it supplies the vital ingredients of the analgesics, but the opium factory has since witnessed a ‘sea of change.’ In its bid to boost supplies and regain its place in the international market, in 2008, the Government contemplated private sector participation in opium processing. Pharmaceutical companies as Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy’s Lab and Cipla were believed to have expressed their interest. Moving a step forward to pace up supplies of crude opium, foreign players were for the first time permitted to enter the opium processing sector. This saw bidders from across Spain, Hungary and UK in alliance with Indian pharmaceuticals. In 2017, the 197-year-old opium factory was forced to shut down temporarily after it was found to be violating pollution norms. In 2018, the Government issued a licence to Rusan Pharma; the first step towards privatisation of poppy cultivation and extraction of narcotic raw material. Chapter Seven thus, explores the trajectory of events leading to the privatisation of opium processing and understand as to how the GOAW, Ghazipur intends to level up. Chapter Eight delves into the wide range of ordinary stories- the incredible many voices that lets us appreciate their many histories. This chapter captures the interconnectivity of all people working in the Ghazipur opium factory -their experiences, their facts and feelings, their lives in the factory and beyond, aspirations and expectations, conflicts and turmoil, etc. These ‘voices from the factory floor’ present stories that are exceptional and singular, that together make a formidable narrative.

The Ghazipur Opium Factory has a history of its own. A testament to human inventiveness and labour, an artifact of the Victorian era, cutting across time and space, Ghazipur opium factory-is a story waiting to be told. For me, the Ghazipur opium factory holds a significant place in the history of humankind. It evoked its own set of metaphors and connotations. Ever since the factory arrived on the stage of history, it has aroused a lot of emotions, hopes and nightmare. Like most other colonial enterprises, it was developed and designed to further colonial mercantile and imperial interests. Directed and driven by metropolitan capital, though the industrial project was a piecemeal affair in the nineteenth century, opium factory signalled the rise of colonial India as a major exporter of raw opium. The past is prologue. The oldest opium factory of the world and the biggest opium factory of Asia is operating right now, making products like IMO Powder, IMO cakes, morphine sulphate, codeine phosphate, dionine, noscapine, thebaine, papaverine S.R. etc., for use in the pharmaceutical industry for manufacturing cough syrups, pain relievers, de-addiction drugs, for use in patients with cancer pain, HIV and palliative care.

Wafting swiftly through the silent lapse of time, the upright structures and the crumbling buildings of the opium factory have displayed remarkable resilience in more than 200 years of making an impact that matters. What I witnessed, while at the factory, was beyond amazement- the past and the present blend in. Observing the history of the factory, imaging its ambitions and achievements, facing its survival and continuity and I need not say, how overwhelmed I was. In 1858, the Ghazipur opium factory was declared a prohibited place and it remains till date. Photography is strictly prohibited inside the factory premises. How few have any idea of the self-gratulation on the privilege to walk through the same tracks and edifices as Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, and many more prominent persons and significantly to be able to witness the past glide deftly into the present. Among ourselves then, who have a just appreciation and experience of this more than 200-year-old monument, I appeal to you, whether there is not a gratification derived from the discernment of a legacy that embodies a powerful narrative of why ‘opium made the world go round.’ Within the last seventy-six years, new elements have been introduced, engrafted and developed upon the enterprise and resources of the factory. That I have not misjudged the waning interest, which attach to social, economic or political considerations, will appear from a query- will the legacy of Ghazipur opium factory survive the ennui of the regime or will it gradually fade into oblivion? A pre-feasibility report for the expansion of the processing of opium and manufacturing of alkaloids at GOAW, Neemuch (in Madhya Pradesh) has been submitted to the Government, which entails benefit to the industry and the people of the region,⁸

The Project will create direct & indirect employment opportunities within the surrounding region. The Unit will use good faith efforts to employ local people from the nearby villages depending upon the availability of skilled & un-skilled man-power surrounding the project site. In operation phase, the proposed project would require significant workforce of non-technical and technical persons. Migration of highly education and skilled experience will result in increase of literacy in the surrounding villages.

In 1965, when the Neemuch Alkaloid plant was set up, it had aroused a vast deal of misapprehension and distrust of the intentions of the Government, among the residents of Ghazipur. Then Member of Parliament from Ghazipur, Sarjoo Pandey, had submitted to the Government, representations received from the residents of Ghazipur in the year 1965 and 1966 against any attempts to close down the Ghazipur opium factory following the establishment of an advanced alkaloid plant at Neemuch. They were then assured that their distrust is misplaced. Almost a century ago, in 1894, similar discussions on closing down the factory during the visit of the Royal Commission of Opium to India had invited much wrath from families who obtained a living from employment at the factory. Echoes of the past continue to reverberate in the present. It is not to be concealed that Neemuch is vying for a place under the sun, but the glory belongs to Ghazipur. Needless to say, then, that the Ghazipur opium factory is beyond its imperial past and a postcolonial present-in its nonchalant appearance lies its charm. Ghazipur Opium Factory today, is more than a mere edifice or a production facility for alkaloids-it is an emotion to be managed with care.

¹ For more details, refer, https://goaf.gov.in/ghazipur/research_development_unit.

² Eatwell, W.C.B. Observations on the Cultivation of the Poppy and the Manufacture of Opium in British India, More Especially at Benares, Taken Chiefly from a Report to the Bengal Government, in The American Journal of Pharmacy, Vol. 24,1852, pp.118-132.

³ Ibid.W.C.B. Eatwell held that it was due to the long exposure of the opium to the heat of the sun, in the process of drying the opium cakes, which effected a ‘remarkable change’ in the texture of the opium.

⁴ Economic Reform in Rural India, 369.

⁵‘Management of Narcotic Substances (Department of Revenue)’ Report No. 12 of 2014, Union Government (Indirect Taxes-Customs), accessed from https://cag.gov.in/uploads/download_audit_report/2014/Union_Compliance_In_Direct_Tax_Revenue_Dept_12_20_14_Chapter_6.pdf

⁶ Lok Sabha Debates, Session V, No.9, 4th August 2010.

⁷https://cag.gov.in/webroot/uploads/download_audit_report/2014/Union_Compliance_In_Direct_Tax_Revenue_Dept_12_2014.pdf

⁸ Pre-feasibility report project, accessed from https://environmentclearance.nic.in/DownloadPfdFile.aspx

Chapter 1

Small beginnings and Great developments

To every British heart, the word opium is connected with him whose powers were those of a Titan, whose heart was of kindliest temper, whose eye was the dwelling of mighty and far-seeing genius, and yet whose whole life was rendered anomalous and morbid, from the mournful and total prostration of will- Samuel Taylor Coleridge⁹

In more than two hundred years of its existence, the once ‘sudder opium factory of Ghazeepore’ (now the Government Opium and Alkaloid Works, Ghazipur) would have a million stories to tell. The factory was located on the banks of the river Ganga, between the ‘city’ and the ‘civil station.’ It began its operations, somewhere before 1820 (?) from an enclosure on the east of the city which later was converted to a charitable dispensary. Later the factory was established in a building which was later included in the district jail. It was shifted to its present site in the year 1820, when large premises were necessitated by the increased outturn and expansion. Spread over an area of forty-five acres with over more than a hundred ‘magnificent’ buildings, the factory has remained a silent witness to the changes that have taken place in the ‘character of industrial control, in the methods of competition and in the very conception of the (opium)industry and trade.’¹⁰ Intense activity, aggressive competition, the moral haranguing and the shifting of control, have given way to a profound conviction that the new system has come to stay; that the largest¹¹ and the oldest opium factory has survived, prospered and succeeded then, and now under Government monopoly and control. This changed attitude though has not reflected much in the character of the workplace but definitely in the changed perception of requirements from and of the factory that have deftly metamorphosed over time. It is truly an extraordinary omission that this most significant and characteristic feature of the past and definitely of the present, awaits a systematic investigation. A history of the most productive form of industrial organization ever known, of its methods and vicissitudes, should surely be one of surpassing interest. That history, properly told would be full, in its earlier stages of charming incongruity and still more substantial congruences between the past and present of an ‘architecture’ that was developed to create the wealth of the Empire. But the interest is only deepened when the story progresses into a tale of quite recent times. The story of the Ghazipur Opium Mint (or Factory) with all its moments and significances would also speak of the most amazing spectacle of human ingenuity and labour.

Nevertheless, where the real difficulty lies is in identifying the various impulses, historical and economical that have been concerned with the idea/conception of the opium factory and of tracing a continuity. It is intriguing how the genesis of the opium factory at ‘Ghazeepore’ remain shrouded in mystery. The colonial reports and correspondences are seemingly silent about the circumstances and the events that precipitated the formation of the factory. In sieving through the departmental reports, official documents and personal memoirs, two questions continually confronted me. The first was the mandate for the establishment of an opium factory. The second was the selection of the site of the ‘sudder opium factory’ at Ghazeepore. What compounded my ordeal was the lack of material of prime importance to deal with the queries. No records are forthcoming as yet, so that remains a subject of speculation. There was comparatively little difficulty hereafter in filling up the outline for the colonial era yet continuing the narrative down to the present day has been daunting.

Manufacturing the Opium of the Empire

Undoubtedly, opium was a ‘valuable product of the soil;’ it was a substantial export crop. Capital investment in public works as irrigation and canal systems, developing railways and waterways were meshed with intricate structures of agency houses, export brokers and commission agents, both British and Indian who jointly penetrated to the most distant centers of poppy crop production and distribution. In the ‘Ghazeepore’ factory, was undertaken by far, the most important industrial activity and production in colonial times. A closer scrutiny though, of the official correspondences between the years 1815-1819, shed some interesting light on the prelude to the setting up of the opium factory. The East India Company at some point after 1815 deliberated upon the feasibility of setting up a factory for the production of opium. It was considered in the best interests of the Company to build an extensive opium factory, to make their own opium, than to purchase it from the contractors and verify each sack of purchased opium, and employ persons in devising methods of detecting the new modes of adulteration which might be continually resorted to. Since 1815, the ‘question regarding the best means calculated for the improvement of the Department of Opium, as respecting the provision of the drug, the prevention of illicit manufacture and sale of it, and the attainment of a revenue from the internal sale and consumption of the article,’ had engaged the attention of the East India Company.¹² It appeared in evidence before the Court of Directors that the interests of the Company connected with the Opium Monopoly were being impacted by the competition of the Malwa and the Persian opium in the China and the Eastern markets. The East India Company was compelled by the ‘powerful stimulus of competition’ from the Malwa and Persian opium to set upon a complete transformation of the way opium was produced. The way to tackle this challenge and to protect a ‘valuable branch of Indian Revenue,’ by control over its production and quality and prevent deterioration through adulteration, lay in the setting up of an opium factory. The very soul of the ‘Ghazeepore’ opium factory was competition. Its spirit was the making of cakes of opium in a perfect form and durability for the China market, to secure the highest and enduring profit and the ‘economy of manufactures,’

The great object of the Bengal opium agencies is to furnish an article suitable to the peculiar tastes of the population of China who value any sample of opium in direct proportion to the quantity of hot drawn watery extract obtainable from it, and to the purity and strength of the flavour of that extract when dried and smoked through a pipe. The aim therefore, should be to prepare their opium so that it may retain as much as possible its native sensible qualities and its solubility in hot water. Upon these points depends virtually the higher price that Benares opium brings in the China market and the lower prices of Behar, Malwa and Turkey opium.¹³

Not without reason, the entire process of the production of opium from the sowing of the seeds to the packing of the chests for sale, was conducted to ‘preserve with the least injury, its native flavour and solubility.’¹⁴

Anatomy of the (Opium) Factory

The opium factory was a ‘special factory,’ meaning, in the words of Whatley Cooke Taylor, ‘a building, or definite area