Tobacco and Public Health - TCSC Indonesia

Chapter 14
The epidemic in India
Prakash C. Gupta and Cecily S. Ray
The introduction of tobacco
Tobacco was introduced in India during the late sixteenth-century into the kingdom of
Adil Shah, with its capital at Bijapur, presently in Karnataka. The Ambassador of the
Mogul Emperor Akbar in Delhi, after a visit to Bijapur, brought for him tobacco and
jewel-encrusted European style pipes. The appreciation at court was marred only by
the Emperor’s physicians who forbade him to inhale the smoke, since tobacco was an
unknown substance. A compromise was reached wherein the smoke was to be first
passed through water for purification, resulting in invention of hookah. Hookah smoking
became popular in parts of India where a strong Mogul influence prevailed; it was especially
favoured among the aristocratic and elite classes, mainly in North India. Ornately
crafted in engraved silver, brass, or other precious materials and decorated with enamel or
jewels, the hookah became a status symbol. Paintings of the Mogul period show both men
and women smoking hookahs. The lower classes began to make them out of common
woods and coconut shells and as hookah was often shared, hookah smoking became associated
with social acceptance, brotherhood, and equality. A common expression for social
boycott in north India is to stop sharing the hookah and water from the village well.
In 1617, Emperor Jehangir, Akbar’s son, decided that tobacco use produced adverse
physical and mental effects on his subjects and tried to stop its use by declaring that any
user would have his lips slit, but the practice continued nevertheless (Bhonsle et al. 1992).
Well before the introduction of tobacco smoking in India, the inhalation and smoking
of aromatic herbs was practiced as a form of therapy. When tobacco smoking was
introduced, it was assigned medicinal qualities—as a calmative, relaxant, and stimulant.
Aromatic substances were often added to tobacco smoked through hookah.
A conical clay pipe, known as a chilum,traditionally used for smoking narcotics, began
to be used for tobacco smoking as well (Bhonsle et al. 1992). Tobacco was often used to
stave off hunger during travel and sustain long hours of work (Sanghvi 1992).
Evolution of tobacco use
Smoking
Tobacco began to be smoked in many ways, besides in hookah and chilum. The hookli is
an European-style pipe with a clay bowl and stem (sometimes of wood) about 7–10 cm