Opium gambling and Delhi's Egerton Road (Nai Sarak)

 

The picture above is of Nai Sarak (New Road) in the early 1900s. This is as one approaches the Town Hall and the former Clock Tower, both of which can be seen clearly. My post today involves Nai Sarak or 'Egerton Road' as it was called before 1947. And, as you’ve read in the title today, it does involve ‘opium gambling’. 

 

Some years ago, I came across a police report from 1910 highlighting how widespread opium gambling was in Delhi and this made a fascinating read. It was a report on the back of periodic enquiries made by Delhi’s police between the 1890s and 1900s to check the spread of gambling (satta) in the city. 

 

In lay terms opium satta was numbers gambling and, in this case, involved betting on the price of opium (or taking bets on opium price figures) that was being carried on ships from Bombay. Opium was a prized trading commodity of the British Empire. However, one of the issues that cropped up for the colonial government in connection with this was that of speculation, particularly by what it feared were ‘dangerous’ or unruly elements. 

 

This is also where Delhi appears in the story. By 1910, Egerton Road was at the heart of opium gambling operations in the city. Police officers complained that shopkeepers who were earlier ‘known to be nothing’ now were worth ‘thousands of rupees’ by opening illicit gaming dens. The modus operandi was as such: news of opium prices came to the telegraph office in Delhi which was frequented by agents working for the owners of gaming dens. The former then telephoned or telegrammed their shopkeeper bosses on Egerton Road with news of opium prices. Throngs of gamblers made their way into the katras of Egerton Road and frequented the dens hoping luck would be on their side. 

 

For their part the colonial authorities were worried about ‘well known criminals’ frequenting the dens. This was in many ways a moral panic and their ire was directed at the poor and lower castes who visited these places. This included the Kanjars, stereotyped as ‘criminal tribes’. Delhi's police officials pondered over what action they’d take. Their complaint was that the colonial telegraph office was actually profiting because of the amount that people spent on satta telegrams! Oh, the irony!

 

Anyhow, that’s it on this story. I’ll see you next Friday.