Ranchi, June 24: The dental care product, gul, which traces its origin to Ranchi with a strong Bengal connection, finds itself on the list of banned tobacco products. The company, which started it all — the famous Gulab Marka gul — closed down its factory on June 18 after a government directive, leaving the founder’s family with an uncertain future.

Inclusion of the word gul in the June 18 notification of the health and family welfare department to ban the use of tobacco products dealt a severe blow to the product, which owed its origins to a “fakiri” prescription for dental care. Ironically, Jharkhand is the only state to ban the use of gul. Like Duckback and Waxpol, Gulab Marka gul was also a local brand with a national identity. Not surprisingly, while the demand for the product in some foreign countries could not be met due to shortage of raw material, many companies made the most of the opportunity by selling fake Gulab Marka gul.

Gul was invented by the founder of the Gulab brand, Haji Hussain Shah Baksh Khan, who died at the age of 104 in 1974. Haji Hussain used to walk on foot to sell his product packed in paper sachets. Later, with growing popularity, gul was packaged in tin containers. Production of the Gulab brand started in Tharpakhna at the Old Hazaribagh Road factory in 1950. In 1964, the factory was shifted to Sonse, about 35 km from here. From a one-man enterprise to a company with 118 employees the company’s turnover was over Rs 1 crore last year. On an average, the company paid Rs 5 lakh per month as central excise duty.

Haji Hussain’s eldest son and the company’s managing partner, 73-year-old Farooq Hussain Khan, wondered how gul has become a health hazard all of a sudden. “It cannot be denied that gul has tobacco, but it is a toothpowder, which is not eaten. Ash of Kendu leaves and Motihari leaf tobacco are gul’s only ingredients,” he said.

Recalling how the brand came into existence, he says, “My father wanted to remain a bachelor and had devoted his life to a peer sahab who lived in Bassopatti of West Bengal’s Hooghly district. When my grandmother came to know that her only son was reluctant to marry, she went to the peer sahab and requested him to convince her son to marry. Otherwise, the family’s lineage would have been at risk. When the peer sahab kept quiet, she lost her cool and said a mother’s curse could affect even a great saint. Moved, the peer sahab called my father and asked him to marry,” he said. “Shocked by the peer sahab’s order, my father asked if that was his reward for 15 years of selfless devotion to the former. My father asked the peer sahab if he wanted him to work as a porter at Howrah railway station. The peer sahab smiled and gave him a fakir’s prescription for dental care. He asked my father to burn and refine bidi leaf and then add the ash of Motihari leaf tobacco to it.

“The peer sahab asked my father to call it gul and sell the same. This is how it came into being,” Farooq revealed. We got offers for gul from USA, Canada, Germany, France, Bangladesh and many other countries. But we refused as we were not even able to fulfil the demand in India. There has always been an acute shortage of raw materials and it would have been impossible to export our product,” he said.

Now, Farooq is seeking legal advice to deal with the unfavourable situation.

“Ban on gul leaves a pertinent question. If gul is injurious to health, are liquor and cigarettes health-boosters?” argued a senior government official.