Research:2018-12-01/Journal article/cannabis-and-social-change-in-the-indian-himalayas

India· Western Himalayas

Cannabis and Social Change in the Indian Himalayas

Prasenjeet Tribhuvan

Journal of Ethnobiology· 2018

Sociological ethnography based on fourteen months of doctoral fieldwork in the Parvati Valley, Kullu District, Himachal Pradesh. Conducted from Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University. Documents how cannabis shifted from a "humble object" of everyday utility (food, clothing, medicine, social intoxicant) to a "transgressive substance" driving rapid social transformation. Records traditional multi-use baseline: hemp fabric coats, hemp footwear, seed chutney with sidhu bread for winter warmth, flower oil for menstrual cramps, buds in milk for impotency, leaves as de-wormer, cannabis used to wean from alcohol, charas consumed socially in hookahs and chillums. Economic data from three pseudonymised villages: all households involved in cultivation/production/trade; charas increased household income 50-100%; specific income figures for cultivator-dealer households. Documents cultivation on state forestland at altitude above villages, enabling lower-caste participation without hereditary land. Records 510 NDPS cases in Kullu in 2012 (143 local residents), prison sentences, drug tourism introducing cocaine/heroin/MDMA/ketamine/LSD. Traces colonial circulation of cannabis to Europe, fetishisation as exclusive intoxicant, and "imported" Western meanings that now overshadow local uses. Argues India resisted UN drug convention pressure for 25 years before NDPS Act (1985). Theoretical framework draws on Latour's actor-network theory to position cannabis as non-human social "actant."