Brahmaputra chars
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| Brahmaputra chars | |
|---|---|
| Char areas, Jamuna chars | |
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Gene Pool | South Asian Gene Pool |
| Growing Region | Brahmaputra Valley |
| Geography | |
| Country | India, Bangladesh |
| Province/State | Assam, Rangpur Division, Mymensingh Division, Rajshahi Division, Dhaka Division |
| Districts | Tinsukia District, Dibrugarh District, Dhemaji District, Lakhimpur District, Sivasagar District, Majuli District, Jorhat District, Biswanath District, Golaghat District, Sonitpur District, Nagaon District, Darrang District, Morigaon District, Kamrup Metropolitan District, Kamrup District, Nalbari District, Barpeta District, Bongaigaon District, Goalpara District, Dhubri District, South Salmara-Mankachar District, Kurigram District, Gaibandha District, Jamalpur District, Bogura District, Sirajganj District, Tangail District, Pabna District, Manikganj District, Rajbari District |
| Coordinates | 26.18, 91.00 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 10,300 km² |
| Terrain | Approximately the braid belt of the Brahmaputra in Assam and of the Jamuna in Bangladesh: the channels, islands and sandbars between the banks, from Sadiya to the Ganges confluence at Aricha, with Majuli |
| Growing history | |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
The Brahmaputra chars are a landrace cannabis growing area on the chars, the river islands and sandbars, of the Brahmaputra along its course through Assam, India, and on through Bangladesh, where below Bahadurabad its main stream is called the Jamuna, to its meeting with the Ganges. The Assam reach lies in the Brahmaputra Valley growing region. The police destroyed cannabis on three chars in Goalpara district in December 2021, on a sandbar in Nalbari in January 2022, on the river's char land at Dhakuakhana in Lakhimpur in 2023, on Baghmara Char in Barpeta in 2023 and 2026, and near the river at Panikhaiti in Boko, Kamrup, in December 2024. In Bangladesh, police seized cannabis grown on remote chars of the Jamuna in Bogura district in 2022 and Jamalpur district in 2024.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]
Geography
The Brahmaputra in Assam is a highly braided river, and its channels leave river islands, the chars, of many sizes and shapes.[8] The Assam Administrative Reforms Commission reported in 2005 that the river's tract of about 800 km in Assam held 3,608 km² of char areas, 4.6 per cent of the state's area, spread over 23 subdivisions of 14 districts, with 2,251 villages in 299 gaon panchayats and 59 development blocks, and 24.90 lakh people. It counted Majuli among the char areas.[9] The state's Directorate of Char Areas Development gives about 3.60 lakh hectares and a population of about 24.90 lakh, from its socio-economic survey of 2002–03. It says the chars migrate downstream, eroded at their upstream end and built up at the downstream end, so that their shape and position change in the floods almost every year.[10] The 2002–03 survey counted 2,251 chars, the most in Dhubri (480), Jorhat (293) and Barpeta (277) districts, 179 in Goalpara, 175 in Kamrup, and the fewest, 32, in Nalbari.[11] Families displaced by erosion move to newer chars, which take three or four years to become fit to live on.[12] On Landsat images the vegetated chars of the Assam reach grew from about 173,000 ha in 1988 to about 225,000 ha in 2018. Crops are grown mostly on the chars of the lower valley; on the larger chars of upper Assam, cultivation is almost negligible.[8]
The river enters Bangladesh through Kurigram district. Between Bahadurabad, in Jamalpur district, and Aricha, the main stream is called the Jamuna; the Old Brahmaputra leaves it at Bahadurabad. In Bangladesh the Brahmaputra–Jamuna is about 276 km long, of which the Jamuna is 205 km, and it is 3 to 20 km wide, a braided river studded with chars.[13] In 1992 the Jamuna held about 100,000 ha of chars, more than all the other rivers of Bangladesh together, and in 1993 about 65 per cent of the country's char population lived on its chars.[14]
History
G. Gordon, the Deputy Commissioner of Goalpara, told the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission in 1893 that no cultivation was permitted and that he believed there was not much. He had known men prosecuted for having one or two plants in their gardens, and one prosecution was for gathering the plant from a river chur.[15]
Cultivation
Assam
Acting on information received, the Assam Police destroyed about 15 bighas of cannabis on the Latibari, Bamunialga and Patakata chars, under the Chunari police station of Goalpara district, in December 2021. The Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, called it "Another big victory" in the state's campaign against drugs.[1] In January 2022 the Nalbari police destroyed at least three bighas of cannabis that two men were alleged to have grown on a sandbar.[2]
In the upper valley, the police and administration of the Dhakuakhana subdivision, Lakhimpur district, destroyed about 6 bighas of cannabis on government land in the Brahmaputra's char-chapori area under the Dhakuakhana police outpost in an eviction drive on 30 April 2023, and went back with an excavator on 1 May to destroy the rest. The newspaper Niyomiya Barta reported that unknown persons had grown it. A local source claimed the plants had come up on their own; the report called it a planned crop grown in secret, and the Dhakuakhana police registered a case under the NDPS Act.[3]
On Baghmara Char, under the Alopati Char police station of Barpeta district, local residents alleged in September 2023 that some families had for a long time been growing bhang plants secretly in their yards for sale, and the police mounted a drive against the cultivation.[16] In January 2026, acting on residents' complaints, police from the same station cut down the cannabis grown in the yards of about four families of 4 No. Baghmara Char, poured petrol on the plants and burnt them; the paper put their value at more than ten lakh rupees.[4]
At the end of December 2024 the police of the Sontoli outpost in Boko, acting on a tip-off about a cannabis garden in the Panikhaiti area, about 8 km from the outpost and near the Brahmaputra, found more than 100 mature plants, which they cut and burnt; no one was arrested.[5]
Bangladesh
In December 2022 the police in Sariakandi upazila of Bogura district seized a cannabis plant weighing 40 kg from the yard of a farmer of Shankarpur village, on a remote char of the Jamuna, who had planted it two years before. He was arrested and a case was filed under the narcotics control law.[6] On 21 November 2024 the police in Islampur upazila of Jamalpur district seized a cannabis garden about 10 feet tall, some 25 kg of cannabis, from the yard of a man on the remote char of Kathma Krishnanagar, in Noarpara union; he fled on seeing the police, and a case was filed.[7]
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No news items are recorded for the Brahmaputra chars yet.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sentinel Digital Desk (30 December 2021). "Assam Police Destroys 15 Bighas of Cannabis Cultivation in Goalpara". The Sentinel. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 NE Now News (25 January 2022). "Assam: Ganja worth Rs 3 crore seized in Gossaigaon". Northeast Now. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "ঢকুৱাখনাত ব্ৰহ্মপুত্ৰৰ নদীপৰীয়া অঞ্চলত প্ৰায় ৬ বিঘা চৰকাৰী ভূমিত অবৈধ ভাৱে কৰা গাঞ্জা খেতিত চলিল প্ৰশাসনৰ এক্সকেভেটৰ" [At Dhakuakhana, the administration's excavator runs over ganja grown illegally on about 6 bighas of government land in the Brahmaputra's riverine area]. Niyomiya Barta (in অসমীয়া). 1 May 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "বৰপেটাৰ বাঘমাৰা চৰত দহ লক্ষাধিক টকাৰ গাঞ্জা ধ্বংস আৰক্ষীৰ" [Police destroy ganja worth over ten lakh rupees on Barpeta's Baghmara char]. Niyomiya Barta (in অসমীয়া). 24 January 2026. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Assam: Police Destroy Illegal Cannabis Plants in Panikhaiti, Boko". The Sentinel. 1 January 2025. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "যমুনার চর থেকে ৪০ কেজি ওজনের গাঁজার গাছ জব্দ" [Cannabis plant weighing 40 kg seized from a Jamuna char]. Ajker Patrika (in Bengali). 20 December 2022. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "দূর্গম যমুনার চরে পুলিশের অভিযান বাড়ীর আঙ্গিনায় গাঁজার বাগান জব্দ" [Police raid on a remote Jamuna char: cannabis garden in a homestead yard seized]. Bangla Times (in Bengali). 21 November 2024. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Prashnani, Meghavi; Qadir, Abdul; Goswami, J.; Raju, P. L. N. (2019). "Spatio-temporal study of Brahmaputra river islands (chars) for agriculture expansion in Assam, India". The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. XLII-3/W6: 429–433. doi:10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-3-W6-429-2019.
- ↑ Assam Administrative Reforms Commission (2005). "Chapter XI: Improving the quality of life of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Minorities and people living in the geographically isolated areas viz. Char, Tea gardens and Border Areas and measures to improve the Government Delivery System therein". Report 2005 (PDF) (Report). Chapter XI, "Char Areas" (PDF p. 4). Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Directorate of Minority Affairs and Char Areas, Assam. "History". Directorate of Minority Affairs and Char Areas, Assam, Government of Assam. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Sentinel Digital Desk (19 February 2023). "Stage set for socio-economic survey of sar areas after 20 years in Assam". The Sentinel. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Sarma, Angshuman (26 November 2015). "Literacy declining in Assam's char areas". Nezine. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Chowdhury, Masud Hasan. "Jamuna River". Banglapedia. Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Chowdhury, Sifatul Quader; Chowdhury, Masud Hasan. "Char". Banglapedia. Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. G. Gordon, Deputy Commissioner, Goalpara". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Assam witness no. 10, p. 543 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ "বাঘমাৰা চৰত ভাং খেতিৰ বিৰুদ্ধে আৰক্ষীৰ অভিযান" [Police drive against bhang cultivation on Baghmara char]. Niyomiya Barta (in অসমীয়া). 6 September 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2026.