Nimar
More actions
| Nimar | |
|---|---|
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 21.95, 75.75 |
| Gene Pool | South Asian Gene Pool |
| Country | India |
| Provinces/States | Madhya Pradesh |
| Area | 20,900 km² |
| Primary Rivers | Narmada |
| Growing history | |
| Dated news reports | 2026 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Nimar is a landrace cannabis growing region in the valley of the Narmada in western Madhya Pradesh, India. It is drawn on three districts, Khandwa, Khargone and Barwani, and leaves out Burhanpur District. In 1895 the Government of India reported that the Central Provinces had confined the licensed cultivation of the hemp plant since 1890–91 to the western half of the Khandwa tahsil of the Nimar district, on about 950 acres in a normal year.[1] In the Indore State's own Nimar district, cultivation of the hemp plant was confined to a few mahals bordering on the Narmada.[2] Since 2022 the police have reported cannabis fields in Barwani and Khargone districts.[3][4]
Geography
According to Barwani's district administration, the district lies in the south-west of Madhya Pradesh; the Narmada forms its northern boundary, with the Satpura ranges to the south and the Vindhyachal ranges to the north. Barwani was formed on 25 May 1998 from the Khargone, or West Nimar, district.[5]
In the 1890s the name covered two territories. The Nimar district of the Central Provinces, under British rule, included the Khandwa tahsil and, on the border with the Khandesh district of the Bombay Presidency, the Burhanpur tahsil.[6]: 73 The Deputy Commissioner of Nimar, B. Robertson, told the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission in 1893 that the cultivators of Burhanpur were said to be "ignorant of the cultivation of ganja".[7] The State of Indore had a Nimar district of its own, and its cultivation of the hemp plant was confined to "a few mahals in the Nimar district, bordering on the Narbada", and to Sanwer, north of the city of Indore.[2]
Cultivation history
British Nimar
When the Central Provinces issued their first separate excise report, for 1871–72, ganja was grown in small patches in every district, but the Nimar district and the Katol tahsil of Nagpur were already the chief places of cultivation, according to the province's Officiating Commissioner of Excise, H. V. Drake-Brockman.[8] According to the Government of India, the province had licensed cultivation since 1873–74, and from 1890–91 it allowed it only in the western half of the Khandwa tahsil.[1] Robertson put the cultivation in 60 or 70 villages there.[9] The whole crop had to be taken to the government storehouse at Khandwa,[10]: 239 which the Excise Commissioner's report of 1887 called a mart for foreign purchasers, with traders coming from Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Rutlam, Dhar, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Rewa, Panna, Baroda and elsewhere.[11]
Holkar's Nimar and the Bhopawar Agency
The Indore State, under the Holkar dynasty, held the land south of the Narmada around Sanawad, on the railway between Khandwa and Indore. Drake-Brockman's memorandum for the Commission states that in 1879–80 ganja was grown in seven villages forming a group round Sanawad, "almost an island of foreign territory within the Nimar district", and that they raised about 1,500 maunds a year, sold on the spot with no pass or permit.[6]: 61 The State's own memorandum for the Commission reported a small cultivation: over twenty years the area under the narcotic hemp plant in the State as a whole had ranged from 66 to 354 bighas, about 181 bighas on average, and the State placed no restriction on growing it.[2] In 1893 Drake-Brockman wrote that ganja was "largely grown" in the Sanawad pargana, which separated part of British Nimar from the rest of the district.[6]: 73 According to Robertson, the best seed used in the Khandwa tract came from Dhakalgaon, in Holkar's territory.[9]
R. H. Gunion's memorandum on Central India for the Commission reports that the plant was cultivated for ganja and bhang all over the Bhopawar Agency, but that production was limited and, "except in the parts adjoining British Nimar, only for the personal use of the cultivators".[12] Robertson told the Commission that ganja sold in Indore territory for about a fifth of its price in the British districts, and that petty smuggling into Nimar was generally believed to go on, though cases seldom reached the courts.[7]
Since 2000
In October 2022 police in Barwani district reported seizing cannabis plants grown between cotton and tur on a farm near Malphalya village, in the Sendhwa area.[3] In the same month Khargone police reported plants on a farm surrounded by cotton at Kabri Dhudhiya, under Bhagwanpura police station.[13] In September 2026 police teams drawn from Barwani, Khargone and Khandwa districts searched 19 villages in the forested hills under Varla police station, in the Sendhwa subdivision of Barwani, and found cannabis growing in five fields; with an earlier raid in the Shakkarkua–Borpadava area, the police registered nine cases over the two days.[14] Later that month Khargone police seized 15,191 plants from fields at Jamli and Guwada Thatta Phalia, in the Chainpur area of Helapadava police station in an area without mobile network coverage, according to the report.[4]
Growing Areas
| Growing Area | Status | State |
|---|---|---|
| Barwani | Active | Madhya Pradesh |
| Khandwa | Historical | Madhya Pradesh |
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Government of India (21 March 1895). Resolution No. 1369 Ex. [on the Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission] (Report). Calcutta: Finance and Commerce Department, Separate Revenue (Excise). I. Cultivation, paras. 3–14, pp. 2–5 – via National Library of Scotland.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Indore State memorandum". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. p. 164 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 FP News Service (18 October 2022). "Sendhwa: Over 80 kg weed plants seized, one held". Free Press Journal. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 FP News Service (28 September 2026). "MP's Khargone Police Use Drones To Bust ₹2.98 Crore Illegal Ganja Cultivation". Free Press Journal. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ District Administration, Barwani. "About District". District Barwani, Government of Madhya Pradesh. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Memorandum on hemp drugs in the Central Provinces, by Mr. H. V. Drake-Brockman, Officiating Commissioner of Excise". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. paras. 3–66, pp. 57–74 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. B. Robertson, Deputy Commissioner, Nimar". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. VI: Evidence of Witnesses from Central Provinces and Madras. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Central Provinces witness no. 7, pp. 10–12 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. H. V. Drake-Brockman, Officiating Commissioner of Excise, Central Provinces". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. VI: Evidence of Witnesses from Central Provinces and Madras. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Central Provinces witness no. 9, pp. 12–17 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Note by Mr. B. Robertson, Deputy Commissioner, Nimar, on cultivation and preparation of ganja in Nimar". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. p. 236 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Memorandum by Mr. H. V. Drake-Brockman, Officiating Commissioner of Excise, Central Provinces, on the cultivation and manufacture of ganja in the Khandwa tahsil of the Nimar district". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. p. 238 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. VII, "Trade and movement of the hemp drugs", para. 304, p. 115 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Memorandum by Mr. R. H. Gunion on hemp drugs in Central India". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. p. 158 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ FP News Service (13 October 2022). "MP: Over 170 kg weed plants seized, one arrested". Free Press Journal. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ FP News Service (13 September 2026). "MP's Sendhwa Operation Green Strike: 11,000 Cannabis Plants Worth Over ₹1 Crore Seized, Drones Scan 19 Villages". Free Press Journal. Retrieved 19 October 2026.