Shillong Plateau
More actions
| Shillong Plateau | |
|---|---|
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 25.55, 91.30 |
| Gene Pool | South Asian Gene Pool |
| Country | India |
| Provinces/States | Meghalaya,Assam |
| Area | 32,800 km² |
| Growing history | |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
The Shillong Plateau growing region is a landrace cannabis growing region on the hill plateau of Meghalaya, in north-east India, between Assam and Bangladesh. Its growing areas in Meghalaya are the Garo Hills in the west of the state, the Khasi Hills in the centre and the Jaintia Hills in the east.[1][2][3] The police destroyed about 10 tonnes of cannabis at Laitlulong, in East Khasi Hills, in October 2025.[4] The Border Security Force, with the police and district officials, destroyed it in two villages of South West Garo Hills in 2018 and 2020.[5][6] The South Asia office of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime wrote in 2005 that cannabis was "widely cultivated" in Manipur and Meghalaya.[7]
Geography
The Shillong Plateau takes in the Garo, Khasi and Jaintia Hills. It is regarded as part of the Indian Peninsular Shield, from which the alluvium of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra cuts it off, and its general altitude is about 1,500 m.[8] The plateau is an east–west block of about 40,000 km², raised 600 to 1,800 m above the plains of Bangladesh to its south and bounded by faults, the Dauki Fault among them on its southern side. The Mikir Hills massif in Assam, of about 7,000 km², has been described as an eastern extension of the plateau; the Kopili rift separates it from the plateau proper.[9]
The region is drawn on the 12 districts of Meghalaya and the two Karbi Anglong districts of Assam, about 32,800 km² in all. Five of the Meghalaya districts are in the Khasi Hills, two in the Jaintia Hills and five in the Garo Hills; Karbi Anglong and West Karbi Anglong make up the Mikir Hills.
Cultivation history
The Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94
The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission classed Assam, with the hill ranges that formed part of the province, alongside the Himalayas and the Terai as a region in which the spontaneous growth of the hemp plant had run wild. One witness had seen the plant wild in the Khasi Hills, and another believed it grew there. The Commission judged that the ganja smuggled from the hills into the plains "must have been to some extent cultivated".[10] For the hill tracts within the province, the evidence it heard pointed to "cultivation of a very inferior sort, if indeed the plant is tended at all".[11]
No excise duty was levied on ganja in the hill districts. An Assam government circular of 1882 set out to keep untaxed spirits "and ganja or bhang from the Garo, Khasi and Jaintia, North Cachar, and Naga Hills" out of the plains districts.[12] The province's memorandum to the Commission said that the wild plant grew freely all over Assam, "especially in the hill tracts", whose people sold it illicitly in small quantities to the neighbouring plains.[13]
Since 2000
At Laitlulong, in the Sohiong area of East Khasi Hills, the district police, the forest and excise departments and the state's Anti-Narcotics Task Force uprooted and burnt cannabis on nearly five hectares in October 2025.[4] In South West Garo Hills a joint operation led by the Border Security Force found 14 patches of cannabis at Kuligoan, under the Mahendraganj police station, in October 2018, and destroyed three of them.[5] District officials and the force destroyed 2,500 to 2,600 plants in 32 patches there that December.[14] In December 2020 the force and the Zikzak police burnt more than half an acre at Bhoiragopi.[6]
A 2021 paper published by the Meghalaya Farmers' (Empowerment) Commission noted that the state had no policy for cultivating and processing hemp, and proposed growing it on mine-degraded land in East Jaintia Hills.[15]
Growing Areas
| Growing Area | Districts | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Garo Hills | Active | |
| Jaintia Hills | Historical | |
| Khasi Hills | Active | |
| Mikir Hills | Active |
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Locality |
|---|---|---|---|
| COC-IND-MEG-0100000001 | Meghalaya Khasi Hills General Population | Shillong |
Recent news
No news items are recorded for the Shillong Plateau yet.
See also
References
- ↑ "Garo Hills". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ "Khasi Hills". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ "Jaintia Hills". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Police raze 10 tonnes of cannabis plantation spread across 5 hectares". The Shillong Times. 22 October 2025. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Sentinel Digital Desk (28 October 2018). "Huge quantity of raw hemp destroyed in Garo Hills, Shillong". The Sentinel. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "BSF, Meghalaya Police destroy hemp cultivation". The Shillong Times. 31 December 2020. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ UNODC Regional Office for South Asia (September 2005). South Asia Regional Profile, September 2005: India (PDF) (Report). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. p. 38. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Akon, Eunuse. "Shillong Plateau". Banglapedia. Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Hussain, M. Faruque; Ahmad, Talat (2009). "Geochemical characteristics of the Granitoids of Mikir Hills Massif of Shillong Plateau, Northeast India: Implication for Pan-African Magmatic Activity". Journal of the Virtual Explorer. 32. doi:10.3809/jvirtex.2009.00250.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. III, "The existence, prevalence, and character of the spontaneous growth", paras. 35–40, pp. 21–23 – 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. IV, "Extent of cultivation, and its tendency to increase or decrease", paras. 101–102, pp. 39–40 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Assam Memorandum: Circular No. 28, Shillong, 26 October 1882". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. p. 21 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Assam Memorandum". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. p. 18 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ NE Now News (14 December 2018). "BSF destroys cannabis cultivation in Garo Hills of Meghalaya". NE Now. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Kumar, K. N. (2 November 2021). "The Hump before Hemp: Time for a policy" (PDF). Meghalaya Farmers' (Empowerment) Commission. Retrieved 19 October 2026.