Talk:North Avadh
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Discussion
Why the region is mapped
- The excise inquiry of 1883. Kheri, Bahraich and Gonda are among the fourteen districts where the hemp plant "grows wild, and is made into bhang" (Hemp Drugs Commission report, vol. I, para. 41).
- The Commission's line. The northern limit of the "central belt" runs through Sitapur "to Bahramghat on the Gogra, and thence following the course of that river"; beyond it the spontaneous growth is abundant (vol. I, para. 42).
- Stoker's memorandum. Gonda, Bahraich and Kheri grow the plant "absolutely wild in great profusion" (vol. III, para. 8, p. 25) and are among the chief bhang-exporting districts (para. 20, p. 28); some Gonda and Bahraich bhang is grown on the Nepal side (para. 19, p. 27).
- The witnesses of 1893–94. Kheri: W. P. Harrison (witness 18), Pandit Mewaram (57), Mohamed Salamatullah (59), Thakur Balbhaddar Singh (214). Bahraich: Harrison (18), Mewaram (57), F. W. Brownrigg (12). Gonda and Balrampur: F. Barrow (19), Brownrigg (12), J. Cockburn (4). Sitapur's Biswan tahsil: Mewaram (57); Sitapur generally: Sita Ram Bhagova (197).
- No source read for this page records hemp grown as a field crop in these districts. The evidence is of a wild plant cut for bhang, collected and stored by the owners and occupiers of the land or cut by lessees, and sold to the drug contractors. No source calls the region "North Avadh": the name joins the northern districts of the former province of Oudh that the sources name, under the modern form of that name.
Growing status
The status is Historical: the evidence runs from 1883 to 1894, and no later source read for this page says either way whether hemp grows or is gathered in these districts now. No field crop, eradication or bhang harvest since 2000 was found in Lakhimpur Kheri, Bahraich, Shravasti, Balrampur, Gonda or Sitapur; the searches reached few Hindi newspapers, so this is a limit of the search as much as a finding.
Years grown
The infobox gives 1883 to 1894. The first is the excise inquiry of 1883, which lists Kheri, Bahraich and Gonda (vol. I, para. 41). The last is the Commission's report of 1894, which finds the spontaneous growth abundant beyond its line through Sitapur (vol. I, para. 42). Both are years the sources were written in; neither marks a start or an end.
How the border is drawn
- The border is the union of five districts and one tahsil in OpenStreetMap: Lakhimpur Kheri (administrative relation 1958965), Bahraich (1958963), Shravasti (1958966), Balrampur (1958964), Gonda (1959699) and the Biswan tahsil of Sitapur (10020624), less the ground already inside the Western Terai and Terai borders, simplified: about 19,300 km² in one part.
- About 3,500 km² of the five districts lie inside the Western Terai and Terai borders and are left to them: 59% of Balrampur (with Tulsipur), 47% of Shravasti (with Bhinga), 7% of Bahraich and 3% of Lakhimpur Kheri. Gonda and the Biswan tahsil lie wholly outside them.
- Sitapur. Only the Biswan tahsil is drawn. Mewaram names "Tahsil Biswan in Sitapur district" among the places where the plant was abundant, and the Commission's line runs through Sitapur itself; the rest of the district lies on or south of that line. Sita Ram Bhagova (197) found wild hemp in the lowlands throughout the district, so the choice of tahsil follows the Commission's line, not an absence of growth elsewhere.
- Gorakhpur and Basti are described in the same terms (Stoker, paras. 8 and 20; Mazhar Subhan, witness 131, on the Mahrayganj tahsil) and are named in the article, but they are not drawn: no source gives one name covering both them and the districts to their west.
- The border stops at the district line with Rohilkhand to the west and with Barabanki (Mahadeva) to the south.
- The map point (27.68, 81.34) is a central point of the border; the border is not drawn from it.
Places named by the witnesses
In Kheri, Mewaram names Majhgain, Kheirigarh, Ramnagar, Barsola, Singahi, Narrangabad, Negasan, Gharouri, Banwaripur, Motipur, Kuraya, Tikonia and Dhonrahra; Balbhaddar Singh names the Nighasan tahsil. In Bahraich, Mewaram names Nanpara and Bhinga, and Brownrigg Nanpara, Charda and Bhoundi. In Gonda, Brownrigg names Balrampur and Tulsipur, and Cockburn the banks of the Rapti in the Balrampur estate. None has a source giving an extent or a year other than 1893–94, so none is a growing area of its own. Bhinga and Tulsipur lie inside the Western Terai border.
The name Mahadeva in these districts
Several witnesses use Mahadeva for a kind of ganja from these districts: K. Kampta Pershad (witness 53) puts it in the Nighasan tahsil of Kheri, Balrampur and Bahraich; the Raja of Nanpara (181) gives mahadewa as a local name for wild ganja; Balbhaddar Singh (214) gives it to a ganja plant that is "taken care of". The Commission traced the name to a place in Barabanki (vol. I, para. 108); see Talk:Mahadeva.
Accessions
No accession on the wiki lies inside the border (checked 20 October 2026). The ZOM-IND-UTT lots from Lucknow lie south of it.
Sources
- Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894. Vol. I paras. 41–42 and 108, vol. III pp. 25–28, and the vol. V witnesses cited, all read on the page images. The OCR misreads several names: witness 57 is Pandit Mewaram (not "Muwaram"), witness 19 is F. Barrow, and Kampta Pershad is witness 53.
- District administrations. The "About District" pages of Lakhimpur Kheri, Bahraich, Balrampur, Gonda and Sitapur, read on 20 October 2026.
Evidence not used
- Mahomed Hassein, a Lucknow drug contractor (witness 253), puts the self-grown bhang of Gonda, Bahraich, Basti, Kheri and Pilibhit at about 15,000 maunds a year; a single estimate with nothing to check it against.
- The Raja of Bhinga (witness 180) found the plant growing spontaneously and abundantly at Bhinga, which lies inside the Western Terai border.