Talk:Punjab submontane belt

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Page scope

Punjab submontane belt treats the historical cannabis growing region on the Indian plain along the foot of the Shivalik Hills: the wild hemp of the Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar and Ambala country, cut for bhang in the 1890s. The hills above it are the Western Himalayas; the western part of the same belt, now in Pakistan, is not covered here. The districts as administrative units are treated at Pathankot District, Gurdaspur District, Hoshiarpur District, Jalandhar District, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar District, Rupnagar District, Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar District, Panchkula District, Ambala District, Yamunanagar District and Una District.

Data verification

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Discussion

Why the region is mapped

The Commission's report. The hemp plant grows "in a broad belt along the foot of the mountains", so freely that it "may without impropriety be called wild"; its prevalence "seems to be most notorious in the districts of Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, and Jullundur, because the bhang contractors draw their supplies from these districts", and witnesses speak to it "throughout the submontane districts from Peshawar to Umballa" (Hemp Drugs Commission report, vol. I, para. 45). The belt is "very narrow at Peshawar, and gradually widens as it approaches the North-Western Provinces" (para. 49).
Walker's memorandum. "The supply of bhang is derived from the wild hemp plant which grows within the province in the sub-montane tracts under the Himalayas and the Suleiman range" (vol. III, p. 46). The Commission did not accept the Suleiman range (vol. I, para. 47); that range is far to the west and outside this region in any case.
Stoker's memorandum. The North-Western Provinces imported bhang from the Punjab, "chiefly from Jagadhri, Kalsia, Umballa, and some from Amritsar, Hosbiyarpur" (vol. III, para. 19, p. 27).
The witnesses of 1893–94. Gurdaspur and Pathankot: J. B. Hutchinson (Punjab witness 4), J. R. Maconachie (8), Sodhi Ishar Singh (20). Hoshiarpur and Una: Denzil Ibbetson (6), Bedi Sujan Singh (57), Lala Ganesh Dass (77), Lachman Das (86), Jawala Bhagat (94). Northern Jalandhar: Ibbetson (6), Jawala Bhagat (94). Ambala, Ropar, Kharar, Jagadhri and Kalsia: Arjan Singh (19), Lachmi Sahai (17), and the Chief of Loharu (supplementary volume, Punjab Native States witness 6).
The evidence is of a wild plant harvested for sale: coolies employed by the contractors (Hutchinson), labourers selling to the contractors (Jawala Bhagat), village labourers cutting it and selling the leaves to the contractors (Ibbetson). Cultivation appears once, as a few seeds sown by fakirs near their houses (Ibbetson, answer 7). No source calls the region "Punjab submontane belt": the name joins the Commission's "submontane districts" and Walker's "sub-montane tracts" to the province they lay in.

Growing status

The status is Historical: the evidence is from 1893 and 1894, and no later source read for this page says either way whether hemp grows or is gathered for bhang in these districts now.

In 2024 the Punjab and Haryana High Court heard a matter on "the widespread and intermittent growth of wild cannabis plants in and around the surrounding area of Union Territory Chandigarh" and gave the authorities a week to remove the plants (Verdictum, 24 May 2024). In September 2024 an affidavit before the court described cannabis plants "growing in discriminately all over the towns in the States of Punjab and Haryana as well as Union Territory, Chandigarh" (order of 2 September 2024, CWP-PIL 180 and 182 of 2024). These orders concern plants growing in and around a city and in towns, not a crop or a bhang harvest, and they have not been used to set the status.
No field crop, eradication drive or bhang harvest since 2000 was found in any district of the belt. The searches reached few Punjabi and Hindi newspapers, so this is a limit of the search as much as a finding.

Years grown

The infobox gives 1893 to 1894. The first is the year of Walker's memorandum, which refers to a draft of rules sent "last month (August 1893)" (vol. III, p. 47). The last is the Commission's report of 1894. Both are years the sources were written in; neither marks a start or an end. A history of the Punjab excise system printed in 1931 describes the same wild growth in its account of the years up to 1884, but it gives no single year for it, so no earlier year is entered.

How the border is drawn

The border is the union of these units in OpenStreetMap: the Pathankot (administrative relation 9513330), Gurdaspur (1948558), Hoshiarpur (1948566), Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar (1948565), Rupnagar (9513178) and Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar (9513166) districts and the Jalandhar I (9897256) and Jalandhar II (9897255) tahsils in Punjab; Chandigarh (9552697); the Panchkula (1942810) and Yamunanagar (5385295) districts and the Naraingarh tahsil (10393473) in Haryana; and Una district (364144) in Himachal Pradesh. The ground already inside the Western Himalayas border is left to it, and the result is simplified: about 15,400 km² in one part.
About 730 km² of these units lie inside the Western Himalayas border: 45% of Una district, and small slivers of Pathankot, Hoshiarpur and Panchkula. A further 17 km² of Yamunanagar on the Yamuna lies inside the Western Terai border and is left to it.
Jalandhar. Only the Jalandhar I and Jalandhar II tahsils are drawn. Ibbetson puts the growth "in enormous quantities in the northern portion of the Jalandhar tahsil" and answers "Jalandhar (northern part)"; the Nakodar, Phillaur and Shahkot tahsils to the south are left out.
Gurdaspur. The whole district is drawn. Hutchinson saw the plant chiefly in the Pathankot tahsil and "also largely in the Gurdaspur tahsil", along the roads; Maconachie put it chiefly in the northern tahsil, near the hills. Batala and Dera Baba Nanak are inside the border on the strength of the district-level statements of the Commission and the witnesses, not of any statement about those tahsils.
Ambala. The Chief of Loharu names the Naraingarh, Ropar, Kharar and Jagadhri tahsils of the old Ambala district. Today these lie in the Naraingarh tahsil of Ambala, in Rupnagar, in Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar and in Yamunanagar; the rest of present-day Ambala district is left out. Kalsia, named by Lachmi Sahai (17) and by Stoker, was a princely state in detached pieces; its capital, Chhachhrauli, and most of its territory lie in present-day Yamunanagar. Panchkula district and Chandigarh, between Kharar and Naraingarh, are drawn so that the border runs unbroken along the foot of the hills; no witness names them.
Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar was formed in 1995 from parts of Hoshiarpur and Jalandhar districts; it is drawn with them. No witness names a place in it.
Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar also takes in ground that was in Patiala district; the Commission expected the growth in the parts of Patiala State that fell within the belt (vol. I, para. 50).
Left out. Kapurthala is reported only by an outside witness (the Chief of Loharu, "on the Sutlej river") and by the Commission's general remark on the plain states (para. 50), with no place named. Karnal has canal-bank growth that Ibbetson calls small in quantity and that the Commission places at the southern edge of the belt (para. 46). Amritsar's growth the Commission puts down to discarded seed (para. 46). The districts of the belt in Pakistan (Sialkot, Gujrat, Jhelum, Rawalpindi, Shahpur, Peshawar, and the Shakargarh tahsil of the old Gurdaspur district) are outside the border.
The map point (31.31, 76.14) is a central point of the border, near Garhshankar; the border is not drawn from it.

Places named by the witnesses

In Gurdaspur, Hutchinson names the Pathankot and Gurdaspur tahsils; Maconachie the submontane villages on the Ravi, Doda in Shakargarh, and places near Kanhwan. In Hoshiarpur, Lachman Das names Sham Churasi (Hoshiarpur tahsil), Mukerian, Jhinjea and Badal (Dasuya tahsil), Ambota and Gaget (Una tahsil) and Nadaun (Garhshankar tahsil); Bedi Sujan Singh the banks of the Swan; Ibbetson and Lachman Das Ambota. Jawala Bhagat names the village of Saiewal. In Ambala, the Chief of Loharu names the Naraingarh, Ropar, Kharar and Jagadhri tahsils, and Arjan Singh the Jagadhri tahsil close to the hills. None has a source giving an extent or a year other than 1893–94, so none is a growing area of its own. Doda in Shakargarh is in Pakistan.

Accessions

No accession on the wiki with coordinates lies inside the border (checked 20 October 2026). Watt 410 (1878) was collected "on the road to Pathankote", a roadside plant; its label documents no cultivation, so it has no growing region.

Sources

Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894. Vol. I paras. 45–50, vol. III pp. 27 and 46–51, the vol. V witnesses cited, and the supplementary volume of 1895, p. 157, all read on the page images. The OCR misreads witness 6 as "Ipperson"; the heading reads Mr. Denzil Ibbetson, Deputy Commissioner, Jalandhar.
1931 excise history. A History of the Excise System in the Punjab (1846–1884), pp. 67–68, read on the page images. The scan names no author.
District administrations. The "About District" pages of Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, Rupnagar, Ambala, Yamunanagar and Una, read on 20 October 2026.

Evidence not used

Jawala Bhagat (94) gives "nearly 20,000 maunds in the Jullundur and Hoshiarpur districts", under no question number that can be read; the figure is far above Walker's provincial consumption of about 4,000 maunds and is not used.
The Punjab Hemp Cultivation and Bhang Permit and Pass Rules, 1955, allow special licences to grow hemp at temples and similar religious institutions in Ludhiana, Ferozepore and Amritsar districts. None of the three is in the belt.