Talk:Shillong Plateau
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Page scope
Shillong Plateau is a Growing Region: a named cultivation region that sits above Growing Areas and below the regional complex and gene pool. It covers the hill plateau of Meghalaya, whose growing areas are the Garo Hills, the Khasi Hills and the Jaintia Hills. The Mikir Hills of Assam, described in the geological literature as an eastern extension of the plateau, also belong to the region. The fold ranges to the east and south (the Patkai, Naga, Manipur, Mizo and Tripura hills) belong to Indo-Burman Range.
Data verification
Check the main page for the sources behind each statement. Discuss the region's extent, its growing areas, and the accessions and news items that belong to it here.
Discussion
Why the region is on the map
- The region groups three hill ranges that sources name for cannabis, and the plateau they stand on:
- Khasi Hills. Cannabis destroyed on about five hectares at Laitlulong, Sohiong area, East Khasi Hills, on 21 October 2025 (The Shillong Times, Hub News, Millennium Post and others). In the 1893–94 evidence to the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, hill ganja came into the Gauhati district and Sylhet from the Khasi Hills.
- Garo Hills. Cannabis patches destroyed at Kuligoan (October and December 2018) and Bhoiragopi (December 2020), South West Garo Hills.
- Jaintia Hills. Only the 1893–94 evidence: "ganja grows in their hills" (J. J. S. Driberg) and hill ganja carried to Sylhet. No report since 2000 was found.
- The UNODC South Asia Regional Profile (September 2005) says that cannabis "is widely cultivated" in Manipur and Meghalaya, at state level only.
- No source read describes the Shillong Plateau as a cannabis region in those words. The plateau is the landscape the three ranges share (Banglapedia; Hussain and Ahmad 2009).
How the border is drawn
- The border is a proxy, drawn on the 12 districts of Meghalaya from their OpenStreetMap administrative relations: East Khasi Hills 2027522, West Khasi Hills 2027525, South West Khasi Hills 9522352, Eastern West Khasi Hills 14723470, Ri-Bhoi 2027524, West Jaintia Hills 2027523, East Jaintia Hills 9522423, West Garo Hills 2027476, East Garo Hills 2027474, North Garo Hills 9522478, South Garo Hills 2027475 and South West Garo Hills 9522314. It also takes in the two districts that stand for the Mikir Hills in Assam, Karbi Anglong 2025924 and West Karbi Anglong 9521812. Dima Hasao is not included: no source names cultivation there. The outline measures about 32,800 km², the figure in the infobox.
- The plateau in the geological sense covers about 40,000 km² (Hussain and Ahmad 2009). Guwahati, Sylhet and Haflong lie outside the border.
- In Meghalaya, cannabis growing has been reported since 2000 in two of the 12 districts, East Khasi Hills and South West Garo Hills. The other districts are in the border because they belong to the three ranges. The evidence for the Mikir Hills is set out on that page's Talk page.
Growing status
The status is Active: cannabis was destroyed on the plateau in 2018, 2020 and 2025. No source read says that growing has ended anywhere in the region.
Sources not used
- The NCB annual reports for 2014–2016 give state-wise cannabis destruction figures with no Meghalaya entry. The 2017 report gives national totals only, the 2018 report is a scan without a text layer, and those for 2019 and 2020 were too large to fetch.
- No Meghalaya Assembly answer, police annual report or state hemp policy on cannabis cultivation was found.
- Britannica's "Shillong Plateau" entry calls the Garo, Khasi and Jaintia Hills the plateau's "western, northern, and southern escarpments", which conflicts with its own entries placing the Khasi Hills in central and the Jaintia Hills in eastern Meghalaya. The range entries are cited and the plateau entry is not.
- Several colonial sources could not be read: A. Playfair, The Garos (1909); B. C. Allen, Assam District Gazetteers, vol. X (1906); A. J. M. Mills's report on the Khasi and Jaintia Hills (1853); E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal (1872).