Brahmaputra Valley
More actions
| Brahmaputra Valley | |
|---|---|
| Assam Valley, Brahmaputra Plains | |
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 26.40, 92.20 |
| Gene Pool | South Asian Gene Pool |
| Country | India |
| Provinces/States | Assam |
| Area | 56,300 km² |
| Primary Rivers | Brahmaputra |
| Growing history | |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
The Brahmaputra Valley is a landrace cannabis growing region on the valley floor of the Brahmaputra in Assam, India. It takes in the plains districts of the state, without the hill districts of Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao or the Barak valley. In 1893 J. J. S. Driberg, Assam's Commissioner of Excise, told the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission that, besides the excise ganja, the government in Assam had to deal with "the so-called wild ganja, which grows luxuriantly in the plains districts", and with hill ganja smuggled down from the surrounding hills.[1] Since 2000 the police have destroyed cannabis grown on the river's chars and sandbars in Goalpara, Nalbari and Kamrup districts.[2][3][4]
Geography
In Driberg's account the Brahmaputra Valley consisted of six districts: Goalpara and Kamrup on both banks of the river, Darrang on the north bank, Nowgong and Sibsagar on the south bank, and Lakhimpur on both banks.[1] The river's chars, its islands and sandbars, run along about 720 km of its course in Assam, from Sadiya in the east to Dhubri in the west. They cover 3,608 km², 4.6% of the state's area, in 14 districts.[5]
Cultivation history
The Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94
In the settled districts of Assam no cultivation was authorised. The Commission judged that the plant "sows itself and grows vigorously all over Assam", that there must be many cases of a desultory cultivation of a few plants, and that the practice was not important.[6] The district officers who gave evidence described plants in homestead gardens. R. B. McCabe, the Deputy Commissioner of Kamrup, had seen hemp growing in the gardens of every plains district he had served in, and prosecuted whenever he found it; the cultivation consisted of one or two old plants that the people said were self-sown and untended.[7] E. A. Gait, the Director of Land Records and Agriculture, reported "a certain amount of illicit cultivation chiefly for use as bhang", came to think the plant would be found in almost every village in Kamrup, and wrote that "if not actually planted, it is very actively tolerated"; the Commission preferred the district officers' view that it was kept in check.[8][6] H. Luttman-Johnson, who had served in Assam, knew of "a good many cases" of illicit cultivation in the Golaghat sub-division and around Dibrugarh, as a rule of a few plants; in one Dibrugarh case all the people of a village seemed to be cultivating.[9] J. D. Anderson, the officiating Commissioner of Excise, wrote that hemp was also grown by the Miris in Lakhimpur and Darrang, who fenced in the wild plant "on a large scale for consumption and vend"; in 1887–88 some Miris were punished for selling 59 seers of bhang.[10]
The Assam committee of 1913
A committee appointed by the Chief Commissioner of Assam to enquire into opium and ganja consumption heard villagers in Darrang, Lakhimpur, Sibsagar and Nowgong say that they smoked "wild bhang" when they could not afford the excise ganja. It judged that severe restrictions on ganja would greatly increase the use of the wild plant, which "appears to grow only in the neighbourhood of houses", and suggested that village councils could keep its growth to a minimum.[11]: 10–11 The Flora of Assam of 1940 recorded Cannabis sativa as common throughout Assam, under the local names bhang and jangli-bhang, and described bhang as the dried leaves and flowering shoots of plants growing wild.[12]
Since 2000
The Narcotics Control Bureau recorded 2 acres of cannabis destroyed in Assam in 2016.[13] In July 2021 the Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, said that the Assam Police had destroyed 31 bighas of cannabis in the previous two months.[14] In December 2021 the police destroyed about 15 bighas on three chars in Goalpara district; in January 2022 the Nalbari police destroyed at least three bighas grown on a sandbar; and at the end of December 2024 the police cut and burnt more than 100 mature plants at Panikhaiti, near the Brahmaputra, in Boko.[2][3][4]
Trade
The Commission found that Assam drew its excise ganja from Rajshahi, in Bengal, and that no licences were issued to import bhang, "the local weed being far more than sufficient for the needs of the province".[15] By 1894 one of the largest excise warehouses for the ganja of Naogaon was in Kamrup.[16]: 107
Growing Areas
| Growing Area | District | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Brahmaputra chars | Active |
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No news items are recorded for the Brahmaputra Valley yet.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. J. J. S. Driberg, Commissioner of Excise and Inspector General of Police and Jails". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Assam witness no. 2, answer 70, pp. 532–533 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Sentinel Digital Desk (30 December 2021). "Assam Police Destroys 15 Bighas of Cannabis Cultivation in Goalpara". The Sentinel. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 NE Now News (25 January 2022). "Assam: Ganja worth Rs 3 crore seized in Gossaigaon". Northeast Now. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Assam: Police Destroy Illegal Cannabis Plants in Panikhaiti, Boko". The Sentinel. 1 January 2025. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Sarma, Angshuman (26 November 2015). "Literacy declining in Assam's char areas". Nezine. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 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). "Evidence of Mr. McCabe". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Assam witness no. 5, p. 538 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. E. A. Gait, Director of Land Records and Agriculture, Assam". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Assam witness no. 9, pp. 541–543 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. H. Luttman-Johnson, Commissioner of Dacca". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Bengal witness no. 6, p. 16 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. J. D. Anderson, Deputy Commissioner; Officiating Commissioner of Excise". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Assam witness no. 4, p. 535 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Report of the Committee Appointed to Enquire into Certain Aspects of Opium and Ganja Consumption (Report). 18 April 1913 – via Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics.
- ↑ Kanjilal, U. N.; Kanjilal, P. C.; De, R. N.; Das, A. (1940). Flora of Assam. Vol. IV: Nyctaginaceae to Cycadaceae. Calcutta: Government of Assam. Cannabinaceae, Cannabis sativa – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Narcotics Control Bureau. Annual Report 2016 (PDF) (Report). Narcotics Control Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. PDF pp. 9, 16, 26. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Chief Minister's Public Relations Cell (18 July 2021). "CM attends seized drugs disposal programme at Hojai" (PDF) (Press release). Dispur: Janasanyog, Government of Assam. No. 168/2021. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 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. 287, p. 109 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Chattopadhyaya, Utathya (June 2026). Ganja Matters: Empire and the Pursuits of Cannabis in British India. Oakland: University of California Press. doi:10.1525/luminos.276. ISBN 9780520425699.