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Kullu Valley

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Kullu Valley
Kulu Valley, upper Beas valley, Waziri Parol
Cannabis plants growing among conifers on a hillside under a bright, cloudy sky
Landrace cannabis cultivation in the Kullu Valley, Himachal Pradesh.
⛶
Hierarchy
Gene Pool South Asian Gene Pool
Regional Complex Hindu Kush-Himalayan
Growing Region Western Himalayas
Geography
Country India
Province/State Himachal Pradesh
District Kullu District
Coordinates 32.11, 77.16
Landscape
Elevation 2,050–2,500 m
Terrain Beas river valley, broad at its base, with terraced orchards, deodar and pine forest and high ridges
Climate
Climate Type Temperate; dry winter, monsoon summer
Rainfall 918–1,124 mm
Seasons Summer (Mar–May), monsoon (Jun–Sep), post-monsoon (Oct–Nov), winter (Dec–Jan)
Documentation
Appellations 1
Accessions 10
Conservation
Status Unknown


Kullu Valley is a landrace cannabis growing area in the Western Himalayas growing region, comprising the main valley of the Beas in Kullu District, Himachal Pradesh, India. The valley runs some 90 km from Larji in the south to the Rohtang Pass in the north and is up to 3 km wide at its base; Kullu town, the district headquarters, stands at about 1,279 m.[1][2] The Parvati Valley and the Malana Valley, which join it from the east, are documented as separate growing areas. In the colonial revenue record the main valley was the waziri of Parol, defined in 1874 as "all the upper valley of the Beas river".[3]

The accessions documented in the valley come from Rumsu, Pulag and Hallan, three villages above Naggar on the slopes below the Chanderkhani Pass, at 2,050 to 2,500 m, under the expedition code HIMA01. The collection diary of the Zomia Collective dates the visit to the first week of September 2022 and the seed to the 2022 harvest; the accession pages record collection dates of 3 to 5 September 2022.[4][5] The accessions carry the appellation Chanderkhani Valley.

Nineteenth-century officials described hemp in Kullu as a fibre crop, grown in small patches near houses and worked into rope and footwear, while the valley itself served as the main route by which charas from Ladakh and Yarkand reached the Punjab.[6][7] Since the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 the district has been the object of repeated eradication campaigns. In 2021 the state's Director General of Police put the area under cannabis in "the Kullu Valley alone" at 50,000 acres on police records.[8] A state framework for licensed medicinal and industrial cultivation was notified in 2026 and names Kullu among the districts expected to benefit; no licence had been reported issued in the district by September 2026.[9]

Geography

The cannabis populations documented in the valley grow on the slopes between about 2,050 and 2,500 m below the Chanderkhani ridge, the range the accession pages record, above a valley floor that stands at 1,279 m at Kullu town.[2] The valley is the upper course of the Beas. The river rises in the Pir Panjal near the Rohtang Pass, "about 51 km north of Manali town".[1] It descends past the seasonal settlements of Marhi and Rahla to Manali; "only south of Manali, the Beas becomes wide and gentle in gradient".[1] The stretch from Larji to the Rohtang Pass, "about 90 km long" and "relatively broad at its base (up to 3 km)", is the Kullu valley of the physical geographers, within a district whose elevations run "from about 1000 m to more than 6000 m".[1] The 1917 gazetteer places the Parvati confluence "at Bhuin (six miles below Kulu)", where the tributary "at its junction is as large as the Beas".[10] The district's own profile describes the country as "mainly covered with Pine and Deodar forests and sprawling apple orchards".[11] The apple belt is reported to have moved some 30 km up the valley, from Bajaura to Raisan, over recent decades.[12]

Kullu district covers 5,503 km² and is administered from Dhalpur beside Sultanpur, the town now called Kullu.[13][14] At the 2011 Census the district had four tehsils and two sub-tehsils with 326 villages between them. Its five community development blocks were Naggar, Kullu, Banjar, Ani and Nirmand.[13] The district administration now lists five sub-divisions, seven tehsils (Kullu, Bhuntar, Manali, Banjar, Anni, Sainj and Nirmand), two sub-tehsils and six development blocks, of which the Kullu, Naggar, Bhuntar and Manali units cover the main valley.[15] The district was constituted on 1 November 1966.[14] The census village directory places Rumsu, Pulag, Hallan (its Hallan-I), Naggar and Katrain in Kullu tehsil, all within the Naggar community development block; no tehsil of the name Naggar exists.[16][15]

The Chanderkhani side

The three villages from which the valley's accessions were collected lie in the Naggar development block on the left bank of the Beas, up the side valley that climbs from Naggar towards the Chanderkhani Pass. The collection documentation describes the side valley as running east to west, perpendicular to the main valley, with the pass, at 3,660 m, "a natural bridge between Kullu Valley and Malana Valley" and the area as "a tranquil, lesser-known charas-producing area compared to the bustling Parvati Valley".[5] It gives Rumsu as north-facing at about 2,100 m, "the darkest, wettest part of the valley"; Pulag as north-facing at about 2,500 m, "the highest village, situated near glaciers and above 3000m in some fields"; and Hallan as south-facing at about 2,100 m with cultivation from "the lower apple terraces" to the upper fields.[5] The accession pages (ZOM-IND-HIM-0920220001 to ZOM-IND-HIM-0920220010) give 2,050 and 2,250 m for the Rumsu sites, 2,200 and 2,500 m for Pulag and 2,275 m for Hallan, with aspects recorded as north-west to north-east at Rumsu and Pulag and south-west at Hallan. Collection diary posts of September 2022 describe Naggar as "a small village on the east bank of the Beas river in Kullu Valley" and "the gateway to Chanderkhani valley". They place the "upper fields" of Rumsu "a couple of hours" on foot above the village along the path to the pass, at about 2,350 to 2,400 m.[4][17][18] At the 2011 Census the village of Rumsu ("Up Muhal Rumsu") had 226 households and 1,010 people on 198.72 ha, Pulag 43 households and 208 people and Hallan (the census's Hallan-I) 112 households and 524 people; Naggar had 1,556 people and Katrain 2,004. Rumsu and Naggar lie 28 and 21 km from Kullu town; Pulag was recorded without an all-weather road.[13]

Climate

Two long-run agricultural research stations bracket the valley: Bajaura (1,090 m, 1973–2009) at its lower end and Katrain (1,550 m, 1962–2009) upstream. Average annual rainfall varies "between 918 mm (Bajaura) to 1124 mm (Katrain)"; November is the driest month and July the wettest. The minimum temperature "drops as low as -2° C to -5° C in January" at Katrain and the maximum "rises to 25° C to 37° C during summer in June" at Bajaura.[12] The study divides the year into summer (March to May), the south-west monsoon (June to September), the post-monsoon (October to November) and winter (December to January); the monsoon brings 43 per cent of annual rainfall, summer 29 per cent, winter 23 per cent and the post-monsoon 5 per cent.[12] The district's hazard profile compiles reports that rainfall in the valley has decreased by about 7 cm and snowfall by about 12 cm while mean temperatures have risen by 0.25 to 1 °C; the same compilation gives a retreat of 178 m a year for the Parbati glacier between 1962 and 2000.[19]

The relation between rainfall and resin was already an administrative commonplace in the 1890s. Alexander Anderson, formerly Assistant Commissioner of Kulu, wrote in his answers to the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission that the plant grew well "say, 5,000 to 6,000 feet above sea level" and that "rain is bad for it, at least so far as charas is concerned".[20] The 1917 gazetteer, writing of the slopes on both sides of the Jalori ridge, which divides Inner from Outer Saraj south of the main valley, describes "the excessive rainfall which is fatal to the charas excretion of the plant" as "favourable to the development of the excellent fibre".[10]

History

Hemp as a fibre crop

The settlement and gazetteer literature of the Punjab treated hemp in Kullu as a fibre crop. J. B. Lyall's settlement report of 1874 records that "the bhang or hemp is grown for the fibre, which is made into ropes, sandals, &c., &c."[3] The gazetteer of 1897 states that there was "no tax on the cultivation of hemp within the sub-division, as it is grown exclusively for the sake of the fibre", while imported charas moved under permit for transport to Amritsar or Hoshiarpur.[6] Its table of crop values put hemp at Rs. 8 an acre against Rs. 16 for tobacco and Rs. 40 for fruit, the fibre going into rope, grass shoes (pula), bags and nets.[6] A. H. Diack's settlement report of 1898 places the crop in the high zone of cultivation: "Above an elevation of 7,000 feet sarara and buckwheat (kathu) are almost the only crops in the kharif, except that small patches near villages are cultivated with hemp."[21]

The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of 1893–94 recorded the same pattern. Its report states that the Himalayan crop of the Punjab "is grown principally for fibre and in small scattered patches, so that its area cannot be estimated", that Anderson had "ascertained in 1880 that the area in Kulu and Plach was then about 200 acres", and that in Kulu "charas is not looked upon as a regular bye-produce of hemp cultivation" as it was in Garhwal.[22] Anderson's report of 1880, printed with his evidence, puts the area under hemp cultivation at "72 acres, viz., 33 acres in Kulu, and 39 acres in Plach" and the spontaneous growth at 204 acres, 94 in the Kulu tahsil and 110 in Plach, close to the Commission's "about 200 acres".[20]: 379 In his answers to the Commission he described a plant that "grows abundantly in the Kulu sub-division of the Kangra district, and spontaneously", with "a patch near every house almost, which might almost be considered as cultivated".[20]: 377 His report of 1880 records resin rubbed by hand from the leaves of the local plant, but on a small scale: "a man can make in one day from Kulu bhang only enough for two smokes".[20]: 379 The Commission's account of the older method for "Kulu and the Hill States" has the flower heads rubbed between the hands and the resin scraped from the palms or from the feet where the plants had been trodden.[23] A second witness, the missionary M. M. Carleton, wrote that wild hemp grew abundantly where he lived but that "all the use made of it is from the bark to make ropes for home or domestic use".[20]

The charas trade through Kullu

In the 19th century the valley was the main route by which Central Asian charas reached the Punjab, a ranking the sources themselves supply. R. H. Davies's report of 1862 on the trade of the north-western frontier states that the Ladakh trade "passes almost entirely by Kulu and Rampur to Leh, and from Leh to Yarkund", and that where the Kullu route had ranked last under Sikh rule, "now the order of their prosperity is inverted, Kulu drawing by far the largest portion", a change he attributed to the route lying within British territory.[7] His route table runs from Mandi by way of Bajaura, Sultanpur, Nagar and Jagatsukh over the Hamta Pass into Lahaul. His budget for 1862–63 lists Rs. 10,000 for "Road from Sultanpoor to Rohtang pass".[7]

The Commission put the trade in figures. Against about 500 maunds a year by the Kashmir route, "six or seven times as much is imported direct through Kulu to Hoshiarpur": 2,201 maunds in 1890–91, 3,242 in 1891–92 and 3,932 in 1892–93.[24] Anderson's report of 1880 states that the general contractor for the sale of intoxicating drugs "purchases from the Ladakh dealers who annually come to Sultanpur", while bhang "is not sold at all" in Kulu and "can be got from the jungle".[20]: 379 By 1916–17 the trade ran through a warehouse at Kullu from which the drug was "transported in bond" to Hoshiarpur. The gazetteer records that "much charas comes down from Leh to Hoshiarpur via Kulu in the autumn", imported in the names of six Hoshiarpur licensees in "hard bolster-like packages, covered with goat or sheep-skins"; 1,204¾ maunds arrived that year against an opening stock of 426 and duty stood at "Rs. 14 per seer". The caravans were "sometimes very large, as much as a lakh and a half worth of property in charas, silks, etc., coming down in one party".[10] The same volume lists three licensed charas shops in the sub-division, a charas revenue of Rs. 1,306 for 1915–16, and, of the Dussehra fair at Sultanpur, notes that when the fair fell late "an additional interest is lent to it by the presence of picturesquely clad Yarkandis and Ladakis who have just finished their long journey from Central Asia with ponies and charas, silks and carpets for sale in the plains".[10]

William Moorcroft noted the drug in the valley in August 1820. Having "remained some days at Kulu to collect grain and porters", he wrote that "a narcotic preparation of the juice of hemp is also used, but it is said that few are guilty of excess".[25] Local consumption in the Commission's evidence concerns the seed rather than the resin. Anderson reported that "the only part of the cultivated plant used in Kulu as a drug is the seed called bhangolu", parched and mixed with parched grain; it was "found in largest quantity in Rupi and Seoraj, and in Kulu principally in the Kothis on the Sarvari, where also the hemp plant grows wild".[20] An infusion of hemp leaves, violets and sugar taken at fairs was reported for Waziri Rupi on the Parvati side.[6] A witness who had lived two years in Kulu had seen the plant "growing very abundantly" and "very dense tracts of it near the river Bias".[20]

Revenue divisions and capitals

Lyall wrote that Kulu contains "three great divisions, viz. Waziri Parol, Lag, and Rupi", and defined Waziri Parol as "all the upper valley of the Beas river down to the junction of the Phojal river on the right bank, and that of the Parbatti on the left".[3] Waziri Rupi was the Parvati valley and its side glens.[6] The district census handbook gives the succession of capitals as Jagatsukh, then Naggar, "the seat of the Government for as many as 1,400 years", then Kullu; the district administration's account has the move to Nagar under Raja Visudh Pal and the move to Sultanpur under Raja Jagat Singh (1637–1672), who also "incorporated Lag into the kingdom of Kullu".[13][14] The 1917 gazetteer describes Sultanpur and "the bazar of Bhuntar" as the sub-division's two market centres, each managed by a committee that collected weighment dues. It lists Bhuntar and Katrain among the branch post offices.[10] Opium, it records, was grown in all kothis "except those at the head of the Beas, Sarvari and Parbati valleys".[10]

Botanical collections

Walter Norman Koelz reached Naggar on 28 May 1930 to head the botanical section of the Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute, the institute that Nicholas Roerich directed there.[26][27] An inventory of the United States Department of Agriculture records seed from Nagar received from him in March 1931.[28] His cannabis sheets were gathered elsewhere: at Sisu in Lahaul in July 1930, at Keshapur in the Punjab in March 1931 and at Baijnath in Kangra in 1933.[29][30][31] One of the Keshapur labels records the plant's name as bang in the Kulu dialect.[30] George Watt's one gathering in the district, Watt 9644, was made on 1 October 1888 on the descent from Bathad to Manglaur on the Tirthan side, outside the main valley; its label notes that in that locality "only the female plants are allowed to grow".[32]

Vouchered material from the valley enters the modern record through two routes. Seven herbarium sheets at the Institut Botànic de Barcelona, grown in a growth chamber from seed "collected October 2015" at a locality given as "Manali/Kullu", carry the population label "India Kullu".[33] A 2025 phylogenomic study of cannabis included one wild-growing individual from Himachal Pradesh, its sample 055, georeferenced to the same point.[34][35] A specimen collected at "Manali, H.P." on 13 August 2018 was sequenced for the ITS2 barcode region and deposited in the European Nucleotide Archive as voucher 23967.[36]

Demography

At the 2011 Census, Kullu district had a population of 437,903 in an area of 5,503 km², a density of 80 persons per km² and a sex ratio of 942 females per 1,000 males; 9.45 per cent of the population was urban, 79.40 per cent literate, 28.01 per cent Scheduled Caste and 3.84 per cent Scheduled Tribe.[13] The Naggar community development block, which contains the three accession villages, had 22,630 households and a population of 101,550 in 202.48 km², all of it rural, of whom 22,371 were Scheduled Caste, 8,764 Scheduled Tribe and 71,351 literate.[13] An ethnobotanical survey of the Kullu, Manali and Bhuntar tehsils gives their 2011 populations as 206,716, 51,661 and 4,475.[37] Two such surveys record that the people of the valley speak Hindi and the local Kullvi dialect.[37][38]

Culture

The colonial record places the charas trade in public view at the Dussehra fair at Sultanpur, where Yarkandi and Ladakhi traders arrived "with ponies and charas" in a late season.[10] The district administration describes Kullu Dussehra as differing from the festival elsewhere in presenting "cultural ethos of the people and their deep rooted religious beliefs" through the assembly of village deities.[39] Modern anthropology treats the assembly as a royal ritual and political institution.[40][verification needed] A 2019 tourism study based on fieldwork at Malana reported that local peddlers used the festival's crowds as cover for selling drugs to visitors. The same study added that "the whole adjacent locations like Kasol, Kullu, Manali" had come to promote other drugs too.[41] The district administration's history records the legend by which Jamlu, the deity of Malana, crossing the Chandrakhani Pass with a basket of gods, scattered them across the valley, an origin story for the valley's deity cult; the pass is the one that the trail from Naggar and Rumsu crosses to Malana.[14][5]

A survey of plants used in magico-religious practice in the Kullu, Manali and Bhuntar tehsils in 2021–22 recorded Cannabis sativa under the local names bhang and bhong (voucher EBH-1834) as an abundant herb whose leaves "are offered to Lord Shiva" and whose "seeds and leaves are used for making a drink called 'Ghota' and is offered to Lord Shiva during Shivratri".[37] Seven of its 25 informants cited the plant, and its cultural importance index of 0.48 placed it 15th among the 36 species the survey ranked.[37] An earlier survey in the Manikaran valley, on the Parvati side, recorded the same ghota offering at Shivratri and the daily offering of leaves to Shiva.[38] In the Parvati valley the village deity of one settlement banned intoxicants "including alcohol, but not cannabis" within the village boundary, an instance of the deity institution ruling on the plant.[42]

The hemp-fibre crafts of the district are documented for the Manikaran valley, where the survey describes stems dew-retted for a month, retted again in an irrigation channel and stripped by hand for fibre (shel) that is worked into pullan footwear, rope and mats. The same survey records hemp seed (mangolu) roasted and ground into a condiment used in siddu and in the winter dish aaksalu. It also records hemp leaves wrapping the dhehli starter used to ferment the local drink sur.[38] A 2004 study of the state's fermented foods lists Cannabis sativa (bhang) among the herbs of the dhehli added to sura in the Lug valley of Kullu district.[43] Hemp-fibre grass shoes appear in the 1897 gazetteer's account of the crop for the sub-division as a whole.[6] A survey of fibre plants carried out from 2010 to 2012 in localities the authors frame as outer Seraj, though the list includes Katrain and Rumsu, found Cannabis sativa "used by 92.19 % people", its retted stems worked into rope and the shoes "locally called 'Pula'"; the paper gives no breakdown by locality.[44]

Traditional cultivation

The collection documentation for the Chanderkhani side describes a "mid-altitude belt above the Beas, with rotational field systems and long-established household seedlines".[45] The accession pages record the general populations and village selections of Rumsu, Pulag and Hallan as semi-feral and intercropped, the upper-field selections of Rumsu and Pulag as rotating mono-crops, with separate feral populations at Rumsu and Pulag; they give seed as saved on the farm and sown by broadcasting, culling as partial in the cultivated populations and absent in the feral stands, plants of 1.5 to 3 m with dark green and purple foliage flowering over 16 to 20 weeks, and the local name as gāñjā (गाँजा). The collection documentation describes the general populations as "collected from plants throughout the valley by locals making charas" and classifies the population as a narrow-leafed drug-type landrace with a height range of 1.5 to 7 m.[5]

Planting season

The accession pages give sowing from March to May; the product page gives "Regional Planting: Spring".[5]

Harvest

The accession pages give a harvest window from September to December, the product page "October to November"; the seed collected in 2022 came from that year's harvest.[5] The diary of the September 2022 visit records the Rumsu upper fields and "Female and Male type specimens" of a feral stand at the beginning of that month.[17][46]

Processing

The product of all three villages is hand-rubbed charas.[5] The method the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission described for "Kulu and the Hill States" in 1894, rubbing the flower heads between the hands and scraping the resin from the palms, is the same in kind.[23] Enforcement reporting names the resin of the district's producing areas, Banjar, Kullu, Manali, Anni and Nirmand among them, as sold under the trade name "Malana cream".[47]

Appellations

AppellationStatus
Chanderkhani Valley (appellation)

The accessions from Rumsu, Pulag and Hallan all record the appellation Chanderkhani Valley.

Accessions

Accession IDNameLocalityElevationPriorityCollected
ZOM-IND-HIM-0920220001Rumsu General Population 2022Rumsu2,050 mMedium
ZOM-IND-HIM-0920220002Rumsu 'Village' Selection 2022Rumsu2,050 mMedium
ZOM-IND-HIM-0920220003Rumsu 'Upper' Selection 2022Rumsu2,250 mMedium
ZOM-IND-HIM-0920220004Rumsu Feral Selection 2022Rumsu2,050 mLow
ZOM-IND-HIM-0920220005Pulag General Population 2022Pulag2,200 mMedium
ZOM-IND-HIM-0920220006Pulag 'Village' Selection 2022Pulag2,200 mMedium
ZOM-IND-HIM-0920220007Pulag 'Upper' Selection 2022Pulag2,400 mMedium
ZOM-IND-HIM-0920220008Pulag Feral Selection 2022Pulag2,200 mLow
ZOM-IND-HIM-0920220009Hallan General Population 2022Hallan2,275 mMedium
ZOM-IND-HIM-0920220010Hallan 'Village' Selection 2022Hallan2,275 mMedium

By conservation priority

Priority Count
Critical 0
High 0
Medium 8
Low 2

Other accessions from Kullu district

Four further accessions from the district are held outside the three valley pages. COC-IND-HIM-0100000003, a Coco Genes population sold under the name "Kullu Valley", is placed by its reseller in villages "east of the town of Kullu" with no village, coordinate or date given; nothing shows it to be the same population as the Chanderkhani accessions.[48] Watt 9644 is the herbarium sheet from the Tirthan side described above. Two more Coco Genes lines come from the district's other growing areas. COC-IND-HIM-0120210004 is from Nadar, in Pekhri in the Tirthan Valley growing area.[49] COC-IND-HIM-0120210003 is from Mahoot, a village near the Jalori Pass in the Jalori growing area.[50]

Enforcement

Cannabis in the valley falls under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, which controls charas and ganja and leaves bhang to state regulation. The Act came into force on 14 November 1985.[51][42] Tribhuvan's fieldwork records the office of the Superintendent of Police at Kullu reporting "around 510 cases (out of which 143 were local residents)" registered under the Act in the district in 2012.[42] District police data reported in 2018 counted 164 foreign nationals arrested with drugs of all kinds since 2003.[52]

Kullu Police's annual report for 2011 records cannabis destroyed on "more than 6700 bighas" with "around 100 cases", described as "the highest figure achieved by Kullu Police till date", with funds drawn from the rural employment guarantee scheme and awareness camps held in six gram panchayats, among them Garsa.[53] Destruction covered 2,700 bigha in 2018 and 6,175 bigha in 2019, when the district's Superintendent of Police located organised cultivation in the Parvati and Manikaran valleys and reported hybrid plants grown on forest land for the market.[54] State police put 95 per cent of the state's cannabis that year on high-altitude forest land in Kullu, Mandi, Shimla, Sirmaur and Chamba districts and announced drone surveillance.[55] In January 2021 the Director General of Police announced a 20-hour operation "in the interiors of the Kullu Valley" that seized 122 kg of charas and 295 kg of ganja. He said that police records showed "50,000 acres of land under cannabis cultivation in the Kullu Valley alone".[8] Charas seizures in the district rose from 169.7 kg in 2020 to 263.4 kg by November 2021, with 277 arrests and 110,872 plants destroyed.[47] On 29 April 2022 the police destroyed 160 kg of charas from 43 cases, 37 of them from Banjar, five from Anni and one from Manali; the same report recalled an earlier Kullu seizure of 123.5 kg from the Banjar area as the state's biggest haul.[56]

In September 2022 a Central Bureau of Narcotics operation, which The Tribune reported as lasting two weeks, destroyed cannabis on 12,900 bigha (1,032 ha) of forest land across the district.[57] Hindi-language coverage, which gives 13,000 bigha over about three weeks, listed some 16 localities, among them Rumsu and a Halan that may be either of the two villages of that name.[58] A police operation in October 2023 reported 34 arrests and some 283,000 plants found on 235 bigha of forest land at places in the Parvati valley, among them Rajag Thach near Grahan; the Forest Department was asked to destroy them.[59] For 2024 two reports published on 6 January 2025 give different district totals: 73 kg of charas seized, 231 arrests and more than 2.6 million plants destroyed in one, 62.92 kg seized and 215 arrests in the other.[60][61]

Regulated cultivation

On 6 September 2024 the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly adopted a resolution accepting a committee report that recommended controlled cultivation for non-narcotic, industrial and medicinal use.[62] The committee, chaired by Revenue Minister Jagat Singh Negi, had met representatives of the panchayati raj institutions in six districts including Kullu. Its report, as the press summarised it, singled out "the Kullu-Manali valley" as having "gained notoriety for the cultivation and trafficking of cannabis".[63] The pilot study approved by the state cabinet in January 2025 was assigned to universities in Kangra and Solan districts, not to Kullu.[64] In June 2026 the cabinet approved amendments to the state's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Rules, 1989 establishing a licensing framework.[65] The amended rules were notified in July. Reporting on the notification names Kullu among the districts in which licensed cultivation "can boost the rural economy" and records that people in Kullu and Mandi "have been traditionally harvesting the crop for use of its fibre and dry leaves domestically"; it notes that the government "has still to identify the permitted areas".[9] A second amendment in August 2026 reduced the cultivation licence fee from ₹3 lakh to ₹1 lakh per bigha and set a minimum contiguous plot of five bigha.[66]

Conservation status

Conservation status: Unknown. No formal assessment of the valley's populations has been made. The accession pages assign medium conservation priority to the cultivated populations and selections of the three villages and low priority to the two feral selections, record the cultivation status as active and name "active eradication campaigns" as the enforcement threat; seed from each accession is held in the Zomia Genetic Library, and the collection documentation offers seed "sourced directly from the 2022 harvest".[5] The Zomia Collective's status index tags the three villages as under ongoing eradication and the status of Hallan's upper fields as unknown.[45] Rumsu was among the localities named in the Central Bureau of Narcotics operation of September 2022.[58] Seed of a population labelled "India Kullu", collected in October 2015, is held ex situ at the Institut Botànic de Barcelona.[33]

Recent news

ArticleDateCategory
News:2026-09-27/Eradication/joint-teams-destroy-cannabis-on-about-25-hectares-at-tosh-and-malana-in-the-kasol-forest-rangeEradication
News:2026-09-25/Eradication/ncb-led-joint-teams-begin-a-month-long-drive-to-destroy-illicit-cannabis-in-kullu-districtEradication
News:2025-01-06/Report/etv-bharat-and-the-tribune-report-different-2024-charas-seizure-totals-for-kullu-districtReport
News:2023-10-11/Enforcement/police-arrest-34-and-find-2-83-lakh-cannabis-plants-on-forest-land-in-the-manikaran-valleyEnforcement
News:2022-09-20/Eradication/central-bureau-of-narcotics-destroys-cannabis-on-12-900-bighas-of-forest-land-in-kullu-districtEradication
News:2022-04-29/Enforcement/police-destroy-160-kg-of-seized-charas-and-120-cannabis-plants-from-43-cases-in-kulluEnforcement
News:2021-11-16/Report/kullu-police-report-263-4-kg-of-charas-seized-and-110-872-cannabis-plants-destroyed-so-far-in-2021Report
News:2021-01-14/Enforcement/himachal-pradesh-police-report-seizing-122-kg-of-charas-and-295-kg-of-ganja-in-a-kullu-valley-operationEnforcement
News:2019-09-23/Report/kullu-police-report-cannabis-destroyed-on-6-175-bighas-in-2019-against-2-700-bighas-in-2018Report
News:2018-07-26/Report/kullu-district-police-data-record-164-foreign-nationals-arrested-with-drugs-since-2003Report
News:2012-01-07/Report/kullu-police-annual-report-for-2011-records-cannabis-destroyed-on-more-than-6-700-bighasReport

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Prasad, Abhay S.; Pandey, Bindhy W.; Leimgruber, Walter; Kunwar, Ripu M. (2016). "Mountain hazard susceptibility and livelihood security in the upper catchment area of the river Beas, Kullu Valley, Himachal Pradesh, India". Geoenvironmental Disasters. 3 (1): 3. doi:10.1186/s40677-016-0037-x.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 District Disaster Management Plan, Kullu (PDF) (Report). District Disaster Management Authority, Kullu. 2017.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Lyall, J. B. (1874). Report of the Land Revenue Settlement of the Kangra District, Panjab, 1865–72. Lahore: Central Jail Press – via Internet Archive.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Éloïse (4 September 2022). "Naggar-Rumsu". Zomia Collective. Retrieved 27 September 2026.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 "Chanderkhani Valley". Zomia Collective. Retrieved 27 September 2026.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 Diack, A.H. (1899). Gazetteer of the Kangra District, Parts II to IV: Kulu, Lahul and Spiti, 1897. Lahore: Punjab Government – via Internet Archive.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Davies, R. H. (1862). Report on the Trade and Resources of the Countries on the North-Western Boundary of British India. Lahore: Government Press – via Internet Archive.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Huge cache of cannabis worth Rs 4 cr seized in Kullu Valley". Daijiworld. Daijiworld Media Network. IANS. 14 January 2021.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Sharma, Ashwani (27 August 2026). "InDepth: Implications of Himachal Pradesh legalising the controlled cultivation of cannabis". Outlook India.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 Punjab District Gazetteers, Vol. XXX-A: Kangra District, Parts II–IV (Kulu, Lahul and Spiti). Lahore: Government of Punjab. 1918 – via Internet Archive.
  11. ↑ District Profile: Kullu (PDF) (Report). District Disaster Management Authority, Kullu. 2018.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Jangra, Suman; Singh, Mohan (2011). "Analysis of rainfall and temperatures for climatic trend in Kullu valley". MAUSAM. 62 (1): 77–84. doi:10.54302/mausam.v62i1.207.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 Directorate of Census Operations, Himachal Pradesh (2014). District Census Handbook, Kullu: Village and Town Wise Primary Census Abstract (Report). Census of India 2011, Himachal Pradesh, Series 03, Part XII-B. Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 "History". District Kullu. Government of Himachal Pradesh. Retrieved 27 September 2026.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Administrative Setup". District Kullu. Government of Himachal Pradesh. Retrieved 27 September 2026.
  16. ↑ Directorate of Census Operations, Himachal Pradesh. Himachal Pradesh - Village Amenities (Spreadsheet (DH_2011_DCHB_Village_Release_0200.xlsx)). Census of India 2011, District Census Handbook, Kullu. Retrieved 27 September 2026.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Éloïse (6 September 2022). "Rumsu Domesticate Landrace - Upper Field #1 (2350m)". Zomia Collective. Retrieved 27 September 2026.
  18. ↑ Éloïse (6 September 2022). "Rumsu Domesticate Landrace - Upper Field #2 (2400m)". Zomia Collective. Retrieved 27 September 2026.
  19. ↑ Hazard Profile of District Kullu (PDF) (Report). District Disaster Management Authority, Kullu. 2018.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 20.5 20.6 20.7 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94, Vol. V: Evidence of witnesses from North-Western Provinces and Oudh and Punjab. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Punjab witness no. 10, Mr. Alexander Anderson, pp. 377–380 – via Internet Archive.
  21. ↑ Diack, A. H. (1898). Final Report on the Revised Settlement of the Kulu Sub-division of the Kangra District – via Internet Archive.
  22. ↑ 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. 111 and 114, pp. 42–43 – via Internet Archive.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. VI, "Preparation of the raw drugs from the cultivated and wild plant", paras. 238–245, pp. 93–95 – via Internet Archive.
  24. ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94, Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. VII, pp. 113–114 – via Internet Archive.
  25. ↑ Moorcroft, William; Trebeck, George (1841). Wilson, H. H. (ed.). Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and the Panjab. Vol. I. London: John Murray – via Internet Archive.
  26. ↑ "Annual report of the Himalayan Research Institute, 1929–1930" (PDF). Journal of Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute. 1 (1). New York: Roerich Museum Press: 74–76. July 1931 – via Nicholas Roerich Museum.
  27. ↑ Bartlett, H. H. (Spring 1957). "Foreword". Persian diary. I. The Asa Gray Bulletin. New series. 3 (2): 133–135 – via Internet Archive.
  28. ↑ Division of Foreign Plant Introduction (November 1932). Plant material introduced by the Division of Foreign Plant Introduction, Bureau of Plant Industry, January 1 to March 31, 1931 (Nos. 90837–92336). Inventory No. 106. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Agriculture. p. 50 – via Internet Archive.
  29. ↑ "Digitised sheet 1414432: Koelz 692". Virtual Herbarium image service. New York Botanical Garden. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 "Digitised sheet 1414431: Koelz 1665". Virtual Herbarium image service. New York Botanical Garden. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
  31. ↑ "Digitised sheet 1414434: Koelz 4612". Virtual Herbarium image service. New York Botanical Garden. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
  32. ↑ "Digitised sheet E00248828: Cannabis sativa L." RBGE IIIF image service. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 "Occurrence 5797296600: Cannabis sativa L. (BC-997785, "India Kullu")". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 27 September 2026.
  34. ↑ Balant, Manica; Vitales, Daniel; Wang, Zhiqiang; et al. (2025). "Integrating target capture with whole genome sequencing of recent and natural history collections to explain the phylogeography of wild-growing and cultivated cannabis". Plants, People, Planet. 7 (6): 1771–1788. doi:10.1002/ppp3.70043.
  35. ↑ "BioSample SAMN43827903: Plant sample from Cannabis sativa (sample 055)". BioSample. National Center for Biotechnology Information. Retrieved 27 September 2026.
  36. ↑ "Occurrence 3818467921: Cannabis sativa L. (voucher 23967, Manali)". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 27 September 2026.
  37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 37.2 37.3 Thakur, Smriti; Jamwal, Radhika; Negi, Subodh (2023). "Ethnobotanical survey of plants used in magico-religious practices in Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh, India". Ethnobotany Research and Applications. 25: 1–18. doi:10.32859/era.25.39.1-18.
  38. ↑ 38.0 38.1 38.2 Rathore, S.; Shashni, S.; Samant, S.S.; Sundriyal, R.C. (2018). "Indigenous uses of wild hemp (Cannabis sativa) by the local inhabitants in Manikaran Valley of Himachal Pradesh, North Western Himalaya". Journal of Non-Timber Forest Products. 25 (3): 127–130. doi:10.54207/bsmps2000-2018-7393KF.
  39. ↑ "Fairs & Festivals". District Kullu. Government of Himachal Pradesh. Retrieved 27 September 2026.
  40. ↑ Berti, Daniela (2011). "Political patronage and ritual competitions at Dussehra festival in northern India". In Brosius, Christiane; Polit, Karin M. (eds.). Ritual, Heritage and Identity: The Politics of Culture and Performance in a Globalised World. New Delhi: Routledge. pp. 126–148. ISBN 978-0-415-67796-7.
  41. ↑ Junaid KC; Mohamed Riyas Kozhikkattil; Divya N V (2019). "Drug tourism in India: trends and challenges". International Journal of Technical Research & Science. 4 (2): 30–34. doi:10.30780/ijtrs.v04.i02.004.
  42. ↑ 42.0 42.1 42.2 Tribhuvan, Prasenjeet (2018). "Cannabis and Social Change in the Indian Himalayas". Journal of Ethnobiology. 38 (4): 504–516. doi:10.2993/0278-0771-38.4.504.
  43. ↑ Thakur, Navdeep; Savitri; Bhalla, Tek Chand (July 2004). "Characterization of some traditional fermented foods and beverages of Himachal Pradesh". Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge. 3 (3): 325–335.
  44. ↑ Bhardwaj, Arvind; Rani, Savita; Rana, J.C. (June 2014). "Traditionally used common fibre plants in outer siraj area, Himachal Pradesh". Indian Journal of Natural Products and Resources. 5 (2): 190–194.
  45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 "Growing Regions". Zomia Collective. Retrieved 27 September 2026.
  46. ↑ Éloïse (5 September 2022). "Rumsu Feral Landrace". Zomia Collective. Retrieved 27 September 2026.
  47. ↑ 47.0 47.1 Manta, Dipender (16 November 2021). "Despite vigil, cannabis cultivation goes on in Kullu". The Tribune. Tribune News Service.
  48. ↑ "The Diverse Indian Landraces". Khalifa Genetics. Retrieved 18 September 2026.
  49. ↑ "Nadar | Pekhri village : Rob stone collection". Collector's Collective. Archived from the original on 27 June 2022. Retrieved 18 September 2026.
  50. ↑ "Mahoot Village : Robstoned Collection". Collector's Collective. Archived from the original on 27 June 2022. Retrieved 18 September 2026.
  51. ↑ The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985(Act No. 61 of 1985), 1985, sections 2(iii) and 8.India.
  52. ↑ Manta, Dipender (26 July 2018). "Kullu drug haven for foreigners". The Tribune. Tribune News Service.
  53. ↑ "Kullu Police Annual Report 2011". Kullu Police. 7 January 2012. Retrieved 27 September 2026.
  54. ↑ Manta, Dipender (23 September 2019). "Cannabis cultivation on in Kullu, Mandi". The Tribune. Tribune News Service.
  55. ↑ Lohumi, Bhanu P (24 September 2019). "Drones to spot cannabis crop in Himachal". The Tribune. Tribune News Service.
  56. ↑ "Charas destroyed in Kullu". The Tribune. 30 April 2022.
  57. ↑ "Cannabis plants destroyed on 12,900-bigha forestland in Kullu". The Tribune. Tribune News Service. 21 September 2022.
  58. ↑ 58.0 58.1 Central Bureau of Narcotics की बड़ी कार्रवाई, 13 हजार बीघा भूमि से नष्ट की चरस की खेती [Major Central Bureau of Narcotics operation: charas cultivation destroyed on 13,000 bigha of land]. ETV Bharat (in हिन्दी). 20 September 2022.
  59. ↑ "Crackdown on cannabis mafia in Kullu, 34 arrested". The Tribune. 13 October 2023.
  60. ↑ कुल्लू में चरस मामलों में आई कमी, एक्साइज के बढ़े मामले, तस्करों के निशाने पर नेपाली मूल के लोग [Charas cases fall in Kullu, excise cases rise, people of Nepali origin in the smugglers' sights]. ETV Bharat (in हिन्दी). 6 January 2025.
  61. ↑ Manta, Dipender (6 January 2025). "Illegal cannabis trade sparks concerns in Mandi, Kullu". The Tribune.
  62. ↑ "Himachal assembly passes resolution for legal cannabis cultivation". DD News. 6 September 2024.
  63. ↑ Chauhan, Pratibha (9 September 2024). "Himachal Calling: Panel on controlled cultivation of cannabis submits report in Assembly". The Tribune.
  64. ↑ Bhagirath (28 January 2025). "Himachal Pradesh launches pilot project for cannabis farming to capitalise its medicinal and industrial value". Down to Earth.
  65. ↑ Sourav, Saket (20 June 2026). "Himachal Pradesh approves regulated cannabis cultivation for medical use". LawStreet Journal.
  66. ↑ Bhandari, Rahul (25 August 2026). "Himachal Eases Cannabis Rules, Reduces Cultivation and Processing Licence Fees". The News Himachal.
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