Ladakh
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| Ladakh | |
|---|---|
| Union territory | |
| General | |
| Coordinates | 34.16°N 77.58°E |
| Country | India |
| Formed | 31 October 2019(Formerly part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir) |
| Administration | |
| Districts | 0(Seven since April 2026: Leh, Kargil, Sham, Nubra, Changthang, Zanskar and Drass) |
| Cannabis documentation | |
| Growing regions | 1 |
| Growing areas | 0 |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Eradication campaigns | 0 |
| News items | 0 |
| Research items | 0 |
"Union territory" is not in the list (State, Province, Regency, District, Division, Zila, Autonomous region, Prefecture-level city) of allowed values for the "Has subdivision type" property.
Ladakh is a union territory administered by India, on the upper Indus in the north and east of the Kashmir region. Until 31 October 2019 it formed part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.[1] India and Pakistan have disputed the Kashmir region since the partition of 1947, and China has controlled the north-eastern part of Ladakh since 1962.[2]
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries most of the resin charas that reached British India from Yarkand, in what is now Southern Xinjiang, came by way of Leh.[3]: 48 Yarkandi traders exchanged it there for Indian goods, and from Leh most of it went down through Kulu to the Punjab.[4] The British Joint Commissioner at Leh wrote that in Ladakh charas "of course could not be grown", and that the charas entered under Ladakh's name in the trade returns came from Yarkand.[3]: 48
Geography
Three parallel ranges cross Leh district, the Zanskar, the Ladakh and the Karakoram, with the Shyok, the Indus and the Zanskar rivers running between them; most of the district's people live in the valleys of those rivers.[5] Ladakh is among the highest regions in the world. The east is mostly high plain, and Rupshu, in the south-east, is a tract of large brackish lakes lying at about 4,100 m. The climate is cold and dry, with about 80 mm of precipitation a year; plants grow mainly in the valleys and in sheltered places. Leh lies about 260 km east of Srinagar.[1]
The Karakoram Conference of 1938 drew the southern limit of the Karakoram along the Shyok, and the part of Nubra north and west of that river lies within the Karakoram growing region.[6]
Administrative subdivisions
Ladakh was made up of two districts, Leh and Kargil, until 27 April 2026, when the territory's administration notified five more. Nubra (headquarters Diskit), Sham (Khaltse) and Changthang (Nyoma) were carved out of Leh district, and Zanskar (Padum) and Drass (Drass-Ranbirpura) out of Kargil.[7]
Currently documented on the wiki:
No districts documented yet.
Demographics
The figures published by the district administrations predate the division of 2026. Kargil district counted 140,802 people at the 2011 Census, with Muslims the largest community, followed by Buddhists.[8] Leh district had 133,487 people.[9] At the 2001 Census 77.30 per cent of Leh's people were Buddhist, 13.78 per cent Muslim and 8.16 per cent Hindu.[10]
Agriculture
In central Ladakh crops are raised in valley villages lying between about 2,750 and 4,550 m, on irrigated and manured fields; the higher valleys, beyond the reach of cultivation, are left to the shepherds and their flocks. The main crops are wheat, barley, millet, buckwheat, peas, beans and turnips; poplars and apricots have been planted round Leh and elsewhere.[1] J. E. T. Aitchison, lately British Commissioner in Ladakh, wrote in 1874 that wheat was "largely cultivated" there, though less widely than barley.[11]: 121
Cannabis in Ladakh
History
In the account of their residence in Ladakh, William Moorcroft and George Trebeck listed the chief imports that reached Leh from Yarkand: felts, sheepskins, shawl wool, tea, silver, Russian leather and broadcloth, and "horses and drugs", most of them bound for the Punjab.[12]: 356–357 The passage does not name the drugs. Aitchison's handbook of the trade products of Leh, published in 1874, called charas "a very large import" into Leh from Yarkand.[11]: 51 The trade through Leh lasted into the 1930s and is described under Trade and commerce below.
Cultivation
For the British officials at Leh, Ladakh was a place the drug passed through. Captain Ramsay, the Joint Commissioner at Leh, wrote that "charas will grow, though not well, in Kashmir", that it was not in fact grown there, "and in Ladakh it of course could not be grown". The charas entered in the trade returns under Kashmir and Ladakh was, on his account, Yarkand charas on its way to the Punjab. The Punjab memorandum laid before the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission quoted his letter.[3]: 48
George Watt, by contrast, wrote that charas came from the cultivated plant in the mountain tracts of Nepal, Kashmir, Ladakh and Afghanistan.[13]: 156 The Commission noted that Punjab Products mentioned bhang and "fibre" sent from Kashmir and Ladakh to the Punjab Exhibition, but judged that they "may very well have been the produce of the wild growth".[14]
Trade and commerce
Leh was where the trade between India and Yarkand met. An assistant commissioner quoted in the Punjab's report on its external land trade for 1891–92 called Leh "the chief emporium" of the trade that the returns headed "Ladakh", which took in the Yarkand merchandise exchanged for Indian goods. Indian merchants of Hoshiarpur, Amritsar and Sultanpur sent piece-goods or tea up in the spring and brought down "Yarkand and Ladakh produce, chiefly charas" in the autumn. Most Yarkandi traders sold their goods at Leh, though some came on to India with charas, carpets and numdahs.[15]
Aitchison counted 9,134 maunds of charas, valued at Rs 4,32,368, imported into Leh from Yarkand over the six years his handbook covered, 1867 to 1872.[11]: 51 Nearly all of it went on to India and a very little to Kashmir. It travelled sewn in coarse cloth under a raw hide, in packages of 60 seers, two to a Yarkand horse-load. On entering British territory every consignment had to be weighed and sealed before a magistrate.[11]: 53 Aitchison urged an import duty heavy enough to end the trade almost entirely.[11]: 54
In a letter printed in the official correspondence of 1881, the British Joint Commissioner of Ladakh wrote that the charas of the Ladakh road was produced in Eastern Turkestan, at Yarkand, Yengi Hissar, Kashgar and Khotan, and that most of it was consigned to Amritsar.[16] In August 1888 Ramsay reported that the Yarkandis brought their charas to Leh and exchanged it with Indian traders for piece-goods, each side overvaluing its own goods, and that "the price fixed for charas at Leh is almost entirely speculative". From Leh it went to the Punjab by two routes. Roughly 500 maunds went by way of Kashmir, and "six or seven times as much" went direct through Kulu to Hoshiarpur: 2,201 maunds in 1890–91, 3,242 in 1891–92 and 3,932 in 1892–93.[4] On the Kashmir road the consignments did not ordinarily change hands or "break bulk".[17] Lachman Das, a merchant who traded to Ladakh, told the Commission that the charas made in Yarkand was "despatched to Ladakh through the carriers", and that some reached the Punjab through Kulu and some through Kashmir and Rawalpindi.[18]
On the Kulu side the Kangra district gazetteer valued the trade with Central Asia "(Ladákh and Yárkand)" at about three lakhs of rupees a year each way, and called charas from Yarkand its most important import. Traders took out transport permits at Sultanpur before going on to Amritsar and Hoshiarpur.[19]: 100 When the Dussehra fair at Sultanpur fell in mid-October rather than late September, Yarkandis and Ladakhis who had just finished their journey from Central Asia reached it "with ponies and charas, silks and carpets for sale in the plains".[19]: 44
The Government of India's annual report for 1923 described charas from Yarkand deposited in a special warehouse at Leh and distributed from there. In 1930, 1,976 maunds were taken into the Punjab from the Leh warehouse, carried under transport-in-bond passes granted by the British Joint Commissioner at Leh. The United Nations Secretariat traced the end of the trade to a decision of the Chinese authorities to stop it, which apparently took place in 1934.[20]
Legal status
Cannabis in Ladakh is governed by the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, whose definition of cannabis covers charas, the resin separated from the plant, and ganja, its flowering or fruiting tops; seeds and leaves are excluded when they are not accompanied by the tops.[21]
Growing Regions
Landrace Cannabis growing regions currently documented on the wiki:
| Region |
|---|
| Karakoram |
Growing Areas
Landrace Cannabis growing areas currently documented on the wiki:
No growing areas documented yet.
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No recent news items.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Ladakh". Encyclopædia Britannica. 19 October 2026. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ "Kashmir". Encyclopædia Britannica. 15 October 2026. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Punjab memorandum". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. pp. 46–48 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 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.
- ↑ District Administration Leh. "About District". District Leh, Union Territory of Ladakh. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Mason, Kenneth, ed. (1938). "Karakoram Conference report". The Himalayan Journal. 10. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ "Historic milestone for Ladakh: Five new districts notified in Ladakh; taking total districts to seven" (PDF) (Press release). Leh: Department of Information and Public Relations, Union Territory of Ladakh. 27 April 2026. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ District Administration Kargil. "Demography". District Kargil, Union Territory of Ladakh. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ District Administration Leh. "District at a Glance". District Leh, Union Territory of Ladakh. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ District Administration Leh. "Demography". District Leh, Union Territory of Ladakh. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 Aitchison, J. E. T. (1874). Hand-book of the Trade Products of Leh, with the Statistics of the Trade, from 1867 to 1872 Inclusive (PDF). Calcutta: Wyman & Co. – via Wikimedia Commons.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Papers Relating to the Consumption of Ganja and Other Drugs in India (Return to an Address of the House of Commons, dated 21 February 1893). London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. 1893 – via Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. V, "Methods of cultivation and matters connected therewith", para. 217, p. 83 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Punjab memorandum". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. p. 56, extract from para. 40 of the Report on the External Land Trade of the Punjab for the year 1891–92 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 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", paras. 293–295, pp. 111–112 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 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. 333, pp. 125–126 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Lachman Das, Merchant, Ladakh". 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. witness no. 86, p. 505 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Diack, A.H. (1899). Gazetteer of the Kangra District, Parts II to IV: Kulu, Lahul and Spiti, 1897. Lahore: Punjab Government – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ United Nations Secretariat (1953). "The surprising extinction of the charas traffic". Bulletin on Narcotics (1). United Nations: 1–7.
- ↑ The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985(Act No. 61 of 1985), 1985, section 2(iii).India.