Talk:Deccan

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Page scope

Deccan treats the cannabis growing region of the Bombay Deccan: the hemp cultivation of the Deccan, or Central Division, of the Bombay Presidency and its neighbouring states in the 1890s, the licensed cultivation of 1901–1940, and the fields reported in Dhule and Nandurbar districts since 2025. Its growing areas are Ahmednagar (historical) and Satara (no longer grown). The wider plateau, which reaches far beyond Maharashtra, is a separate subject: Deccan Plateau. The districts as administrative units are treated at their own pages, such as Ahilyanagar District and Sangli District.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Why the region is mapped

The Commission's Deccan. The Hemp Drugs Commission's report (Vol. I, para. 126) says that, apart from about twelve acres of bhang in Surat and Broach, the Bombay Presidency's whole cultivation was "practically confined to the Deccan or Central Division"; para. 196 repeats that it was almost wholly confined to the Central Division and a few native states in the Deccan and the Southern Maratha Country, grown by one method throughout. T. D. Mackenzie's memorandum (Vol. III, p. 89) names the six districts "in the Deccan" where hemp was grown: Khandesh, Ahmednagar, Satara, Poona, Nasik and Sholapur.
The two growing areas. Ahmednagar and Satara were the two principal districts (Vol. I, para. 125), and the Bombay Act V of 1901 confined licensed cultivation to them. Their own pages give the evidence for each tract.
Since 2000. The Free Press Journal reports cannabis fields destroyed in Dhule District (Khamkheda Ambe and Rohini, April 2025; near Jamniapani, Shirpur, October 2026), and United News of India reports fields in Nandurbar District (Ghatli, Dhadgaon taluka, September 2026; Modarapada Hunakhamb, Akkalkuwa taluka, October 2026). These places were in the old Khandesh district.
None of these sources calls the Deccan a cannabis region in so many words, and none links the recent fields in the north to the 1890s cultivation, which was centred in the south. The region is the frame the Commission itself used for the presidency's cultivation, and it holds both.

Growing status

The status is Active: cultivation in the region is reported in 2025 and 2026. The 1890s tracts are separate growing areas with their own status: Ahmednagar is historical (licensed cultivation to at least 1939–40) and Satara is no longer grown (abolished after 1916–17).

How the border is drawn

The border is the union of nine districts in OpenStreetMap: Nandurbar (administrative relation 1985899), Dhule (1985898), Jalgaon (1991609), Nashik (1985907), Ahilyanagar (1986123), Pune (1986140), Solapur (1997168), Satara (1986143) and Sangli (1997159), simplified, about 107,000 km². These are the present districts that hold Mackenzie's six Deccan districts: Khandesh is now Nandurbar, Dhule and Jalgaon; Nasik, Ahmednagar, Poona and Sholapur are now Nashik, Ahilyanagar, Pune and Solapur; and the old Satara district is now Satara and Sangli, its Khanapur, Tasgaon and Walwa talukas having gone to Sangli after 1948 (Maharashtra State Gazetteer, Satara District, 1963, p. 546). Sangli District also holds lands of the Sangli and Jath states, which grew the crop in the 1890s (Vol. VII, witnesses 46 and the Jath administrator).
The sources do not map the 1890s district boundaries onto the present ones; the present districts are the nearest units.
Bijapur, which Mackenzie places in the Southern Maratha Country, and the Jamkhandi State are left out: both are now in Karnataka, and Mackenzie places Bijapur in the Southern Maratha Country, not the Deccan. Broach and Surat (Gujarat) and the Konkan districts are left out, as the sources set them apart from the Deccan.
The districts of the Marathwada plateau to the east (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Beed and others) were in Hyderabad State, not the Bombay Presidency, and lie outside the border.
The region holds no ground above 4,000 m, desert or large lake, so the outer edge is not cut back. Reservoirs on rivers stay inside.
On the north the border meets Nimar along the Maharashtra–Madhya Pradesh state line, and the two share that line. The growing areas Ahmednagar and Satara lie inside it, and where an area's edge runs along the region's, the two share one line.
The map point (19.21, 74.63) is the centre of the nine districts, in Ahilyanagar District; the border is not drawn from it or from any news point.

Sources

Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894. Vol. I (paras. 125–127, 196), Vol. III (Mackenzie's memorandum, p. 89) and Vol. VII (witnesses 46, Sangli; 55, Satara; and the Jath State's administrator). The figures for the smaller districts in Mackenzie's table and in Vol. I, para. 125, are hard to make out in the scanned copy.
Bombay excise reports for 1903–04, 1916–17 and 1939–40.
Free Press Journal; United News of India. The reports give official figures; plant counts, weights and areas are the agencies'.

Where the sources disagree

Lengre or Lengri. The excise reports write Lengre; J. E. Down's evidence to the Commission writes Lengri. The village is Lengare today.