by Krishnanand
Travelling to the high mountains of Himachal Pradesh and crossing the 32nd parallel, has been a passion since my college days and still continues to be so; but now that it happens to be my area of research, it has further caught my attention on various dimensions of culture, tradition and the attached debate of legality and legitimacy in past few years. The Weed debate has been on my mind for quite some time now, as it has become an integral part of youth popular culture and it has been frequently mentioned formally or informally by many travelers to Kullu valley on various platforms.
As soon as I got an invitation to contribute to Media Lab, I thought about sharing a few things from my experience of travelling to the "land of gods", where with nature embedded in every material and immaterial element, Weed legality has been an attraction and question simultaneously.
Upper reaches of Manali and Malana village, also called as “Valley of Refuge”, has been a sanctuary of occasional use to local criminals and drug dealers. It can be seen through the photographs, how the Malana creme (Hasish) grows and looks when its processed. Natural landscape of Malana is best suited for its growth and its is the integral part of this Malanis milieu.
Malana creme, the brand of dope processed by the villagers is considered to be one of the finest marijuana available anywhere in the world. Sources claim that it is also one of the highest priced dope in the international market and as claimed by the locals, the year 2012 hasn’t looked very promising as Israelis who form more than seventy per cent of their clientele every year, have not been that frequent. In recent years, government agencies have tried to dissuade the people from growing, processing and trading in the contraband, but have failed to eradicate marijuana farming.
Of course puritans would balk at photos of intoxicated Malana men, blithely smoking cannabis or young children rubbing cannabis so that it turns into the world famous ‘Malana creme’, but on the other hand, the locals feel that it their means of livelihood as nothing grows here in the given geo-climate to a commercial scale in order to sustain their family.
Thus, the debate arose; what is legal and for whom? As observed, when the season for harvesting of the weed comes, local administration takes all necessary steps to burn and trash these so that the drug dealers don't get anything, still through some preventive measures the locals manage to sell and earn their livelihood.
Under the Government of India's "Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act,1985", possession of Charas is punishable by upto a year in prison. Despite this prohibition, each year the Kullu District produces about 11 tons of charas; bulk of which comes from Malana, which is smuggled to Europe and sold under names like Shanti Baba and White Widow.
Amlan Datta in his film "BOM- One day ahead of Democracy" has shown how an idyllic village is now in transition, how an ancient civilization is threatened by modern day democracy. The changes are apparent all around – Cannabis, an integral part of the villagers’ lives is now illegal, goat pastures are being replaced by a dam and the region’s beautiful mountains are being gashed by roads.
Cannabis was traditionally used to produce footwear and as a medicine. But it has now become a lucrative business for the “foreign drug mafia” and consequently for “the local mafia and political strongmen”. The villagers say that experiments with alternative crops such as peas and kidney beans have failed miserably and hence they resorted to the naturally occurring cannabis crop to earn some money.
Cannabis was traditionally used to produce footwear and as a medicine. But it has now become a lucrative business for the “foreign drug mafia” and consequently for “the local mafia and political strongmen”. The villagers say that experiments with alternative crops such as peas and kidney beans have failed miserably and hence they resorted to the naturally occurring cannabis crop to earn some money.
The future to this debate lies in the fact whether the locals of the valley will be able to survive as an Ancient Democracy with socio-cultural and ethnological uniqueness along with Cannabis (weed) as an integral part of their culture or will they be completely transformed in the light of modern ways of living, influences of power, money, politics and unethical ecological practices as prevalent in the outside world. The answer can only be found in the interplay of outside influences, their corresponding responses by the local and ability to sustain the techno-cultural invasions over time.
Author's Bio- Note:
Krishnanand is a Research Scholar at
Department of Geography, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.
Department of Geography, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.
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