By Anna Notsu
From culinary scenes to medicinal healing, turmeric has long been a beloved everyday product across India. Its colour, flavour and health properties render it less a mere spice than a necessity. Yet turmeric is not all the same. Over the past decade, Lakadong turmeric, a one-season crop known for its exceptionally high curcumin content, has drawn renewed attention to Meghalaya, particularly the Jaintia Hills. Today, buyers across India recognise that most turmeric varieties rarely exceed five percent curcumin—while Lakadong, cultivated in selected pockets of the Jaintia region, can reach nearly double that.
The recent acquisition of a Geographical Indication (GI) tag has added further value to the crop, formalising its uniqueness in legal and commercial terms. Lakadong turmeric can only bear its name if it is cultivated in designated areas and meets specific curcumin standards. As demand from outside the state has skyrocketed, funding schemes and agricultural initiatives have increasingly envisioned Lakadong as a pathway to regional prosperity, a Lakadong economy that only the Jaintia Hills can produce. Under the Cluster Development Programme initiated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, farmers in Shangpung village recently made a remarkable history when their first large-scale commercial order of Lakadong turmeric powder was dispatched beyond Meghalaya. In moments like these, Lakadong appears not merely as a crop but as an emblem of development, expressing quality and possibility.
Yet translating development schemes into everyday practice is rarely straightforward. Accessing funds and institutional support often involves lengthy procedures, repeated documentation and coordination between multiple departments as well as farmers. While funding promises faster and more efficient production, the reality is not quite simple. The very initiatives meant to reduce hurdles can sometimes create new pressures, especially when Lakadong is a one-season crop. The Farmers’ Union must navigate administrative processes while maintaining constant and transparent communication with farmers, ensuring that both demands are met while remaining compliant with programme requirements. The success story of Lakadong production therefore depends not only on agricultural labour but also on the careful negotiation of bureaucratic pathways.
As I observed in Shangpung Pohshnong, behind the story of “high curcumin” and export-ready packaging lies a quieter narrative of endless paperwork, mounting pressure and unpredictable weather. Much of this labour rests on the shoulders of women. Turmeric must be planted, weeded, harvested, cleaned, sliced, dried and powdered—and then packaged, boxed and shipped. Every single step of this long process requires careful labour. During the preparation of the first commercial dispatch, even the making and assembling of cardboard boxes for shipment was handled by female members of the Farmers’ Union.
Even with improved technology and more standardised processes made possible through government schemes, practical challenges remain. Machines wear out. Suitable open spaces for sun-drying are limited. Sudden rainfalls frequently interrupt the crucial drying process. As demand increases, so too does the pressure to balance supply with uncertain weather conditions.
Following the agricultural cycle, late February brought an intense period of activity in Shangpung Pohshnong. The Farmers’ Union was inundated with the simultaneous processes of cleaning raw turmeric, slicing and spreading them out for drying. On one such weekend, I joined a group of union members led by Kong Anjelina S. Manar to help prepare their first commercial dispatch.
Dozens of empty carton boxes were stacked on the concrete ground in the courtyard outside their Union office. Nearby, a handful of women sat on low wooden stools, methodically placing neatly sealed packets of Lakadong powder into a box, one by one. Strictly following the buyer’s instructions, their turmeric-stained fingers carefully ensured that no packet was damaged. Thirty-six packets filled each carton box, weighing about nine kilograms. The repetitive and intensive labour of preparing the shipment, carried out with meticulous care, continued until dusk, when we could hardly see each other’s turmeric-coloured faces.
To assemble more boxes, to sweep the floor, to measure the powder, to fill carefully designed packets and to seal them with an iron machine required constant bending and concentration. After only a couple of hours, our fingers became dry, our legs numb and our backs stiff and aching. Yet no one complained of fatigue. At one point, my host sister briefly lay down on the floor and closed her eyes for a minute, sparking laughter among us. We joked and chatted as we worked, never stopping our hands or compromising the quality of the product. Our Lakadong-coloured hands and faces created a warm and comical scene.
Outside, despite the morning sunlight, grey clouds obscured the sky. A sudden gust of cold wind passed through the courtyard. “U slap! (Rain!)” one of the workers shouted. In an instant, we jumped and rushed towards the tarpaulin sheets covered with half-dried turmeric slices. Not only the courtyard but also the back of the office and the rooftop of a nearby school required our urgent attention. The sliced turmeric had to be completely dried before moving to the final processing stage. Protection from the rain was crucial.
Within minutes, raindrops began to darken the rugged concrete ground. When we reached the school rooftop, where orange-golden Lakadong slices covered the surface, my Shangpung sister immediately removed her sandal and began sweeping the turmeric into piles. I followed her lead. There was no time to fetch brooms or dustpans. As thunder rolled in the distance, my thoughts went to the story of Blai Pyrthat, the Thunder God. Half-jokingly, someone said, “You should pray to Blai Pyrthat for no more rain.”
Not long before joining this Lakadong labour, I had visited the altar of Blai Pyrthat in Shangpung. In addition to their annual ritual dedicated to Blai Pyrthat, the Phadong clan performs sacrificial ceremonies at this altar whenever necessary. According to local folklore, the altar commemorates a man who once disappeared while playing his flute, leaving behind only his knup (Khasi-Jaintia traditional umbrella). Villagers believe that he later became Blai Pyrthat. His sudden mysterious disappearance and the arrival of thunder in Shangpung were seen as connected events. While too much or too little rain is always a serious concern, thunder itself carries layered meanings. It may signal both blessing and warning—life-giving rain or divine punishment.
One time, when I asked whether Blai Pyrthat appears only during summer, my Shangpung companion replied, “Of course not. You will see. He also comes in winter. He comes whenever necessary.” Here, nothing happens without purpose. Rituals are never performed without intention. And just like the rain, Lakadong itself has its own explanation for its existence.
In Shangpung Pohshnong, Lakadong’s significance extends far beyond the language of curcumin percentages and market expansion. Home to followers of the Niamtre faith, the village narrates an ancient past in which turmeric once grew wild in the forest, asking humans to care for it in exchange for supporting their rites and ceremonies. Even today, Lakadong continues to play a role in ritual settings, its colour and vitality embedded in divine engagement.
Lakadong therefore does not belong solely to the development future imagined by government schemes. It also carries traces of ancestral relationships between humans, land and the divine. It stands at the intersection of religious continuity and commercial aspiration.
On one side stands development—cluster schemes, GI certification and promises of rural prosperity supported by funding and growing market demand. Through these initiatives, Lakadong turmeric has become inseparable from the stories of modernity and future prosperity in the Jaintia Hills. Its geographically unique status and the establishment of a Farmer’s Union bring hope that it can secure livelihoods and protect those who work for it. On the other side stands lived tradition: ritual practice, inherited knowledge and women’s everyday labour. In the rush towards Lakadong’s commercial expansion, its deeper significance cannot be reduced to a single chemical percentage.
Researchers who visit Meghalaya often describe the state as ‘matrilineal but not matriarchal.’ On the surface, within political institutions, religious authority and formal decision-making, this observation may hold some truth. Yet my stay in Shangpung Pohshnong complicates such a simple conclusion.
In the stories of Lakadong—its cultivation, its presence in ritual scenes and its journey to markets beyond the hills of Meghalaya—women stand at the centre. They bend their backs every day to cultivate the soil, manage the labour, sustain ritual continuity and ensure the quality that makes Lakadong renowned. In Shangpung, the curcumin content of Lakadong turmeric now consistently reaches around 10 percent. Its prosperity rests just as much on the strength, decisions and dedication of women who are shaping a new narrative of development.
Lakadong’s prosperity is often measured in curcumin percentages. But in Shangpung Pohshnong, it is the women who make its sustained prosperity possible.
(The author is a PhD researcher at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University (Netherlands) and project researcher of the research project Futuring Heritage: Conservation, Community and Contestation in the Eastern Himalayas).
