Meghalaya

Meghalaya sits in India’s north-east between Assam and Bangladesh, with its capital at Shillong. The state was formed in 1972, carved out of Assam to give the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo peoples a separate administration. It is hilly, heavily forested and receives some of the heaviest rainfall recorded anywhere on earth.

The three main communities have markedly different social systems. Khasi and Jaintia society is matrilineal — descent and inheritance run through the mother, and the youngest daughter inherits the family property — while the Garo in the west are also matrilineal. Livelihoods rest on shifting cultivation on the slopes, with coal, limestone and other minerals extracted in the eastern districts, and a growing service sector in Shillong.

Mawsynram and Cherrapunji in the southern hills compete for the record for the highest average annual rainfall in the world, a consequence of the funnel formed by the Khasi hills channelling the monsoon. The same rainfall has made the state’s coal mining and its acid drainage a serious environmental problem, and it has driven the creation of the living root bridges — footbridges grown from the aerial roots of rubber fig trees — for which the state is known.