ABSTRACT
The Manipur government’s intense drive to destroy poppy plantations under its ‘War on Drugs’ campaign since 2018 has, to an extent, borne some good results. The proximity of the state to the Golden Triangle and the 398 km porous border that the state shares with Myanmar, accounts for the illicit cultivation of poppy. The transformation of the state from a hotspot on the drug trafficking route to a drug producing state is highly alarming. An effective measure to prevent the illicit cultivation of poppy is to enable the hill tribes to earn adequate income from the centuries old practice of “shifting cultivation” (jhum or slash and burn) by modernizing this ancient practice. The state government’s development programs in the hill areas need to be sincerely implemented. This can become a way of weaning the hill tribes off poppy cultivation.
KEYWORDS
Poppy Cultivation, War on Drugs, Golden Triangle, Jhum Cultivation
In the Saikul sub-division of Kangpokpi district of Manipur, an anonymous source declared in an informal interview with the author in June 2023 that poppy cultivation was rampant in this part of the district but it had now halted due to the prevailing ethnic violence in the state.[1] He further stated that the widespread illicit cultivation of poppy had the approval of the chiefs and the involvement of the militants. It is the same case in other hill regions of Churachandpur district as well, where the large-scale cultivation of poppy has halted in the present ongoing ethnic conflict in the state of Manipur, according to another anonymous source.[2]
Figure 1. A poppy field in a hill area of Manipur in 2023.
The Worrying Facts of Poppy Cultivation
It is to be noted that the state shares a 398-kilometer porous border with Myanmar which is the world’s second largest producer of opium. The state is close to the ‘Golden Triangle’ of drug production—Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. The northern tip of Myanmar’s Chin state is some 60 kilometers from Moreh, a border town located on the Indo-Myanmar border, and Churachandpur district of Manipur, is just 65 kilometers from the Chin state border of Myanmar. With the presence of a conducive climate, a fertile soil, and the required topography, it is not surprising that poppy cultivation by hill farmers has been on the rise. Shifting cultivation, or jhum cultivation, has failed to give them an adequate income for a better standard of living, and there is inadequate support or no support from the state machinery with regard to developmental schemes and programs reaching them. Poppy cultivation which assures buyback, where the opium extracted is taken back by the financiers or the middlemen who invest in the poppy cultivation, and the unmatched returns have encouraged many of the tribal farmers to carry on this illicit cultivation. “If farmers grow fruits and vegetables, they make Rs. 200,000 a year, when they grow poppy, they make Rs. 1,000,000,” as told by a senior police official (Matharu, 2022).
According to the state government’s estimate, one acre of land can yield poppy worth Rs. 1 million to Rs. 1.2 million. For most villagers, such huge margins make the risk worth it (Matharu, 2022). The extent of land used to grow poppy has increased from 1,853 acres to 67,428 acres in five years (2017-2022) according to state data (Matharu, 2022). Besides the ecological destruction that it brings, there is also an alarming increase in the setting up of makeshift processing factories for the conversion of opium into brown sugar and heroin. These substances are pumped into towns and villages of the state where children as young as ten are exposed to them. The alarming gravity of poppy cultivation is that the extraction of opium is no longer the ultimate goal; instead, the further processing of opium into brown sugar and heroin is taking place within the state itself.
The state which was initially a transit route, from and to other states and regions, has now transformed itself into a producing state. The porous border has led to the free movement of people to and from Myanmar. Manipur and the northeast Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh share a long international border with Kachin state, Sagaing region, and Chin state of Myanmar which are all opium producing areas. While poppy cultivation has declined in Myanmar, it has significantly increased in Manipur over the last fifteen years (Bobichand, 2022). The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found “very high poppy cultivation density of more than 6 acres per square kilometer at the northern tip of Myanmar’s Chin state which is some 60 kilometers from Moreh, a border town located on the Indo Myanmar border in Tengnoupal district of Manipur. Churachandpur district, too, is just 65 kilometers from the Chin state border, where there is a dense concentration of poppy fields.
After a study was conducted on sixty households from three hill districts in Manipur-Kangpokpi, Churachandpur, and Tengnoupal that engage in illegal poppy cultivation, the major finding was that poverty, food security, and material needs are the drivers of illegal cultivation of poppy (Kipgen, 2019). An anonymous source from Changoubung village in Kangpokpi district of Manipur who is a poppy cultivator states that poppy cultivation is prohibited in the village (based on an informal interview conducted by the author for the purpose of post-doctoral research work on poppy cultivation).
Figure 2. Poppy plants at the budding stage in a hill area Manipur in 2023.
The anonymous source reveals that the villagers earlier engaged in charcoal making, but they stopped doing so due to environmental concerns, adding that charcoal making is considered illegal now. Many youngsters like her have been engaged by certain individuals on some poppy fields in other villages which fall within the Kangpokpi district to cut the poppy pods and scrape the dried latex from the pods. She was lured into this because she needed some money to buy her essentials as her parents could not afford her expenses. She was able to earn a daily wage of Rs. 400. She also stated that there were others who could earn more than her. And there were still others who were involved in sowing and other phases of poppy cultivation. There is a supervisor who looks after the whole cultivation and earns way more than any of the cultivators. There is no steady source of income for the family and she is not aware of the developmental schemes implemented by the state government. Her parents are involved with the village community in shifting cultivation and her father also works as a construction laborer in another village.