Death Flower

The green hills and mountains turned yellow in Mizoram, Manipur and different parts of the North-East states. Mizoram is the epicentre of the dreaded natural phenomena, the gregarious bamboo flowering. They called it the return of horror. Fear, apprehension, and anxieties grow bigger for the villagers with the gregarious bamboo flowering (mautam) threatening them. The gloom blooms. Scientists explained them in hallowed halls and expensive seminars and platform without much solution. What the villagers knew is that the menace has returned. Fear of hunger is immense. Insecurity grows taller and bigger than their hills and mountains. It gnaws them day and night when immediate alternatives and solutions, though desirable, is far from sight. When no one is responsible for the natural phenomena, who would be responsible for the plights of the affected people that will persist for a while? But a while could render them, if not lifeless, helpless and hopeless.

The natural phenomena has been recorded to have happened in 1862, 1881, 1911-12 and 1959 too. All of them resulted in severe famine. According to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment and Forests 159th Report, the 1959 famine claimed between 10,000 and 15,000 lives in Mizoram, Tripura, Manipur and Barak Valley of Assam. In the midst of hunger and helplessness, Mizo National Famine Front converted Mizoram’s sink in misery to gain political mileage, which was also followed by the 20 years of insurgency that wrest the State. The ghost of the death flower returns not only to render the villagers hopeless, but also to rap MNF government who are the surrogate sons of the same flower that bloomed in 1958-1959. On Apri19, 2007, Zoram Kuthnathlawktute Pawl (ZKP), which is Mizoram’s largest workers, labours and farmers union took to the street in Aizawl to protest against the corruption of fund that was allocated to them by the Centre in the wake of the impending famine. The protesting farmers were called “poor” (mirethei) and “peasants from the hills” (thingtlang loneitu), when they arrived at Aizawl to protest. The President of the organisation said that Mizoram will be seeing darker days if their plights are not addressed. Does it make any sense for Zoramthanga who is in blissful hangover after the State hosted chains of fashion show, concert, anthurium festival, supermodel hunt, peace festival and what not. The demands of the protesters are humane and valid as they asked the government to release the funds that were provided by the Centre to counter the famine threat that they are already confronting. They also asked the government to buy their ginger, which MNF has promised to do so for Rs. 10 per kilo from their doorstep. MNF government prepared a three-pronged action plan under the project dubbed Bamboo Flowering and Famine Combat Scheme (BAAFACOS) amounting to Rs. 500 crore to stall the impending famine. The central government has sanctioned an interim amount of Rs. 60 crore pending a thorough examination of the detailed action plan by its experts. The farmers in Mizoram indeed celebrated when the MNF government announced that they would buy ginger from them for that prized price. It encouraged the farmers to grow ginger too. But today, the MNF government is not buying the ginger. Besides, they are not using the funds to reach the affected people’s plights. To add salt to their wounded plights, H Rammawi, Agriculture Minister recently asked the farmers to grow turmeric.

Villagers in Manipur’s Tipaimukh, situated in Mizoram border, are also helplessly watching their hills grow yellow. Everyday, they wake up to be reminded by the threatening colour that put a big question to their life. After confronting the threat of landmines and displacement in the end of 2005 and early part of 2006 respectively, they are now threatened by famine. I was told that in Parbung, one of the biggest villages in Tipaimukh, a little less than 100 families only have enough grains to last them this year out of the 500 families. The cases are worse in other villages. Meanwhile, newspapers in Imphal and Churachandpur reported that Churachandpur PDS food items are not going anywhere beyond Imphal. What about the funds that the government of Manipur received from the Centre to combat famine in the hill districts? Unlike their counterparts in Mizoram, farmers in Tipaimukh have no idea and access to resort to protest language. Does it make any sense for Okram Ibobi Singh whose silence over everything that should matter continues unconcerned?

It is fortunate that there is no farmer’s suicide to associate the death flower. In the two states, farmers still practised the primitive jhum cultivation. If we stumble on what Article 48 of the Indian Constitution says, it mentioned that the State should endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines. However, any knowledge and know how with modern and scientific strength and leverage has not even visited the place. The question of that desirable spark staying there is still a big challenge before the state. I don’t know if those people are also counted for the nearly 50 percent of the world’s hungry population that India shelters according to recent UN report. Even if they are not taken into that statistic, the villagers who are feverishly observing the bloom of the death flower are in hunger.