Year of the Rat: Chinese and Us

If the so-called “mainstream” Indians mistook us for Chinese, we, Zohnathlak, have many things shared, particularly this year- 2008, with the economic giant, which the country will never catch up. I am not negating India’s economic progress. It is high time. But I doubt if the boom is “shining” or not. If one does a reality check, comparing India and China, the political gurus and their campaigners in Hindustan were successful than the booming theories they propagate as the country will just be running fast behind the Dragon’s tail to catch up every possible thing. The make-believe shine that is confined in few urban compartments would take time to decentralize if it has to. Otherwise if the present pace does not deconstruct itself, the “shine” would dim in the stagnant constituencies, which has been breathing by squeezing the “tribal” and “adivasis” land and resources in the name of “national interest.” The boomers in towering structures are ignorant about the squeezing game and the drain that has been happening since the British days. Only the guards have changed. The rest continues unabated. Well, it is not about the economy or progress that I wanted to stress here. Rather it is about the rat, us and the Chinese.

For the Chinese, 2008 is ‘Year of the Rat’, starting from February 7, 2008 till January 25, 2009. The year of the Rat is the first in the cycle of 12 Animal signs and recurs after every twelfth year. The Rat kicks off the 12 year cycle and this year is believed to be a luck filled year. The Chinese see the Rat as aggressive, charming and well endowed with leadership skills. Besides wearing the colourful red dresses that is believed to be a lucky colour, the year of Rat also associates many superstitions and customs.

While it is feasting time for the Chinese in the year of the Rat, it is doom time for the distressed villagers who are also confronting the year of the Rat in the epicenter of the gregarious bamboo flowering in Mizoram and parts of Manipur’s Churachandpur district. The phenomenon that occurred after every forty eight years has multiplied the rat’s population that feed on the seeds of the bamboo flower. The rat population explodes after eating the starch and protein rich bamboo flower seeds. The rats then destroyed crops causing food crisis and famines. The natural phenomenon of bamboo flowering 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 159 the Report, the 1959 famine claimed between 10,000 and 15,000 lives in Mizoram, Tripura, Manipur and Barak valley of Assam.

The resultant distressed farmers in Manipur and Mizoram are a toast for politicians and authorities who are gaining mileage out of their plights. On February 2, 2008, distressed villagers in Tipaimukh’s Senvon, in Manipur’s Churachandpur, formed a forum, Public Demand, with the attempt to impress upon the authorities at all level about their unabated condition that is getting worse with each passing day. I won’t be surprise if the forum merely added more president and secretary to the multiplying mute tribe who are otherwise trying to raise their voices. The efforts have been a desperate one. It is like trying to make the pebbles speak. Their negotiations of the endless neglect, discrimination, exploitation and marginalization in the cut off constituencies did not have any language. It did not have any voice. Not that they did not want to. But because they could not. If they are journalistic orphans, they are also surrogate sons and daughters of the colonial rusted steel frames and elected representatives. Situations have reportedly turned gravely for the forgotten people. Victims of entitlement failure. What else are they? Well, I think they are one of the most presented people. But the big question still is, have they ever been represented? I don’t think they were ever represented. Never fairly. Never justly. The history of their political economy is marred by untold and unreported experiences of sufferings that fluctuate between food insecurity, food shortages, poverty, famines and hunger. Unfortunately, these situations have become too stabilised that it has almost been inevitable to their lives. The harsh times have been considered as “normal” situations. The agrarian crisis, which is deteriorated by the much politicised flowering of bamboo, has pushed them again to depend on wild roots and fruits for their food. Today, many of the families were driven back to the food gathering stage in the absence of any proactive intervention from the government. There have been little efforts from various church organizations, which came in the form of prayers and few kilo of rice to the starving bowels. I have also been told ceaselessly about the narrow denominational biasness and preferences, which the churches handed out along with the grain of rice. Unnecessary bonuses were delivered that need no reading between the lines. The messages are clear without the lines in between. While the misery resulted out of natural calamity, it has also been man made. But the villagers were told by the pulpit lords that it was because of their sins. But their signs are without its science. Without its reason and logic. That’s the missing link.

Despite the celebration and gloom that is attached with the Rat year for the two countries, it is important to focus on the constituencies that confront the year of the Rat without any celebrations. While the need for public action is immediate, it is high time the authorities move towards drawing up “famine codes” to address the decades of agrarian failure and the crisis associated with it. No less Important, in numerous instances, public action has succeeded in averting famines in cases of a serious shortfall in the food supply. However, in the case of Tipaimukh, public action could only be visible with the efforts made by the various church organisations. However, the intervention made by the different Christian denominations goes against the realities of hunger and deprivation, which the unrepresented people are confronting today.

If one looked at the pre-independence as well as the post independence India, it has experienced major national food crisis in the wake of natural disasters. A major historical landmark in the history of public policy towards famine relief took place in the 1880s with the drawing up of the famine codes, which consisted of instructions for identifying emergencies and measures. Despite that, the severe Bengal famine of 1943 was not even officially declared to be a famine. After the independence, the government lauded its “successful” approach towards hunger and famine. However, the signs of distress are showing in other forms and expression that is new. In the wake of hunger and famines that associates the bamboo flower; the Mizos resorted to arms movement in the 60s demanding for sovereignty. Farmers’ suicide in South India was another shocking expression. In the year 2007, in the “most peaceful” corner in Mizoram, the distressed farmers took to the streets demanding for their several constitutional rights that are attached to their hungry bowels and silenced voices.

The dimming and stagnating constituencies in the forgotten corners of India are in dire need of constructive measures. For the thousands of self-reliant farmers who are surviving on their own-produced food and who are without any income, the natural disaster that weighs down their vulnerable conditions is an intolerable fag end. In this year of the Rat when doom flowers, the concerned authorities ought to resort to availing alternative measures: providing wage employment of public works, which later would become the mainstay of famine relief, unconditional provision of food for those unable to work, food storage and price stabilization. For the various hyper-active church organizations, its action, if it could not be Samaritan, should ape Pilate and wash itself before their sins multiply. If emergency measures are not drawn immediately, the unfolding catastrophe will never speak for itself, and it would be too late if the wait is to see them speak with loss lives. It would be an unforgiving shame if the authorities go blind and numb in the face of the rat and bamboo flower when India is “shining” and “booming.” Them, who are doomed by the flowers and gnawed by the rats, believed they are lesser being. The Chinese cannot just go celebrating in the same year of the Rat.

(Delhi, February 10, 2008)