OUR LAND, OUR LIVES AND OUR DESTINY

1. It is four in the morning. Self and my father moved out of our Jhoom kheti hut to embrace the golden rays of sun shining upon us. My father, aged and fragile, is standing beside me looking at the vast stretch of hills handed over to him by his ancestors. These hills, he told me, is the identity of our tribe, our clan and is the source of bulk of our income. I have spent my childhood years on these hills, which are remotely located on to the southern extreme of Chandel District in Manipur, bordering Myanmar. Our family fondly called it, “The Joumal Dingpi”. Most of the forest has been reduced to open stretches of field in order to satisfy the greedy men on the lookout for easy money. My father too lived off the land, struggling hard to meet his ends by cultivating on these slopes, day in and day out. Like any other parent, he too wanted his son to go to a good school, study well and settle down in life with a good job. Hence, he sent me with his aunt to Sugnu for my education when I was twelve years old. I am Thongjim Baitei, and this is the story of my family and my clan.

2. I often wondered why my father stayed away from us in such a remote jungle, where there are no roads, no electricity and no hospitals. As a child, whenever I used to go to Joumal on vacations, I used to find my father going early morning into the woods and clearing forest. Since indiscriminate cutting down of pristine forest was against what teachers taught me in school, I asked him why he was doing that. He tried to make me understand that clearing of woods will provide him with timber for sale and clear the area for a profitable cultivation called poppy. “Poppy”; I have seen those plants, carefully nurtured and taken care of by my people during the cultivation season. But my father always ensured I stay away from it. As a child, I could never understand why, but now as a grownup, I completely understand the dynamics. Though an easy source of income, it has trapped many of my friends into drug abuse and that is exactly why my dad wanted me out of this family business. Probably at the bottom of his heart, he knew it was not the right thing to do, but with poor education and no alternate means of sustainable livelihood, he decided to take this path. Unfortunately, today it is pursued more out of greed and a misconstrued notion for amelioration of poverty.

3. It is five in the morning now, and my father asked me to join him into the woods where he was planning for his farming this year. I looked at him; he was getting old and was finding it difficult to negotiate the hills. His back was stooped owing to many years of back breaking efforts in the field. Numerous marks donned his palms due to the reaction of the latex that flows out of the poppy plants. There was one prominent cut mark on his forehead, and I very clearly remember how he got that. During the last year’s harvesting time the so-called liberators of the hills, with camp across the hills, demanded more money as tax. It was too much for my father to pay and he displayed his reluctance blatantly. He argued that since it was people like him who toiled in the sun, enduring the harshness of the location, the rights on the money earned should rest with the farmers than with their “bosses”,who live across the hills, comfortably? These statements made the commander of the patrol party furious. A strong blow sent my father down to the ground, his forehead started bleeding and they left him like that. Until this day, he wears that deep scar on his forehead. A grim reminder of the exploitation that we are subjected to amidst our poverty.

4. Over these years things have drastically changed for the worse. Vast burnt patches of hills have replaced the beautiful dense forests. The barking deer, the magnificent birds, all have vanished. The unscientific cultivation has made the soil infertile. Weather too has changed. It is now the month of May and it should have been raining by now, but each year the monsoons are getting delayed. It is unusually hot and our village is struggling hard to find water. My father told me that if it continues this way he might even have to shift the village in search of water. The indiscriminate deforestation has now started affecting our lives adversely. Though it gave my father the money to educate me, it has deprived the land of its trees, its fertility, wild life and now the rains. I cautioned him of the imminent danger that is lurking in this business that is much more than what meets the naked eye. It has started adversely affecting our environment and our ancestral estates, without which we will get further pushed into poverty.

5. After spending few days with my father in the fields I returned to Delhi for my schooling. One month has passed and I came to know that my village has been finally blessed with good rains. My father was happy since it helped him in his cultivation. Two months have passed and it is the month of August. My father called me to inform that our Village is receiving much more than usual amount of rains and there was a distinct concern in his voice. The rain water was gradually eating away the soil. On Aug 1^st, the worse nightmare came alive. Incessant rains coupled with no trees to hold on to the soil, brought the entire hill down into the nallas. A massive landslide triggered by indiscriminate felling of trees, erased our ancestral land and with that buried my father and his friend who were working in the fields. Nature did not even spare our mothers and the new born. I rushed to see my village. The journey was immensely difficult, as the landslide had washed away the only road, connecting my village with outside world. The areas adjacent to the road were exploited ruthlessly for cultivation. Deprived of trees, they too went down into the nallas. When I reached there, I could not believe my eyes. There was no sign of the village. Everything had vanished. I desperately searched for my father but could not trace his body. With the help of some people camping nearby, we retrieved some of the bodies but not of my father. He finally rested beneath the soil, which he toiled for all these years. The bosses who used to come for tax collection from my father regularly, were neither heard nor seen. Neither did they bother to enquire about our family. We had to endure the loss, all by ourselves.

6. I looked around. The scene of devastation caused by the nature (or by us!) forced me to think whether it is time to change the way me lived. My father, stricken by poverty, worked hard on the field and died on the fields but the people who extracted money out of this business are safe and comfortable in their homes. We paid the price by losing our land, our jungles and our lives. Our youth are victims of the very own drug that we cultivate. The tax collected from us goes into the hands of unknown people who exploit us. Is this all worth it? To what extent should we let others to control our lives? Are we not depriving our youth of a healthy life and a clean green environment to live in?

7. We buried the bodies we could find and created a memorial in memory of those who died. As we left the place there was a strong urge within me to the change the practices we have been following all these years. It has not only deprived us of our land but also pushed us further into poverty. The time has come to prevent indiscriminate felling of trees in the name of cultivation. If there is no land, then there are no villages and obviously no clan. If corrective measures are undertaken today, it will protect our forests for our future generations to come. It will prevent our young falling for drugs and gift them an opportunity to live life meaningfully with a sense of purpose. Perhaps the cost we had to pay to realize this was with the life of my father and his friend. After all it is, our land, our lives and ……our destiny!