The lost year is coming, Manipur rice farmers are waiting for help

Manipur farmers say they need funds to sow fresh seeds this year

Imphal/New Delhi:

Eight months ago, Yumnam Ranjan was a farmer in a village in Manipur. Now he works as a carpenter in a crowded city.

The 42-year-old resident of Purbala village in Bishnupur district rented a small room in the state capital Imphal. He said he did some basic carpentry work in the village, which helped him land a job in a furniture manufacturing factory in Imphal, but it took the farmer many months to perfect his skills in the furniture market. skills.

He stopped farming on July 8, 2023, the day a bullet penetrated his upper hip. Another bruised his right arm.

Mr Ranjan said: “I was working in the fields with other people from the village. We were chatting. It’s about half a kilometer from the hill to the farm. They came down and fired a few shots and then ran away. I came from behind Being hit.” . He sat with his back against the concrete wall of Imphal’s ‘Hicham Yaicham Pat’, a memorial to the people of Manipur who lost their lives fighting the British in 1891.

“Some people around me were running away and some were lying in the fields. The pain was unbearable, like the sting of a hundred needles. A farmer dragged me to the dirt road leading to our village,” Lan Mr. Zhan said.

He said the government paid for his treatment at the hospital, where he stayed for three weeks, and that many members of the general public also donated.

Phubala is 2 kilometers from the village of Naranseina, whose farmers told New Delhi Television in February that they were barred from going to the foothills due to the risk of being shot at. For now, all they do is look at the ruined, unharvested crops in the distance and complain.

On July 8, 2023, Yumnam Ranjan, a farmer from Phubala Awang Leikai in Manipur, was shot while sowing rice near the foothills

“We cannot return to the fields near the foothills. They call it the buffer zone… I have submitted all the documents to the government seeking assistance but have not received any response,” Mr Ranjan said. He filed a first information report (FIR) with police in the lakeside town of Moirang, in which he described the suspects as “Kuki militants”. NDTV has seen a copy of the FIR.

The “buffer zone” is actually a sensitive area between the hills dominated by Kuki-Zo and the valley dominated by Meitei. Since May 2023, the two communities have been in conflict over shared land and resources. Since ethnic violence broke out due to serious disagreements, it has been guarded by central security forces. , political representation and affirmative action policies.

According to Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh, as of March 2023, the rice cultivation area in Manipur was 2.28 lakh hectares, of which 1.07 lakh hectares were in hills and 1.20 lakh hectares were in valleys. Due to the violence, farmers have lost access to 5,127 hectares of land, or 4% of the total area under rice cultivation. The Ministry of Agriculture told Parliament on December 8, 2023, that the Center has provided a relief package of Rs 38.6 crore. Farmers who rely on these 4% of cultivated land (all of whom live in the foothills) face the highest risk of being trapped. shooting.

Khunjamayum Gopen Luwang, director of the Irabot Foundation, a non-profit organization that documents farmers’ issues in Manipur, told NDTV that the government should provide assistance to farmers before the sowing season starts this year, usually between May and July.

The path from Naranseina village leads to the fields adjacent to Phubala about 2 km away. There are hills 2 kilometers further to the left.

Mr Louwang said they had visited every village in the foothills to get details of farmers who had lost a year’s income because of ethnic violence.

“This is a difficult process. We have to verify the losses to ensure the right farmers are compensated,” Mr Louvain said. “When we went to the government to remind them about the aid, officials told us that the disbursement process had started but the banks’ work was not yet complete,” he said.

Luwang said that so far, 5,882 farmers have been identified for compensation, of which 3,483 have been marked as valid claims and 2,399 have yet to be verified. Most of these people are rice farmers.

However, those involved in horticulture, fisheries and poultry industries have yet to receive compensation approval, the head of the Irabot Foundation told New Delhi TV. He said the government should consider them in compensation policies because many of them have farms near the foothills that have also had to close because of the violence.

The Kuki-Zo tribe refuted claims that the Meiteis attacked farmers without provocation. Tribes that form a majority in Manipur’s southern hills and some other areas say Meitei armed groups such as Alanbai Tengol and even surrendered members of the United National Liberation Front (Pambei) or UNLF(P) regularly cross the border. Sensitive areas guarded by the Central Army attacked Jiuxizang Village.

The government or security forces have yet to comment publicly on the allegations, although Manipur police noted that Alain Baitengol was killed after some members of an armed group calling themselves the Village Defense Volunteers raided a man’s house. is a huge problem. Senior police officer.

The two communities often engage in a narrative war on social media, accusing the other of videos of atrocities committed.

Manipur will vote in the Lok Sabha elections on April 19 and 26. In two seats in the state, some areas in Inner Manipur as well as Outer Manipur constituencies will go to polls on April 19. The remaining outer Manipur districts will go to polls on April 26. The vote counting date is June 4th.