CSOs on Meetei-bashing spree, gunmen target farmers
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: July 10, 2023 -
RECENT incidents of targeting agricultural workers in the peripheral farmlands suggest change in strategy by Kuki militants to create fear psychosis among the food producers with the ultimate objective to cripple the rural economy and mount pressure on those helming the affairs in the state to accord importance to the demand for separate administration for the Kuki and its kindred tribes.
Compared to the formative days of the ethnic violence when the Kuki militants swooped down on Meetei villages and occupied the abandoned settlements to purportedly expand the areas under their control, farmers are being made the targets with the onset of the prime agricultural season.
While it could be safely predicted that such attacks would be persevered till harvest of the paddy crop, it is hard to digest that Kuki civil societies continue to put the blame entirely on the Meetei community for the restive situation and branding the latter as the aggressor unmindful of the fact that the Kuki militants or miscreants are using automatic weapons, not single or double barrel firearms in possession of the so-called village defence vol-unteers, to target the Meetei farmers.
Regardless of security forces assigned to ensure safeguard of the agricultural workers in the peripheral farms, it is obvious that each and every farmer cannot be guaranteed protection for paddy fields are spread far and wide.
With or without security protection, farmers shall have to regularly venture out to prepare their field as paddy plantation in the state mainly depends on the monsoon rainfall due to absence of functional irrigation system in majority of the land where paddy crop is cultivated.
Missing the schedule would also mean significant shortfall in paddy production.
There is no doubt that agriculture has been affected in Manipur as many farmers are unable to tend to their fields due to the on-going ethnic violence and sporadic incidents of gunfights in the peripheral villages.
Compared to the estimation by agriculture director N Gojendro that farmers were unable to cultivate at least 5,127 hectares of agricultural land and the state will fall short of the annual production by 15,437.23 metric tonnes, survey report brought out by Loumi Sinmee Sintha Kanba Lup, a farmer welfare organisation that 40,00o hectares of paddy field are under 'siege' means that the Agriculture Department's mod-erate figure was to allay apprehension among the people of imminent crisis arising out of food grain shortage.
The department might have readied fertilisers and seeds that can be harvested in a shorter period of time and require lesser amount of water but it's an undeniable fact that scores of farmers aren't able to till their field till date.
With around 2-3 lakh farmers in the state mainly practising paddy cultivation 001.95 lakh hectares of agricultural land, failure to provide security cover to them would eventually mean drastic reduction in the food grain production, which is also one of the objectives of the Kuki militants.
Thus, it is proposed that whatever strategy the government of Manipur has worked out should be implemented expeditiously at the ground level as harm caused to any farmer would have demoralising effect on other food producers in the plains, not to speak about imminent price rise next year, if farming is not carried out in full swing when favourable season prevails.
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