Mao's opium different from Marx's

Bihar has traditionally been part of the opium trade route, that heady stuff being a by-product of indigo. In 1903, the British colonial administration had appointed a certain Richard W Blair as a sub-deputy opium agent in Bihar. According to some accounts, the official was blessed with a son who was born in the godown mint for storing opium in Champaran! His name: George Orwell.

Beginning in Ghazipur, now in UP, the route has for centuries been a major transit point for opium and its products, leading up to Nepal and then further on. But what even the British in their wisdom could not have conjured, areas that once propelled this trade and constituted part of British India's Forward Policy of eastward expansion, are now under a different kind of spell: Maoist threat.

Police and security officials in Bihar say it is no mere coincidence that Maoists are steadily and stealthily encouraging opium cultivation in their backyards, areas deemed to be 'liberated' by not just the Naxalites themselves but by the state as well. In the last ten years, poppy crops have sprung up in the deadly riverine areas, inaccessible territory along the Ganges that are particularly difficult  for law enforcement agencies to penetrate.

Such has been the threat of this illegal poppy cultivation that the government has opened a branch office of the Central Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). Legally, poppy crops are allowed to be cultivated only in Gwalior and Neemuch for medicinal purposes.

The districts affected by this phantom cultivation, away from the prying eyes of satellites the Bihar government has introduced, include Purnia, Araria, Kishanganj, Katihar, Bhagalpur, Khagaria, Banka and former well entrenched Maoist strongholds Jehanabad, Nalanda, Aurangabad and Gaya.

The vast poppy crop in remote villages, purportedly under Maoist protection, has baffled the police. Says Bihar's additional DG (headquarters) Rajwardhan Sharma, "A large amount of the money collected through poppy cultivation goes to banned outfits.” Sources say that CID officials are now busy identifying areas where the cultivation is particularly rampant.

The first poppy crop was sighted in 2001-2002 through satellite images collected by CID officials on the Indo-Nepal-Bangladesh border. The first opium factory was busted in Sasaram in 2004 when the narcotics team raided the house of dreaded heroin mafiosi Rahman, who ran an underground factory meant for manufacturing heroine and opium.

The NCB had immediately alerted the Bihar government: uncontrolled opium cultivation could ruin the local agro-economy while endangering the lives of farmers. Also along the trade route, a lot of cultivation continues to be in the hands of North East's terrorist outfits.

Such has been the intensity of the Bihar police's campaign against the Maoists and their illegal cultivation that standing crops of opium spread over several thousand acres of land in Bhagalpur, Khagaria, Kishenganj have been destroyed.

Consider this: on March 11, a Kishanganj police team led by SP Ranjeet Mishra destroyed 2,500 poppy plants spread over about 5 kathas of land in Mirzapur Begarni village under the Pothia police station. Strategically, the approach to Pothia is through West Bengal. The Bihar police generally avoids inaccessible areas such as this.
In a recent incident, poppy grown on about 10 acres of land at Sigurahi village under Madanpur police station in Naxal-hit Aurangabad district was destroyed by a joint team of district police, Special Task Force, the Central Reserve Police Force and a COBRA battalion.

The Gaya district administration carried out an operation in three villages in Mohanpur Block after a tip off that opium was being cultivated. The police busted the yield.
From 2008, eleven raids have been conducted in Kishanganj district alone. It is close to the Bangladesh and Nepal border. In 2009, the Excise department had destroyed an opium plantation in a special operation.

Aurangabad SP Vivek Raj Singh told TSI that they get regular feedback about cultivation of opium in areas considered to be Maoist strongholds. Intelligence sources add that Maoists have identified “liberated zones”, rarely patrolled by the police.

They lured farmers, selling them the 'new' mustard seed which would fetch sound dividends. Many farmers were unaware of the consequences of poppy cultivation. By the time they realised, it was too late. "We have to follow the diktats of Maoists. If we refuse, they can do anything,'' says a local farmer, echoing on a smaller scale what is happening with   heroin cultivation in Afghanistan.

The economics is such that the temptation is very high. According to the Aurangabad SP, a farmer can earn a profit of Rs 1 to 1.5 crore by growing  opium on one acre land. Poppy crops are  processed to produce opium and heroin.

A kg of opium seed fetches anywhere between Rs 35,000 to Rs 50,000 in the Indian market and even though there is no demand in the local market, they sell  well in India's metropolitan centres.

With some resistance from the police now and the obvious reluctance of villagers caught between the Maoists and law enforcement guns, extremists have started producing poppy themselves, specially on lands known as Gairmajarua or government land.

According to state officials, opium is being grown in major parts of Jharkhand where the thick forest and abandoned government buildings provide the perfect cover for extremists. The districts particularly hit include Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Chatra and Latehar.

How do the Maoists lay their hands on government land? The Kishanganj story is a case in point. The local police busted an illegal opium plantation on a four-acre plot in Simalbari village. The landowners confessed they had leased  their plot to a Mohammed Nazmul. It came to light that Ziaul Haque and Mohammad Nazmul had leased out a tract of land for Rs 1,700 through one of their relatives. The landowners and villagers were stunned to know that the crop, which planters had claimed was a new variety of mustard from Assam, was actually opium. Too late.

Says Rajwardhan Sharma, "Poppy is one of the prime sources for Maoists. Now we are trying to establish links with the purchasers outside the state.'' The police have identified some groups in Nepal and Bangladesh, from where Indian Maoists procure their regular 'goods'. An NCB team is also trying to establish the links of Bihar-based Maoists with banned outfits in the North East. Militant outfits in Nagaland and Tripura are known to cultivate opium as a major source of their funding, as were Nepali Maoists, before they became respectable. Bihari Maoists are obviously in good company.