Mandsaur (Madhya Pradesh)/New Delhi: The building that’s now the district opium office in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh, used to be a jail once. In 1922, the long barracks with their stone walls and rugged floors were converted into an afeem godaam - opium warehouse - where farmers came with legally harvested opium that was weighed and checked for quality.
Engraved in yellow stone at the entrance to the building is a slice of history: “Opium Cultivation Office, Gwalior Government, 1922”.
Close to a century later, thousands of farmers in Mandsaur district are still growing the narcotic herb under strict government supervision. And the opium office, with its mandate of enforcing stringent laws around poppy cultivation, continues to symbolize confinement for farmers like Amrit Ram Patidar, who refers to opium farming as “ghulami ki kheti” (a slave’s crop). They live with the fear that the magnificent white poppy fields that bloom every winter could result in their being marked as criminals - as Patidar learnt on the morning of 13 June.
A well-off farmer from Mandsaur, 46-year-old Patidar was attending to his shop, which sells farm inputs like seeds and fertilizers. It was just a week after five protesting farmers had been shot dead by the local police on 6 June. Mandsaur, a prosperous farming district in western Madhya Pradesh, had featured in the national news and become an embarrassment for a state government perceived as farmer-friendly. The police had brought out a list of 32 farmers who they believed had led the protests and arson in which several shops and vehicles were torched. Patidar’s name was on that list. He ran from his shop when he saw the police entering the village, and fell down and broke his leg while scaling a wall.
About two months later, on 8 August, when this writer met Patidar in Mandsaur’s Balaguda village, he was still on the run.
“Our protests had nothing to do with opium... it was to force the government to do something about falling crop prices. But they took the easy way out by saying afeem taskars (local parlance for those dealing in illegal opium) were behind the protests,” said Patidar.
His claims are not unfounded. Months after the harvesting of the winter crop, unsold spices and garlic are piled up in farmers’ houses, stored in the hope that prices may recover.
“We grow more than 40 different crops. My village supplies thousands of litres of milk every day to dairies...but when officials visit our village and see a nicely built house, they chuckle and say, your wealth is due to taskari (illegal trade),” said Patidar.
A short ride away from the district opium office, over three-quarters of the inmates lodged in Mandsaur district jail are either facing trial or have been convicted under the stringent Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985. Most are poor agricultural workers and some are farmers. “If you remove convicts charged under the narcotics Act, this jail will be empty... Mandsaur is that peaceful a place,” said Sunil Sharma, the jailor.
Yogendra Yadav, a member of the Jai Kisan Andolan, a farmers’ movement, and president of political party Swaraj Abhiyan, who visited the district in July, however, has a different take. “In Mandsaur the police can step into a house at any time... and false cases are common to settle personal scores,” he said.
An exceptional display of state power was visible during the recent farmer protests, said Yadav. “Farmers who were part of that agitation were labelled smugglers. The reality is that legal cultivation of opium is forcing a vast population to live under fear and criminality...at the mercy of the local administration and police,” he added.
After months of chasing him, the police arrested Patidar on 22 August and released on bail three days later.
Why grow opium?
Opium poppy, or Papaver somniferum, a medicinal herb that produces a variety of alkaloids such as morphine and codeine, is best known as a pain reliever in modern medicine. It is used for a range of treatments, from post-operative pain management and palliative care for terminal cancer patients to treating accident-related trauma and chronic pain syndromes. Read more
Engraved in yellow stone at the entrance to the building is a slice of history: “Opium Cultivation Office, Gwalior Government, 1922”.
Close to a century later, thousands of farmers in Mandsaur district are still growing the narcotic herb under strict government supervision. And the opium office, with its mandate of enforcing stringent laws around poppy cultivation, continues to symbolize confinement for farmers like Amrit Ram Patidar, who refers to opium farming as “ghulami ki kheti” (a slave’s crop). They live with the fear that the magnificent white poppy fields that bloom every winter could result in their being marked as criminals - as Patidar learnt on the morning of 13 June.
A well-off farmer from Mandsaur, 46-year-old Patidar was attending to his shop, which sells farm inputs like seeds and fertilizers. It was just a week after five protesting farmers had been shot dead by the local police on 6 June. Mandsaur, a prosperous farming district in western Madhya Pradesh, had featured in the national news and become an embarrassment for a state government perceived as farmer-friendly. The police had brought out a list of 32 farmers who they believed had led the protests and arson in which several shops and vehicles were torched. Patidar’s name was on that list. He ran from his shop when he saw the police entering the village, and fell down and broke his leg while scaling a wall.
About two months later, on 8 August, when this writer met Patidar in Mandsaur’s Balaguda village, he was still on the run.
“Our protests had nothing to do with opium... it was to force the government to do something about falling crop prices. But they took the easy way out by saying afeem taskars (local parlance for those dealing in illegal opium) were behind the protests,” said Patidar.
His claims are not unfounded. Months after the harvesting of the winter crop, unsold spices and garlic are piled up in farmers’ houses, stored in the hope that prices may recover.
“We grow more than 40 different crops. My village supplies thousands of litres of milk every day to dairies...but when officials visit our village and see a nicely built house, they chuckle and say, your wealth is due to taskari (illegal trade),” said Patidar.
A short ride away from the district opium office, over three-quarters of the inmates lodged in Mandsaur district jail are either facing trial or have been convicted under the stringent Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985. Most are poor agricultural workers and some are farmers. “If you remove convicts charged under the narcotics Act, this jail will be empty... Mandsaur is that peaceful a place,” said Sunil Sharma, the jailor.
Yogendra Yadav, a member of the Jai Kisan Andolan, a farmers’ movement, and president of political party Swaraj Abhiyan, who visited the district in July, however, has a different take. “In Mandsaur the police can step into a house at any time... and false cases are common to settle personal scores,” he said.
An exceptional display of state power was visible during the recent farmer protests, said Yadav. “Farmers who were part of that agitation were labelled smugglers. The reality is that legal cultivation of opium is forcing a vast population to live under fear and criminality...at the mercy of the local administration and police,” he added.
After months of chasing him, the police arrested Patidar on 22 August and released on bail three days later.
Why grow opium?
Opium poppy, or Papaver somniferum, a medicinal herb that produces a variety of alkaloids such as morphine and codeine, is best known as a pain reliever in modern medicine. It is used for a range of treatments, from post-operative pain management and palliative care for terminal cancer patients to treating accident-related trauma and chronic pain syndromes. Read more