Ghazipur
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Opium
2017
Described as a `sea of poppies' in Amitav Ghosh's novel by the same title, Ghazipur today is not even a pond.
Opium cultivation here is reduced to a few acres. Stricter norms, unstable weather conditions and threats from criminals make opium farming a risky proposition for anyone.
The iconic Ghazipur opium factory, which many historians say financed British rule in India, lies forgotten today in a corner of the town.
Characterised once by the hustle-bustle of an industrial city, the factory -set up in 1820 by the East India Company and used by the British during the Opium Wars with China -was the nerve centre of the entire region. The opium processed at Ghazipur was sent to Calcutta for auction and then shipped to the south China coast and smuggled into the country via the port of Canton.
It's a changed scenario today . A handful of poppy growers who survived various odds stacked against them say they are doing it just but because they are tethered to their past.
Jaswant Singh, a farmer in Gohda village of Zamania assembly constituency here, is the second generation opium farmer in the family . “Licences to produce poppy were revoked in 2003 and were reissued only last year. This is our first pro duce in more than a decade and given the strict norms of the government, we would hardly make any profit,“ he says.
“Prior to the 1980s, licences were issued to almost any farmer who wanted get into opium farming. The region used to be covered in white carpet of poppy flowers. Gradually, trafficking made inroads in the trade which attracted stricter norms,“says Madan Ram who gave up opium farming many years ago.
Only seven farmers in five villages, including Hohdha, Noorpur, Pachokhar and Nariyawn, were given licences by the ministry of finance in 2016.“The once famous belt for poppy cultivation is now reduced to few acres. Given the initial cost of procuring seed, sowing and fertiliser and harvest, we have to look for more options besides selling it to the Ghazipur opium factory to make profits,“ says Shyam Lal Kushwaha, another farmer in Noorpur village.
Ram Niwas Singh, an erst while opium farmer, says the government has always treated the poppy growers with suspicion.
“None of Akhilesh Yadav's pilot schemes of crop insurance and cheap agricultural loans for farmers ever reached any beneficiary here. The region has faced neglect of successive regimes in UP for decades,“ he says.
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Ghazipur
