JOIN USHow women of this Arunachal village came together to make it opium free
Arunachal Pradesh’s Changlang district is just one of the many districts battling the menace of opium addiction (‘kaani’ for the locals). The state has been on the radar of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment after a survey placed eight of its districts on Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan’s list of 272 across the 32 states and union territories.
The state has been notorious for its illegal opium cultivation that is facilitated due to its cross-border trade with Myanmar—the second opium largest producer in the world after Afghanistan—the remote location in the northernmost part of the state. Opium cultivation helps people make fast and easy money, and growing opium as a cash crop has put the lives of an entire generation of young people at risk.
However, there is a small glimmer of hope, as a community has decided to rid itself of drug addiction.
The women of Kengkhu
Three months ago, in March 2022, scores of women from Changlang’s Kengkhu village took it upon themselves to ensure a drug-free community—by sticking together as a community and sending their opium-addicted husbands to a de-addiction facility 100km away in Bordumsa. They told the Indian Express that their plan worked because “no one was singled out”. It all began when these women approached the then Deputy Commissioner Devansh Yadav in February 2021.
Civic authority’s role
Now transferred to Jammu, Devansh Yadav, the then district deputy commissioner, played a vital role in the community’s journey towards de-addiction. Having run de-addiction campaigns before, Yadav understood that the approach here needs to be different. He guided the women to set up a self-help group in collaboration with the village gram sabhas to discuss the issue. Their campaign came to be known as “Nasha Mukt Changlang” which, instead of targeting individuals, targets villages and facilitates de-addiction treatments.
Yadav told the daily that the solution was in treating addiction as a social problem rather than a criminal one.
Their progress so far
According to Yadav, 16 other villages have adopted their model. Nasha Mukt Changlang's website said that 163 people (haven’t been able to confirm this number) had been admitted to de-addiction centres under the initiative.
Those who have undergone rehabilitation are now slowly rebuilding their lives and searching for alternative means of livelihood.
Rampant illegal opium cultivation
According to a 2010 survey conducted by the Institute for Narcotics Study and Analysis, approximately 15,000 hectares of opium fields were found in just Anjaw and Lohit districts. This cultivation is not just disastrous for the communities, but periodic destruction of the land by the authorities has rendered large amounts of forest lands uncultivable, a result that is disastrous for the global biodiversity hotspot. The same study estimated at least 10,000 addicts in the same districts.
The efforts by the Nasha Mukt Abhiyan campaign and its volunteers have been colossal, to say the least. Talking to Indian Express, Dihom Kitnya, a 34-year-old social worker from Hatongchu village, points out that what is different about Changlang’s programme is the close cooperation of the local community and the authorities.
With high hopes, Merina Kenga from Old Changlang village told the paper, “Every other home in our village has an addict. So even if you save one family, it is a feat.”