Jhum cultivation, an unusual agricultural practice in the northeastern states, considered as sustainable and egalitarian, is now under threat from long drawn conflict in the region. Private vested interests are out to prove that it has a harmful impact on the environment.
Unlike many other parts of India, people in rural hills of northeast India mostly engage in pre-capitalist sustenance activities with surplus produce sold in nearby bazaars.
The most important and widespread activity is shifting cultivation, of primarily the slash-and-burn variety along the hill slopes.
This practice, called jhum, usually ensures enough grains and vegetables for the entire year.
Along the lines of the egalitarian functioning of most tribes in the region, this form of cultivation has men and women playing equally large roles.
Along the lines of the egalitarian functioning of most tribes in the region, this form of cultivation has men and women playing equally large roles.
Women often even playing a dominant role especially in deciding distribution of the produce and selling of the surplus.
In recent years though, the system has been affected by the numerous ongoing conflicts in the region, causing immense hardship to those people dependent on it.
In addition, questions have been raised about jhum's impacts of the practice on the local ecology, which need a brief examination.
About jhum
Jhum requires chopping firewood along a tract of hill-land, clearing that tract through controlled fires for cultivation, cultivating on the land as per a tight seasonal schedule, and then carrying large bundles of firewood (often uphill) back to one's village in the evening for cooking fire.
The timeframe for jhum is fairly strict, especially keeping in mind the heavy rainfall in the area, requiring the land to be cleared and seeds sowed in time for the monsoons.
The timeframe for jhum is fairly strict, especially keeping in mind the heavy rainfall in the area, requiring the land to be cleared and seeds sowed in time for the monsoons.
The forest land is usually cleared in December and January by slashing at shrubs, and cutting trees, while leaving tree stumps and roots.
The slashed vegetation is then allowed to dry for a month or two before burning the tract of land in March.
In addition to clearing the land, the burning of the leftover vegetation returns nutrients to the soil through ash and the killing of microbes allowing relatively higher yields. Seeds are then sowed, which mainly consist of cereals, vegetables and oil seeds.
The practice is usually driven by sustainability and the village or group of villages practicing jhum on one particular tract of land continue until the soil is depleted of nutrients and then move on to another allowing the former tract of land to regenerate.
In earlier times, with lower population numbers, the land would be cultivated on for 10-20 years, but now it rarely goes beyond three to five years, due to greater pressures on the land for food.
The acute time-sensitivity of the cycle is important to note as this feature of the practice is most affected by the various ongoing conflicts in the region.
Effects of the conflicts
Large sections of rural Northeast India and their modes of commerce now function under the sway of Indian military cantonments, which have usurped expansive tracts of land and harshly affected rural livelihood activities.
Large sections of rural Northeast India and their modes of commerce now function under the sway of Indian military cantonments, which have usurped expansive tracts of land and harshly affected rural livelihood activities.
Furthermore the villagers often find themselves caught in between the military and the insurgencies.
Mokokchung in Nagaland is a classic example of military cantonments taking over prime land across Northeast India.
Central Reserve Police Force barracks built over beautiful forestland, and vast army campuses sprawled over the landscape are everywhere, cordoned off from the rest of the population.
Vast tracts of hilly forestland that villagers would practice jhum on are now completely off limits, taken over, rather 'occupied', by the armed Indian state.
The hampering of rural modes of sustenance can also be witnessed in numerous rural areas in Manipur, Upper Assam as well as regions like the Garo and Khasi Hills of Meghalaya.
Furthermore, with the Indian government's 'Look East' policy with respect to trade and commerce, states like Nagaland, Assam and Meghalaya become critical as gateways to expanding trade-relations with Southeast and East Asian countries. As a result local modes of sustenance such as jhum get impacted.
Impact on ecology and differing viewpoints
Ecologically, the practice of jhum has had certain experts convinced that it has a deleterious effect on the local environment.
While others have often thwarted those arguments and proved that jhum in fact is a sustainable form of agricultural production best suited for the specific ecology of the hill regions.
The arguments against jhum have included projecting it as an unsustainable practice that depletes the soil of nutrients, reducing the forest cover, causing landslides, etc.
The arguments against jhum have included projecting it as an unsustainable practice that depletes the soil of nutrients, reducing the forest cover, causing landslides, etc.
Arguments against jhum have come from state forestry departments, development ministries like DONER (Development Of North East Region) or trade promoting entities like the World Bank who lean towards utilisation of the region's forest resources for the benefit of national and private capital.
In addition, private entities wishing to utilise the land for specific profit-making ventures, like extraction industries, utilise these arguments to push the state to wean away local villagers from practicing jhum in order to lease the land.
This has happened in the hill regions of Meghalaya and Assam where corrupt or otherwise, village councils leased out land to private and national corporations for extraction industries including coal, limestone, and uranium in the future.
In addition, the paper industry has pushed for the growth of bamboo by villagers as a cash crop replacing an egalitarian cultivation system with one that has created a small mercantilist class controlling all bamboo production.
However, these arguments have been rebutted by many scientists, including studies by organisations like the Indian Institute of Science, Tata Energy Research Institute and UNESCO who have proved in different ways that jhum is indeed a sustainable form of agriculture best suited to the rainy hill regions of Northeast India, over other forms of agriculture such as valley or terrace cultivation.
