Tripura Shifting Cultivators Settle For a Permanent Farming Mode: Rubber

By Sekhar Datta

Change of trade

Agartala, Jul 20 : Latex is luring 30 nomadic families, which were spotted in different locations in three successive censuses, into settling down — with organised rubber plantations edging out the “bohemian” jhum cultivation.

Rankubai, the fabled village peopled exclusively by Reang shifting cultivators, is now a visible dot on Tripura’s hillscape in Gandacherra subdivision bordering Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh.

A primary school, two Mark-II wells, a tenuous road linking the new hamlet to Raisyabari market and occasional visits of rubber board officials are the first marks of development.

“It was with sustained persuasion and cajoling that we managed to win over the headman of the nomadic Rankubai village, Chitradhar Reang, 60, to make a new beginning. When they agreed, we allotted 45 hectares of land to 30 owners for rubber plantation. The Rubber Board came forward, providing them with earning for work on their own land since 2005.

We have also been allotting work to them under various centrally sponsored schemes and in another two years the villagers will earn substantially from their rubber gardens,” said Shailaram Reang, joint director of primitive group programme department.

He recounted how resettlement projects for shifting cultivators — mostly Reangs — had failed earlier because within two or three years, the indigenous shifting cultivators would get tired of their new way of life and desert the resettlement areas after selling tin, timber and other household goods provided by the government.

“The entire way of life, ethos and values of the shifting cultivators revolve around jhum or shifting cultivation and without congenial conditions they tend to leave the settled way of life. Fortunately, rubber cultivation in hilly areas replicates their lifestyle in many ways,” said Reang.

Altogether 5,000 of Tripura’s 27,500 hardcore shifting cultivators have been resettled in newly created villages through rubber cultivation and the rest is also expected to be won over to the new way of life.

Apart from the resettlement scheme sponsored by the government and assisted by the rubber board, rubber cultivation is rapidly transforming Tripura’s socio-economic profile.