Bamboo Flowers

[sub.ma...@gmail.com]

When The Bamboo Flowers!
When the bamboo flowers, famine, death and destruction will soon
follow, goes a traditional saying in Mizoram, the tiny hill state in
north-east India. Who better than the hardy Mizos would know this,
considering that theirs is probably the only land on earth where
history is closely intertwined with the mysterious cycle of bamboo
flowering. Back in 1959, bamboo flowering in the state set off a chain
of events in the rugged hilly state that ultimately led to one of the
most powerful insurgencies against the Indian union spanning over two
decades.
Folklore apart, scientists say that the strange phenomena of bamboo
flowering, called 'gregarious bamboo flowering' because the bamboo
clumps flower all at the same time only once in the plants' lifetime,
wreaks ecological havoc because of two reasons. First, bamboo plants
die after flowering. It will be at least some years before bamboo
plants take seed again, leaving bare exposed soil - which could be
disastrous in mountainous states - and also leading to food scarcity,
since animals depend on bamboo plants. The second factor is that rats
feed on the flowers and seeds of the dying bamboo tree. This activates
a rapid birth rate among the rodents, which leads to the huge rat
population feeding on agricultural crops in the fields and granaries
and causes famine.
It was precisely this scenario in Mizoram in the late 1950s, when the
authorities failed to respond with quick famine relief. The
disillusionment and anger finally resulted in the Mizo National Famine
Front, an organization created to help people get relief, changing
into the Mizo National Front, an ethnic political party which involved
the Mizos in a 20-year war of attrition against India which ended only
in 1987 with a peace accord.
Now, the bamboo is going to flower again within the next four to five
years, say experts. And this time, it's not going to be just in
Mizoram, but in the huge bamboo forested areas across the other north
eastern states of Tripura, Manipur and Southern Assam, an occurrence
that has attracted national and international attention as well as the
concern of the authorities.
The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests is roping in experts,
including some from the International Bamboo and Rattan Network
(INBAR) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization
(UNIDO), for hectic consultations on how to handle this natural growth
cycle of the humble bamboo plant which has such an extraordinary twin
effect directly bearing on the socio-economic well being and a long-
term ecological impact.
Today, famine may be prevented because most villages are now linked to
the main government centers, and because the "Mizo experience" is
always there to remind them of the political outcome of bamboo
flowering. Yet, it is the ghastly prospect of having dry, rotting mass
of bamboo copses covering about 18,000 hectares of the region with
about 25 million tons of bamboo, which is causing much concern. The
question vexing the authorities is how to harvest these resources
before the flowering sets in.
A thriving economy revolves around bamboo. The pulp and paper
industry, construction, cottage industry and handloom, food, fuel,
fodder and medicine annually consume about 22 million tons of bamboo.
"If left un-harvested this means a loss of around Rs 12,000 million
(1US$=Rs49)," said Director General of the Indian Council of Forestry
Research and Education (ICFRE) R P S Katwal, at the latest round of
UNIDO-sponsored expert consultations on "Strategies for Sustainable
Utilization of Bamboo Resources Subsequent to Gregarious Flowering In
North-East". This consultation, held at the Jorhat Rain Forest
Research Institute, one of the premier forest institutes of the
country, was attended by bamboo experts from all over, including INBAR
expert from Beijing, Andrew Benton.
"What will be the fate of the numerous paper mills in the northeast
region? People have to be made aware beforehand to mitigate the
devastating consequences of the phenomenon," says Kamesh Salam, head
of the UNIDO-supported Cane and Bamboo Technology Cell in Jorhat.
While there seems to be a consensus among the experts that the
resources should be used before they become worthless, the problem is
how to do that. Complicating the problem further is the fact that most
of the bamboo is located in inaccessible parts of the hills and where
it is within reach, it remains locked in a complicated bureaucratic
system which has little regard for the urgency to speed things up
before the cycle sets in. While the negative ecological and
commercial fall out are doubtless matters of grave concern, there
seems to be a distinct lack of concomitant attention to the immediate
human fallout of the bamboo flowering cycle, particularly on women and
children in these hills.
What would happen to common rural northeasterners who depend on bamboo
for almost everything - from a raw material to build their homes to
food, and as one of the few sources of cash. Bamboo rotting over
hundreds of acres and the growth of the rat population will have a
devastating effect on the jhum (slash and burn) cultivation on which a
majority of the rural folk still depend for growing food, thus
affecting the already precarious food security of the rural people.
Women, who make up the majority of the rural work force and contribute
more to holding up the rural economy, will be particularly vulnerable.
Their major source of money income - such as the jhum field produce,
the vegetables from the wild and the bamboo shoots which they gather
and sell in town markets - would disappear, at least for a crucial
period of time, seriously affecting the sparse family budget.
Water, which is already a scarce resource in most of the hills, will
become scarcer, the Mizoram experience shows. Experts say that during
the bamboo flowering in Mizoram in the late 1950s and '60s, there was
a sharp rise in temperature followed by a spell of dry arid weather,
which had a direct fallout on the health of the people. Not only that,
women and children who have to spend hours to fetch water will be
forced to spend even more time carrying out this task.
It is only when the potential impact of the bamboo flowering cycle on
the people's lives receives proper attention, that a safety net for
the most vulnerable section of the population can be created. There is
still time to take steps to prevent widespread disaffection which
could well result in history repeating itself. But there is no time to
waste.
- Linda Chhakchhuak
July 3, 2002
Top
Apropos Raghu Ananth's, SunilMehta & Sachin Pandhare's reports
(Jan 13 ?) the above article does away with all presumptions.
It is strange that no comments on flowering interval of 40-60 years
and that of 7 to 8 years did arise.
The above note holds equally well with Tripura hills.