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Mizoram collects rat tails to arrest famine

Arup Chanda

The North-Eastern state of Mizoram is fighting a hard battle against an exploding population of rats that is rapidly destroying the crops there.

To stop the rodents, the Mizoram agriculture department is offering a rupee for every rodent tail brought in. The incentive has villagers scurrying after rats. Eighty thousand have been reportedly killed.

The Mizoram government took this unusual step to prevent famine caused by the destruction of crops by the rising rat population during the upcoming mautaam, the flowering and withering away of the bamboo, expected to occur in 2007.

In Mizo, mau means flowering of the bamboo and taam the withering away of the woody grass. In states like Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland, it occurs roughly every 50 years. The fruits produced by the flowering bamboo attract rats. After the rodents devour the fruits the bamboo withers away. Thereafter the rodents turn their attention to the other vegetation. The destruction can be massive, even leading to famine, as happened during the last mautaam in 1959.

Laldenga, the famous rebel leader, who later became the state's chief minister following the Mizo accord, had then formed the Mizo Famine Front. Alleging neglect by the then Assam government -- Mizoram was then a district of Assam -- Laldenga changed the organisation's name to the Mizo National Front and waged a 25-year-old guerrilla war against the country.

The rodent problem has become an issue of concern for the Mizoram government and it set up a Mizoram State Rodent Control Committee last September with the chief secretary as its chairman.

According to Chotku Rokhuma, the committee's vice-chairman, "We have already received 80,000 tails. As the tail themselves has no value, we burnt them after rewarding the claimants".

He said that flowering of the bamboo had been reported from various parts of Mizoram but in small patches only. The committee has been set up keeping in mind 2007 and if the state government did not start work early things could go out of control when the bamboos began flowering in earnest.

In Mizoram, large rodents found in the fields are also eaten. Rokhuma said that though 80,000 tails had been brought in, many more rats had been killed and eaten by the villagers. He justifies the reward, saying that without it villagers wouldn't have spent time killing rats.

Neighbouring Manipur has also alerted its concerned departments to monitor the situation and take effective steps before the onset of the mautaam. There are reports of flowering bamboo in the Ukhrul, Tamenglong and Churachandpur districts of the state. Manipur had last witnessed this phenomenon in 1954.

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