When Sunder Bai’s husband, Shiv Narayan, died during the COVID-19 pandemic, she inherited 1 square kilometre of land and his licence to cultivate opium. She lives with her daughter and son in a village near Nayagaon in Neemuch district on the Madhya-Pradesh Rajasthan border. “Both my children, who are graduates, support and help me in this profession,” says Bai. “We employ four or five people to cultivate opium and extract opium gum.”
Bai’s son Anil, 25, who holds a degree in physics, has decided not to find a job and instead help his mother on the farm. Opium cultivation is known as swabhiman ki kheti (agriculture of dignity) in the Mewar region that is spread across Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. There is so much pride in the age-old trade that a saying in this area goes, “Afeem aur aulat barabar (poppy plants and children deserve similar treatment)”. While farmers in Madhya Pradesh call the crop afeem, a name which finds its origin in Persia, the community in Rajasthan calls it amal (pure).
Entire families in this region usually cultivate opium from November to March; some have doing this for as long as 200 years. Young men and women protect the family licence for various reasons. “One reason is that it increases their marriage prospects,” says Parmanand Patidar, a farmer, laughing.
