Bharatiya Veerangana: Mangri Orang

Mangri Orang, who is said to be the First Female Martyr of Assam and Bharat’s Freedom Movement, was shot in Lalmati, Darrang district of Assam for leading a fight against foreign liquor and opium in 1921. She was gunned down by British policemen as she was a Congress volunteer of the Non-cooperation movement. Originally, her native place is from Central Bharat. British colonial planters brought various Janajaati people from across Bharat to colonial Assam to work as tea plantation workers. Her fellow plantation workers used to call her a Malati Mem (short for memsahib).

Assam was colonized from 1826 by the ‘Treaty of Yandabo’ and freed in 1947 with Independence of Bharat. In all these years, Darrang district witnessed the first-ever mass movement of Non-cooperation and subsequently laid the groundwork for mass agitation. The Non-cooperation movement was the summarized product of many suppressed feelings with respect to the Jalianwala Bagh Massacre, the implementation of Martial law, and the Rowlat act, which started in 1920. The starting point of the deterioration of British rule is the end of World War I, which was in 1918. From that point, agitations got stronger across Bharat against the British government.

A strong movement for the boycott of educational institutions and foreign goods and liquor and opium shops was launched by Assam students under this movement in 1920. Students and teachers spread awareness about the harmful consequences of opium eating. The thought of consuming foreign liquor is equivalent to perpetual slavery, was spread like wildfire in Assam under this movement. Each tea worker was initially against this movement as liquor was the only source for them to push their bodies to do a lot more physical work than their original capacities. Opium and liquor intoxication offered them temporary relief from pain.Top of Form But as they learned about the harmful effects, no one except uneducated Mangri took the pledge to stop consuming liquor and became inspired to work for this Movement in Assam. Slowly everybody joined this movement. The revolutionary zeal of Mangri made her a leader, and she fought fearlessly against opium.

In 2022, the Assam government inaugurated 96 model schools in the vicinity of tea gardens with the provision of secondary education. Those schools are named after great personalities of tea communities or those who contributed to the tea community's development, hence the model school in Tezpur-Ghogora has been named after martyr Mangri Orang. A statue of the great lady has been unveiled at the Sepon Tea Estate in Dibrugarh.

Reflections…

1.    Many tea garden community members are from Janajaati-s like Munda, Santhal, Kurukh, Gonds, Bhumij, and others from central and other parts of Bharat. They have the status of Other Backward Class in Assam but they are assigned to Scheduled Tribes status in their native places. Hence, they have been demanding Scheduled Tribe status in Assam, but the tribal organization of Assam is against it, which has resulted in several clashes between them and deaths. The forced migration from their roots to other parts of the country leads to such long-lasting negative consequences. The classic strategy of ‘Divide & Rule’ played a vicious role in the history of Bharat. Just notice the connection of forced migration in the 19th century with the current century’s clashes for the valid status in Bharat.

2.   Numbers of people from the community actively participated in the Bharat independence movement. The names of these tea garden labourers never got any importance in historiography. The socio status of the tea garden community is so bleak that they easily get exploited by tea planters, then government officials. Lack of health care facilities, education, basic clean residence pushed them to fall for various intoxications which help them to earn quick money and pleasures.

3.   Early in the 18th century, the Portuguese found that they could import opium from Bharat and sell it in China at a considerable profit. By 1773, the British had discovered the trade, and that year they became the leading suppliers of the Chinese market. The British East Bharat Company established a monopoly on opium cultivation in the Bharat province of Bengal, where they developed a method of growing opium poppies cheaply and abundantly. Other Western countries also joined in the trade, including the United States, which dealt in Turkish as well as Bharat opium. Britain and other European countries undertook the opium trade because of their chronic trade imbalance with China. There was tremendous demand in Europe for Chinese tea, silks, and porcelain pottery, but there was correspondingly little demand in China for Europe’s manufactured goods and other trade items. Consequently, Europeans had to pay for Chinese products with gold or silver. The opium trade, which created a steady demand among Chinese addicts for opium imported by the West, solved this chronic trade imbalance. The excessive use of opium in Assam was identified as the reason for the 'idle disposition' of the people. The 'opium plague' soon became an 'imperial problem', with the European tea planters settled in Assam vociferously demanding colonial intervention.

4.   Myanmar is the world's largest producer of opium. Four states of North-East, those are Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, and Mizoram, bordered the Myanmar. Manipur has seen an unprecedented rise in illicit poppy cultivation during the past years. The cultivation of poppy, locally known as kaani, has taken over the hilly regions of the state, populated mostly by Schedule Tribes. Drug abuse has become a serious concern which has gripped every faction of the society, including the youth and children. Are we able to connect the drug smuggling routes now?

Complex Realities:

The highest prevalence of people with opioid use disorders in Bharat is observed in the eastern parts of the country, while the largest numbers of people with opioid use disorders are found in north-western Bharat (Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Haryana) as well as in some of the central-western States (Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh), as per the latest World Drug Report 2023 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC). The report also warns of cheap and easy synthetics changing drug markets with lethal results. Are we really going to learn some lesson from Afghanistan's Drug Story? Just one act of purchase of one packet of drug can infuse your hard-earned money into the illicit market devastating your life and along with you many other lives across the world.

For this, a humble plea...

Bad thoughts and negative environments often pave the way for quick and easy escapes, which can eventually develop into habits and lead to addiction. Let's begin by assessing whether our house helpers or cleaners are grappling with addiction. If they are, then it's crucial to uncover the triggers behind such addictive behaviours. We should introspect and consider whether our neglect in providing them with proper gear or maintaining a clean work environment might be contributing to their struggles. Taking small steps, such as offering gloves, masks, and ensuring a hygienic workplace in our homes, can be a significant form of support. It's essential to broaden our perspective and recognize how our individual actions connect to larger societal issues. By collectively taking this initiative, we can set an example for our children and work towards creating an addiction-free society.

||Jai Hind||