The lucrative crop altering tribal fortunes
KANDHAMAL/GAJAPATI, ODISHA : Fifteen years ago, Liponi Gomango moved into her husband’s mud hut after marriage. Her husband was jobless. She was cooking food for a hostel, earning ₹10 a day.
Soon, she started losing weight as she ate less to feed the rest of the family. Her first baby died prematurely. She lost all hope of a better life.
Liponi Gomango is from the Sora community, a tribe largely concentrated in Odisha’s Gajapathi district, about five hours from Bhubaneswar. Back then, many tribals and Dalits in the region lived in abject poverty. A lot of them still do but not the Gomangos.
They turned rupee millionaires. In the past four years, they made more than ₹1 lakh nearly every month—until October 2022. Gomango has tons of new outfits and sandals.
Her three children attend elite boarding institutions. The mud hut she moved into after her marriage has given way to a five-room house— with concrete walls, granite floors, ceiling fans and tiled toilets. The family got a Bolero, a sports utility vehicle (SUV).
Their neighbours and friends have gotten wealthy too. Visitors to the village, Mohana, are now treated not with water, but Coke. What explains the shift? The transformation has little to do with any government planning.
A large number of people, including the Gomango family, opted to live outside the law. They bet their family’s fortunes on a crop that many people here regard as godsend: cannabis or ganja. The dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds from the plant, called marijuana (and popularly as weed), is one of the most commonly used illegal substances in India and elsewhere.
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