As morning breaks, Manipur's poppy fields expose families with no good choices. For many, growing opium (the dried latex from the seed pods of the opium poppy) means survival but also deeper poverty and fear. It is not about crime or greed. It is about desperation, about rural families forced to choose between the law and feeding their children.

Though I was born and raised in Imphal, my ties to the hill communities remain strong. In speaking with those who live this struggle, I could empathise with why the opium poppy has become a silent killer across Manipur's most vulnerable regions. In these forgotten corners, the moral question is brutally simple: do you break the law, or do you watch your children starve while staying within it?

Case Study - Two Worlds of Opium Farming

Not all opi

See Full Page