Offtrack: Aizwal; The Rat Race

Rukhoma is Mizoram's Pied Piper, waging a grim battle against rats. Give him a tail as proof of the rodent's death and you get a rupee for it.

Rukhoma is Mizoram's Pied Piper, waging a grim battle against rats. Give him a tail as proof of the rodent's death and you get a rupee for it.

It's up there on the wall like a trophy. Eleven 11 rat tails -- neatly protected in plastic -- stuck to a chart. Below it is a scrawl that proudly claims: "One female rat gave birth to 10 babies at one time. Killed on 18.2.99, 1 p.m. by Lalngaithanga". This unlikely badge of bravery adorns the wall of the Rodent and Insect Control Research Centre at Aizawl.

Mizoram is at war against rats. Just like the fairytale town of Hamelin, only Mizoram's fears are real. The pests can trigger a famine in the hill state by systematically nibbling away the paddy crop. "It's a matter we take very seriously here," says state chief secretary Lalringa, who is also chairman of the State Rodent Control Programme (SRCP). "Our survival depends on it." More than 70,000 rats were killed in the first two months of the current year. Though updated figures aren't available, twice that number are believed to have been exterminated since. And there's money to be made in killing the vermin: the state pays Re 1 for every rat tail deposited at the Centre.

Mizoram even has its own Pied Piper, C. Rokhuma -- the vice-chairman of SRCP. Despite battling rats for nearly five decades, the 82-year-old hasn't lost his zeal. It's an enthusiasm shared by every Mizo because an explosion of the rat population spells certain famine. Rokhuma says the explosion takes place every 48 years. The dreaded year is 2007 -- the last famine having come in 1959 -- but if the menace goes unchecked famine could arrive earlier.

There's another reason for urgency. "Bamboo is flowering in various parts of the state," says Rokhuma. This is neither tribal superstition nor senile thinking. Every fourth decade or so, when the bamboo trees start flowering, the rats prepare for the feast they relish. Normally, male rats feed on the weak young ones (one of nature's ways of keeping their numbers in check), but with an alternative meal readily available, they leave the babies alone. "This makes the rat population unmanageable," says Rokhuma. The birth arithmetic is fearful. Female rats are a fecund lot, each giving birth to between six and 10 babies every month. "So you can see how quickly things can get out of hand," explains Rokhuma. On top of this is the projection for the state's rice production this year. Optimistic estimates say rice production in the state is likely to be less than five months' supply. Owing partly to the lack of rainfall and made worse by the exponential growth of the rat population.

Mizoram has fought long and hard against rats. Back in the early '60s when the state was recovering from its mautam (the local word for the year in the bamboo-tree cycle when the older generation of trees dies and a new one is born) famine of 1959, the late chief minister Laldenga launched the Famine Front with the help of Rokhuma. The Famine Front cobbled together a volunteer force thereafter that enabled Laldenga to form one of the most dreaded insurgent outfits in the North-east, the Mizo National Front, from among its recruits. Instead of rats, Laldenga and his men started fighting the Union government -- till the Mizo Accord was signed in 1986. But Rokhuma and hundreds of others in Mizoram have continued the original battle.

The fight's been going on for close to a hundred years now. Records show that as far back as 1912, when the population of the state was just 91,000, and a maund (37 kg) of rice cost just Rs 5.10, the Mizos had killed exactly 1,79,015 rats. That figure rose dramatically to 1.5 million in 1929, when people got wise to the connection between rats and the famine. It's no wonder then that the SRCP has an unlimited budget. No red tape stops the reward for rat tails being given out regularly, and Rokuma meticulously maintains the records of rat killings.

The old man overturns a sackful of tails on the ground in front of his little laboratory. Around him are rats kept in cages for experiments and in formalin for observation. There's a dead 13-teated female -- equipped for a litter of 13 -- that sends a shiver up Rokhuma's spine. "Thank God, they aren't all like that," he says. The only thing you don't see there are rats running free. How could they when there's a price on their tails?