Amrit Rabha in front of his house at Genang village in East Garo Hills. Telegraph picture

Genang (East Garo Hills), Oct. 26: A few hours of arson and violence in January this year and 70-year-old farmer Amrit Rabha was left with no other option but to switch from farming to being a daily wage-earner.

Before violence broke out here and in the nearby villages, Rabha was comfortably looking after his four-member family. He used to grow 20 to 25 quintals of rice every season on his three bighas of fertile land. His son Sanjib earned Rs 200 to 300 daily from the rice mill at his home and some more by selling milk and black pepper grown in their backyard.

That was till the first week of January this year when ethnic clashes suddenly broke out and goons came rushing to the village, about 170km from Guwahati and burnt down his four houses, reduced the paddy stocks to ashes, took away his seven heads of cattle and burnt down the rice mill which he had set up for his son, investing about Rs 30,000.

“It was around noon and I was away in the nearby Radang forest to collect grass for the cattle. Suddenly, I saw people running here and there and goons setting the houses in our village on fire. I could not go close and had to run for my life. I took shelter and spent the night in a forest and when I returned the next morning, I found all my houses gutted, cattle stolen and smoke still billowing out of the rice mill,” Rabha told this correspondent.

Rabha and his family had spent about four months in the Amguri relief camp, about 15km away form here, with hundreds of others affected by the ethnic clashes that broke out between Rabha and Garo people living in the remote villages. After returning home, Rabha rebuilt his two houses in July with Rs 10,000 offered by the Meghalaya government and assistance from NGOs, but he was struggling to look after his family.

“I cannot resume work in the field as I have lost the cattle. Neither can I restart the rice mill as I require at least Rs 30,000 to buy a new machine,” Rabha said. The family members are scared to move out of the village because of the simmering tension between the communities.

Amid the tension, Sanjib’s wife Minuka gave birth to a baby girl and consequently, household expenses soared.

After struggling for about a month, Rabha had no option but to move out to a nearby village and work as a daily wage-earner in a rubber farm. “For the first time I worked as a wage-earner. We were not rich but our earnings were enough to meet daily expenses. I feel really bad when I work as a wage-earner for Rs 150 a day. Earlier, I used to earn Rs 200 to Rs 300 daily from my own rice mill,” he said.

Like Rabha, there are about 2,000 families belonging to both Garo and Rabha communities in Assam’s Goalpara district and East Garo Hills in Meghalaya, whose sources of livelihood were badly affected because of the ethnic clash.

The secretary of the peace co-ordination committee of the Resubelpara subdivision, Khanin D. Momin, said the ethnic conflicts hit the farmers in the villages badly.