Jamatia youth risk family ties to battle addiction in rural Tripura

My village Killa, located in Tripura’s Gomati district, has a drug addiction problem. Young people in the village suffer from heroin, morphine, and brown sugar addiction. This is affecting not only them and their health but also their families. The youth often sell and mortgage their properties to pay for the drugs. Many also share syringes, leading to a rise in HIV cases here.

In 2024, I became a member of the student association at Jamatia Hoda, a social body that manages the cultural, social, and religious affairs of the Jamatia tribe. Concerned about our people, the current and former members of the student association came together to raise awareness against drug abuse and help the youth access rehabilitation centres. Because we are a close-knit community, it is easy for us to know if someone is struggling with drug addiction. Once we have the information, we go from house to house to speak to the addicts and their families.

This is not always an easy process. Many families refuse to accept that their close ones are addicted. They ignore the signs, reject our efforts to help, and sometimes even oppose us when we try to intervene.

For example, I knew that my uncle was struggling with addiction. In 2024, we visited his house. We spoke with his wife who agreed that her husband needs to go into rehab, but his mother refused to believe us. Then, we spoke with my uncle directly. He said, “I cannot just go off it. I will have to gradually reduce the dose.” A few days later, he himself came to us and asked to be sent to a rehabilitation centre. However, this ruined my relationship with his mother, who still thinks that the association is defaming her son.

Many of the struggling youth who go into rehab recover successfully and restart their lives, free from the chains of addiction. But there’s a lot that we can do with external support.

Currently, we are entirely dependent on private rehabilitation centres, and the families are bearing the cost of the stay. There are public health centres in our area, but they don’t focus on raising awareness against drugs even though addiction is a major health issue in Tripura.

The student association holds awareness camps twice a year, and we use our collective knowledge to educate others. We visit pharmacies in our area and ask them not to sell syringes without prescription. I have a masters’ in pharmacy, so I tell the camp attendees how drugs react with our blood and affect our brain.

Each member of our association puts in INR 10 a month, which pays for these awareness drives. If we had monetary support, we could have set up our own rehabilitation centres. If someone helps us register as a nonprofit, we could apply for funding and at least pay for our travel both within and outside our village.

Naithok Jamatia is the former cultural secretary of the Jamatia Student Association in Killa.

As told to Anupam Sharma, IDR Northeast Media Fellow 2024–25.

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