Archive

We had started this discussion by asking whether the village economy in India is sustainable. The short answer, in the near term, is that it isn’t — India’s urbanization is a direct consequence of this. However, answering this query requires delving into the levers associated with farmers, especially in the case of marginal farmers, and exploring avenues for a rise in non-farm income.
India’s farmers currently are a stretched lot. It is reflective of India’s farming miasma that farmer distress is only noted when farmers with a heavy crop loss commit suicide at a political party rally, bringing with it a crescendo in the rising chorus for farmer compensation. Consider Ram Sahey, from Dhanawa village, near Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh (UP), who lost over 50% of his wheat harvest to hail, losing over two lakh rupees of potential income. With a heavy additional debt of Rs 3.5 lakh, he expects compensation to be around Rs 5,000. Unseasonable rainfall during February and March 2017 damaged crops over 8.5 million hectares across 14 states, including UP, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab — about one-sixth of the rabi sowing area. About 3.9 million hectares of wheat were potentially damaged, with yield loss reported at 15%, while eligibility norms were lowered to 33% crop damage, along with prodding of insurance and financial firms to play a proactive role through payouts and restructured loans. And yet, compensation, identification and dispersal remains a challenge, effectively insulting farmers with a pittance of compensation. This is farming in India today.
Let’s consider the primary symptom first. In 2016, the sluice gate on the Bhakra mainline canal (159 km, 1.1% of Punjab’s total canal length), diverging from the Sutlej, in Khanauri-Kalan village in Sangrur district, became famous, and was reported by various newspapers. Families of farmers who have committed suicide by jumping into the Sutlej come there from Patiala and Ropar districts, seeking their bodies, if washed up along the sluice gates. Private divers have benefitted, char-ging around Rs 5,000 to Rs 15,000 for retrieving corpses, typically found at a frequency of 30 to 45 a month. Over 2,632 farmers are reported to have committed suicide in Punjab between 1995 and 2015 according to state government records, with Mansa district accounting for 1,334 alone, while Ludhiana had an additional 638. Adding farm laborers to this total raises it to 4,687 as reported, a stark statistic in a land famed for its Green Revolution. Other surveys highlight large numbers — 7,000 estimated by the Punjab Agricultural University, Punjabi University and Patiala University between 2000 and 2010, with a third choosing to drown in canals, and the trend continuing in 2016. The reasons vary — the cotton crop was whittled by whiteflies, basmati’s market price declined from Rs 5,000 per quintal to Rs 1,450 per quintal, the local moneylenders hiked up interest rates to 20%. The farmer ekes his way to penury.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Farmer suicides in India have reached alarming rates. The decade between 1997 and 2006 saw as many as 1,66,304 farmers committing suicide in India — potentially an underestimate, given that landless rural laborers and women were not included. As per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 5,650 farmers committed suicide last year, with marginal farmers accounting for 75%, while Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka account for 90% of national farmer suicides. Farmer suicides have grown at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of over two percent, with every fifth male suicide in the country being a farm suicide. To them the thought of suicide has become a great consolation, a means to "get through the dark night,” as Friedrich Nietzche said.
Farmer suicides are not a new trend. According to the NCRB, 2,195 marginal farmers reportedly committed suicide in 2015, of whom 834 were in Maharashtra, while 3,618 "small farmers” undertook such drastic steps, with Maharashtra seeing 1,285. More curious, a larger number of small farmers reportedly committed suicide in states like Maharashtra, Telangana and Karnataka than marginal farmers. Somehow, small farmers are also bedeviled by the agricultural crisis. And this is not the case in just the traditional drought-stricken states.
Beyond the numbers, the human tragedy is poignant. Consider the family of Umesh Chandra Sharma (Nadhi village in Seetapur district) who committed suicide on May 10, 2015 and his son, unable to manage the situation, hanging himself from a mango tree a week later. Or that of Ch Ashok, son of Kirpal Singh (of Sahpur Dhamedi village in Bijnor district) whose family I met in 2016 and had the opportunity to help. As a representative of these beleaguered families, I have contributed all of my parliamentary salaries for the next five years to the cause of farmers in UP while encouraging others to pitch in. Farmers now need more courage to live than to kill themselves.