Suicide spiral

The intensity of the agrarian crisis and the abject failure, rather reluctance of successive governments to address it, has been laid bare by the quarter million farmers’ suicides between 1995 and 2010. According to National Crime Records Bureau figures, around 15,964 farmers committed suicide in 2010, bringing the total number since 1995 to 256,913. Although the number of farmers in the country has decreased significantly in this period – rural distress has forced millions out of agriculture, the number of farmers taking their lives has grown. And five states – Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh—account for two-thirds of the farmers’ suicides. Significantly, three of these states – Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra—are among those that adopted economic reforms most enthusiastically.

Clearly, there is a link between economic liberalisation and farmers’ suicides. Mounting debt and inability to pay back the interest let alone the loan appears to be driving an ever increasing number of farmers to suicide. In 2008, the Centre announced a loan waiver amid much fanfare. While this did provide some relief and stemmed the tide of suicide that year, its impact has been limited. This is because the government waived off bank loans only. Indebtedness to moneylenders, which is far more exploitative, was not touched. What drives farmers to seek debt in the first place was not addressed. Thus the upward spiral in farmers’ suicides has continued.

The government has refused to accept that it is the crushing impact of the commercialisation of agriculture, the corporatisation of seed and fertiliser production and the privatisation of water, and the withdrawal of subsidies to poor farmers that have unleashed an agrarian crisis in India. Farmers have been encouraged to grow cash crops but these are vulnerable to volatile global prices. Unless the government steps in and addresses aggressively the entire gamut of reasons underlying farmers’ despair, suicide will be the only way for farmers to avoid the consequences of not paying up loans. To pay off loans, farmers are selling their carts, their cows, even their children. When all else fails, they swallow the pesticide that they, ironically, bought by raising a loan. The suffering does not end with the death of the hapless farmer. His widow and children are left to face the loan sharks. They turn to more loans to pay off debts and the cycle of violence turns into a spiral. This spiral of violence must be broken and immediately.