Stale mantras to tame suicide ghost

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: The country is passing through a deep agrarian crisis, with a mounting rate of farmers’ suicides. Paradoxically, the farmers’ suicides are happening also in the years of agricultural growth. Cases of suicides are in areas where agriculture is technologically developed and capital-intensive.

There are varying estimates of farmers’ suicides during 1993-2003. Some place it at 1.4 lakh. Policymakers often dismiss it saying that in most of the cases, suicides were due to social and cultural problems. But why should a farmer have to face such problems? Is farming not remunerative enough?

Prime Minister (PM) Manhohan Singh, in his recent Independence Day address, admitted this agrarian crisis and said, “I see that our farmers in many parts are in crisis, not managing to eke out a decent living from their land. When I visited Vidarbha, the plight of the farmers there made a deep impact on me. The agricultural crisis that is forcing them to take the desperate step needs to be resolved. We need to think about how we can provide them a desent livelihood.”

Vidarbha is the cotton belt of Maharashtra, and the PM, during his visit to this region more than a month back, announced a relief package of Rs 3,750 crore. Refering this in his I-Day address, he said, “We have waived interest on over-due loans for debt-stressed farmers in Vidarbha and will do the same in other suicide affected districts.”

The Rs 3,750-crore Vidarbha package may seem to be an astronomical ammount, but it had very little impact in instilling confidence in farmers. Over a hundred farmer suicides were reported in Maharashtra after the PM visit.

Indebtedness is the ultimate cause for farmers’ distress and suicides. But what are the reasons that push farmers to indebtedness? The PM said an expert group has been constituted “to look into the problems of agricultural indebtedness.” Why should not the panel look into the reasons for indebtedness? However, the PM and the policymakers believe that loan against loan can bail out the farmers. But this leads to accumulation of loans and increase in burden for repayment, particularly in years when the farmers do not get good returns for their produces after spending heavily on input costs.