By the end of April 2025, the total number of farmer suicides had risen to 869, according to divisional-level reports from the relief and rehabilitation department, report Scroll. Amravati division topped the list with 327 deaths, followed by Marathwada with 269, Nagpur with 135, Nashik with 106, and Pune division with 32.

Marathwada, historically one of India’s most drought-prone and underserved regions, is reeling under an escalating crisis. From just January to March 2025, 269 suicides were reported in its eight districts- Beed (71), Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (50), Nanded (37), Parbhani (33), Dharashiv (31), Latur (18), Hingoli (16), and Jalna (13). This marked a steep rise from 204 suicides during the same period in 2024 (TOI, April 2025).

These are not just numbers, they are lost lives, shattered families, and communities pushed beyond endurance. Yet, Maharashtra’s response has been chillingly procedural: of the 767 suicide cases reported between January and March, just 373 were deemed “eligible” for compensation. The families of only 327 farmers received the state’s standard ex gratia of ₹1 lakh. The remaining 200 cases were rejected. The fate of 194 others remains suspended in bureaucratic inquiry limbo, according to a report in the PTI.

A vicious spiral of loss

Each suicide is a family shattered. Families like that of 43-year-old Kailash Arjun Nagare in Buldhana, once honoured with the Maharashtra government’s Young Farmer Award, who died by suicide on Holi by consuming poison in his field, as reported by PTI in March 2025. His suicide note blamed the acute water crisis and government apathy. Nagare had recently led a five-day hunger strike demanding irrigation water for 14 villages from the Khadakpurna reservoir. His body was not allowed to be moved for hours as protesting farmers demanded accountability. “This is not a suicide; it is state-sanctioned murder,” said farmer leader Ravikant Tupkar, according to the Indian Express report.

Or take the case of Sonia Uikey, a 17-year-old from Wardha, who hanged herself on July 4, 2025 because her family couldn’t afford her Class 12 school fees. “We’ve moved from farmers killing themselves to their children ending their lives too,” said NCP (SP) MP Amar Kale after visiting her home, as reported by PTI.

The math of misery

At the heart of the crisis lies an economic model stacked against the farmer. As veteran farmer activist Vijay Jawandhiya explained to Rediff, the government celebrates low inflation, 3.5% as per the RBI, while ignoring the price farmers have paid for it. “Inflation fell because vegetable and crop prices collapsed, not because life became cheaper for farmers,” he said while speaking with Rediff. While input costs like fertiliser, health, and education remained high, prices for crops plummeted due to imports and policy neglect. Soya bean was sold at ₹4,000 per quintal against an MSP of ₹4,892. Cotton fetched ₹7,000 against an MSP of ₹7,500. Tur dal prices dropped disastrously from ₹12,000 to ₹6,000 per quintal.

“Farmers are losing money on every harvest,” said food policy expert Devinder Sharma, according to a report of The Hindu. “It’s not that agriculture is unproductive, it’s that we have made it unviable.” He cited the NSSO’s most recent Situation Assessment Survey, which found that average monthly income from farming stands at just ₹10,218. This boils down to a daily income of ₹27 from agriculture alone, barely enough to buy a meal, let alone repay debts, as reported by The Hindu.

Government Aid: A leaky pipe

Out of the 767 suicides recorded between January and March 2025, only 373 cases were deemed eligible for compensation; 200 were rejected, and 194 were still under inquiry, according to Indian Express. Of the eligible cases, just 327 families received the ₹1 lakh financial aid promised under government policy.

Worse, large sections of vulnerable farmers are excluded from this count altogether. “Women farmers, Dalits, Adivasis, and tenant cultivators are systematically excluded,” says journalist P. Sainath, as per The Hindu. “If a deceased farmer doesn’t have a 7/12 land deed, their death is simply not counted.” After 2014, changes in suicide data methodology, like classifying tenant farmers as agricultural labourers, further diluted the real scale of the crisis, according to People’s Archive of Rural India.

Seeds of Exploitation: The HTBT cotton crisis

Even Maharashtra’s cotton sector is now undermined by an unregulated seed market. Speaking to The Hindu, Jawandhia warned that nearly 1 crore of the 2 crore cotton seed packets in use this year are unauthorized F2 (second-generation) seeds. These genetically inferior, unofficial hybrids are being sold for ₹2,000/kg despite production costs of just ₹40/kg, creating a grey market that exploits desperate farmers. He urged the government to introduce pureline cotton varieties, allowing farmers to replant without buying from private firms every season.

Uneven burdens across regions

The reasons suicides are higher in Vidarbha and Marathwada, compared to Konkan or western Maharashtra, lie in systemic neglect. Vidarbha’s agriculture is largely rain-fed and high-risk. Landholdings have shrunk drastically, families now farm barely five acres each. In contrast, western Maharashtra enjoys access to horticulture, subsidies, and better irrigation. Konkan’s rural economy is cushioned by remittances from Mumbai (Rediff, July 2025).

The state government continues to announce schemes like the ₹1,500 per month Laadki Bahin Yojana for women and ₹6,000 PM-Kisan aid. But when compared to the ₹45,000 monthly salary a peon is expected to draw under the 8th Pay Commission, these figures seem paltry. “There are two Indias,” Jawandhia says. “A peon in the government earns ₹45,000 per month, while a farmer gets ₹1,500 under Laadki Bahin Yojana. What’s ₹1,500 for a woman managing an entire farm household?”

Forgotten families, drowning in debt

The effects ripple across generations. In Pali, Beed, Meena Dhere works in onion fields for ₹250 a day while her elderly mother-in-law watches over her children. Her husband Ashok died by suicide in January 2025 after accumulating a ₹3 lakh debt. In Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, 45-year-old Sadhana Kalaskar lives under a tin roof, trying to pay off a ₹6 lakh wedding loan after her husband’s suicide in November 2024, as reported by The Hindu.

“Government policies speak of relief, but the ground reality is abandonment,” said social worker Nitnaware. “After a suicide, the family is left with not just grief but also loans, unpaid school fees, and hungry mouths.”

A Political Hotbed, But No Long-Term Solutions

Farmer suicides became a central issue during the 2024–25 election cycle. PM Modi promised MSP of ₹6,000 per quintal for soya bean, while Congress’s Rahul Gandhi vowed ₹7,000. But beyond these headlines, little changed. On July 3, opposition parties staged a walkout in the Maharashtra assembly, accusing the state of ignoring the non-payment crisis for soybean farmers, as reported by PTI.

Rahul Gandhi’s reaction to the suicide figures summed up public frustration: “767 families shattered in three months. Is this just a statistic? Or a stain on our collective conscience?”

सोचिए.. सिर्फ 3 महीनों में महाराष्ट्र में 767 किसानों ने आत्महत्या कर ली।

क्या ये सिर्फ एक आंकड़ा है? नहीं। ये 767 उजड़े हुए घर हैं। 767 परिवार जो कभी नहीं संभल पाएंगे।

और सरकार? चुप है। बेरुख़ी से देख रही है।

किसान हर दिन कर्ज़ में और गहराई तक डूब रहा है – बीज महंगे हैं, खाद… pic.twitter.com/uDzFpYoMrG

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) July 3, 2025

A death every few hours

Farmer rights groups like Kisan Putra Andolan estimate that Maharashtra now loses 7–8 farmers every single day. These are not mere economic failures—they are policy murders, born of wilful neglect, rising input costs, collapsed MSPs, and mounting debt. In over two decades, Maharashtra has recorded 39,825 farmer suicides. Of these, 22,193 were confirmed to be due to agrarian distress. The government has paid ₹220 crore as compensation, an average of just ₹55,000 per suicide.

The numbers are terrifying, but they only tell part of the story. Behind each death is a voice that went unheard, a protest ignored, a loan unpaid, a dream deferred. Maharashtra’s farmer crisis is not seasonal, it is structural. Until that is acknowledged, the state will continue to bury its farmers and their futures, one suicide at a time.

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Watch this critical discussion on how India’s farmers are impacted by funding freezes and the dilution of rural credit.

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On February 13, Shri Bhupender Yadav, Minister of Labour and Employment, provided the Lok Sabha with information regarding the number of profession-wise suicides that took place in the country during 2019 to 2021. Basing the same on the latest published data of the received from National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the data reveals that in the year 2019, 2020 and 2021, over 5,000 farmers died by suicide across India each year. Answering in response to a question raised by Shri Su.Thirunavukkarasar(INC), the ministry provided the data.

According to the data, as many as 5,318 farmers died by suicide in 28 states and eight union territories in 2021. There is a slight decrease in the number of suicides in comparison to the previous years, as the number was 5579 in 2020 and 5957 in 2019. The state-wise data for the same has not been available by the Ministry.

These number come as a rude awakening to the worrisome state of farmers in India. The consistently high numbers of farmer suicide over these years, while a variety of relief measures, such as providing loans at lower rates of interest, sometimes free of any collateral, has been implemented do not appear to have helped arrest this tragic trend where those who till the land, are forced to take such a drastic step.

As per the data provided by the NCRB for the year 2021, suicides by the farmers accounted for 6.6% of total suicides victims (1,64,033) in the country. Out of 5,318 farmer/cultivator suicides, a total of 5,107 were male and 211 were female. Unlike previous years, the NCRB did not provide a state-wise data for the same.

The complete answer can be read here.

State-wise data of the year 2020

According to the data provided for the year 2020, as many as 5,570 farmers died by suicide in 28 states and eight union territories in 2020. Of these 2,567 were from Maharashtra alone. Karnataka came in second with 1,072 deaths by suicide.

In 2019, across India, 5,945 farmers died by suicide, out of which 2,680 were from Maharashtra and 1,331 from Karnataka. In 2018, as many as 5,747 people died by suicide, of which 2,239 were from Maharashtra and 1,365 from Karnataka.

States like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Punjab and Chhattisgarh also recorded hundreds of deaths every year during this three-year period.

In 2020, Andhra Pradesh saw 546 suicide deaths, while Telangana saw 466, Punjab 174 and Chhattisgarh 227. In 2019, Andhra Pradesh saw 628 suicide deaths, while Telangana saw 491, Punjab 239 and Chhattisgarh 233. In 2018, Andhra Pradesh saw 365 suicide deaths, while Telangana saw 900, Punjab 229 and Chhattisgarh 182.

No suicide deaths were reported from Haryana, Jharkhand, Goa, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, and the Union Territories of Chandigarh, Delhi, Lakshadweep and Puducherry.

Budget cuts in allocation for agriculture sector

This comes after Farmers’ Organizations slammed the Union Budget 2023-24, alleging that the Centre has “literally taken revenge” on farmers for their historic movement that caused the roll-back of the three agricultural laws by lowering allocations in every major scheme, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana and PM Fasal Bima Yojana. Farmers had anticipated the finance minister to announce something to provide them minimum support price (MSP) as per the Swaminathan Commission formula of paying them 1.5 times remuneration of cost prices, according to Ashok Dhawale, head of All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS).

Farmers, according to Dhawale, are facing issues such as climate change, recession, and growing input costs. Nonetheless, the Centre chose to reduce agriculture allocation from Rs 1,24,000 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 1,15,531.79 crore this year. Dhawale stated that Rs 60,000 crore was insufficient, citing the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana, which gave monetary help to 12 crore farmers.

There has also been a drastic cut in fertiliser subsidies from Rs.2,25,000 crore in 2022-23 Revised Estimates (RE) to Rs.1,75,000 crore in Budget Estimates (BE) of 2023-24, a 22% cut of Rs.50,000 crore. 

Protest against the Anti-Farmer budget

On February 9, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella platform of various farmers’ unions, announced that a ‘Kisan Mahapanchyat’ will be organised outside the Parliament in Delhi on March 20.

Farmers’ unions have also announced that the motive behind holding this ‘Mahapanchayat’ will be to fight for a legal guarantee on the minimum support price (MSP), terming the 2023 Budget as “anti-farmer.”

The SKM’s demands include, among other things, the withdrawal of cases against farmers, a Rs 5,000 monthly pension for farmers, debt forgiveness, the dismissal of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra, whose son is an accused in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence, and compensation for those who died during the farmers’ strike.

Senior SKM leader Dr Darshan Pal after the meeting of the farmers’ unions at Kurukshetra in Haryana told The New Indian Express that the body has decided to hold ‘Kisan Mahapanchyat’ in Delhi on March 20 and they will seek permission for it to be held at the Ram Lila ground, and if not given permission then they will hold it at Jantar Mantar.

Protesting farmers lathi-charged in Maharashtra

On February 12, Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole accused the Buldhana police of unleashing a “brutal baton charge” on farmers during a demonstration and demanded that the district superintendent of police be suspended (SP). Patole claimed that the Buldhana police “brutally lathi-charged” the farmers on February 11 as they were protesting for the proper price for cotton and soybeans, as well as compensation for those who had lost crop insurance.

According to the New Indian Express, Congress district president Rahul Bondre and former minister Rajendra Shingane were also halted by police while on their way to visit the protesting farmers. Patole also condemned the Shinde-Fadnavis government and decried the “police crimes” against protesting farmers, claiming that the farmers were simply expressing their democratic right to demand a fair price for their produce.

Patole argued that under the BJP’s control, farming is no longer cheap due to the high cost of fertilisers, seeds, and diesel. Crops were devastated owing to natural calamities this (financial) year as well, and farmers from 16 districts incurred losses, according to Patole.

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Another Punjab farmer died by suicide at the Singhu border on November 10, 2021 blaming the ruling central government party for the agrarian crisis and nation-wide farmers’ protest. This brings the toll to at least 38 farmers, who died this way over the last year, all the while demanding the repeal of the three farm laws – or so say the records maintained by the leaders of the farmers’ struggle.

While the suicide data of 2021 is yet to be updated by the government, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) earlier released data that showed an 18 percent increase in agriculture labourer suicides. As many as 10,677 persons involved in the farming sector died in 2020 accounting for 7.0 percent of the total suicides victims (1,53,052) in India. Among them, 5,579 persons were identified as farmers or cultivators and 5,098 persons were named agricultural labourers. In 2019, as many as 4,324 agricultural labourer deaths were recorded.

Maharashtra recorded the highest number of farmer suicides once again with 4,006 deaths followed by 2,016 deaths in Karnataka, 889 deaths in Andhra Pradesh and 735 deaths in Madhya Pradesh. Punjab and Haryana that have been dubbed the “epicentre” of the farmers’ struggle recorded 257 and 280 deaths respectively.

Reacting to the data, the All India Kisan Sabha condemned the central government for its false promise of “ache din.”

“This is a result of the government’s persistent anti-peasant policies and allowances to its corporate allies to plunder the country’s wealth. Due to the three agricultural laws, the situation of farmers and the general public is going to get worse. The NCRB report also found that labour suicides accounted for 24.6 per cent of the total suicides,” said President Ashok Dhawale in a press release.

Dhawale was referring to the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance & Farm Services Act, the Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act. Farmers across India have mobilised in large numbers to express their dissent against these laws.

Researchers Nanda Kishore Kannuri and Sushrut Jadhav even stated in their recent report that farmer groups have likened these laws as a ‘death penalty’. Mass gatherings and rallies have taken place in states near New Delhi like Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, with over half a million farmers camping at Delhi’s borders.

“This resistance has resulted in several clashes with State police that have frequently led to violence including injuries, suicides and deaths, and storming of the Red Fort in Delhi on India’s Republic Day celebrations. Several nationwide strikes in support of the farmers have so far involved over 250 million Indian citizens participating in solidarity,” as per their paper titled ‘Cultivating distress: cotton, caste and farmer suicides in India’.

Understanding role of caste in farmer suicide

However, aside from these laws, the paper also focused on other socio-economic reasons for such agrarian deaths. Authors pointed out that approximately 48 suicides were recorded every day between 1995 2018 with a majority of persons being from ‘backwarded’ castes including the Dalit community.

The study found that financial and moral debt, when accrued within a web of family and caste-related relationships, result in personal and familial humiliation, resulting in a sense of hopelessness. “This loss of hope and pervasive humiliation is ‘cultivated’ by a cascade of decisions taken by others with little or no responsibility to the farmers and the land they hope to cultivate as they follow different cultural and financial logic. Suicide resolves farmers’ humiliation and is a logical conclusion to their distress, which results from a reconfiguration of agricultural spaces into socially toxic places,” said the report.

Observing case studies of cotton farmers in the Warangal district of Telangana, Kannuri and Jadhav talk about how the crop largely benefits large farmers. Farming as a profession requires cultural, social, economic and symbolic capital for sustenance.

For example, while The Hindu Business Line reported a “stress-free” Diwali for Gujarat cotton farmers, Punjab and Haryana growers voiced grievances about their damaged cotton crops by heavy pink bollworm infestation. Farmers in several districts suffered severe losses at a time when government data of different chemical fertilisers in 2020 and 2019 showed a significant shortage of fertilisers like DAP. Several suicide reports came up when the government compensation of Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 12,000 per acre failed to cover farmer losses estimated at Rs. Rs.60,000 per acre.

“Socially-disadvantaged groups like Dalits already lack symbolic capital available on the basis of a person’s position, honour or prestige, which functions as an authoritative embodiment of cultural values,” say the authors. Case studies in the paper show that the dearth of required capital results in excessive social stress. “Individuals’ psychosocial contexts and stressors, such as financial hardships, poor education and unfulfilled expectations at work, have been identified as the most common correlates of suicide,” they added.

Therefore, they suggest culturally sensitive healthcare systems that encourage co-ordination and dialogue among cotton farmers, local agricultural and mental health policy makers, clinicians, social scientists, and public health professionals.

Bearing such socio-political conditions, farmers continue their demands for the repeal of anti-people laws including the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2021 that takes away subsidies for farmers and legislations like the Air Quality Management law that penalises farmers near New Delhi. As farmers near a year-long struggle against the ruling regime, leaders demand the repeal of all oppressive laws, a legal guarantee to MSP and protest the privatisation of India’s PSUs.

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The Karnataka High Court has directed the state government to make decision on extending compensation to families of farmers who borrowed from private money lenders and who committed suicide.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Suraj Govindaraj directed the Chief Secretary to place before the appropriate authority the observation made by the court on March 2, in order to make a policy decision, reported LiveLaw.

On the March 2 hearing, the court had  asked the State Government to take a stand whether the families of farmers who died by suicide, will be excluded from government assistance of Rs 5 lakhs in order to pay private money lenders. The bench had taken strong objection to the classification created by the State Government whereby financial aid is given only to farmers who ended their life after borrowing from banks and financial institutions.

The court was informed that from 2016 until 2020-21, as many as 125 farmers died by suicide in Shahpur, Yadgir district and out of these 105 families were entitled to compensation. Out of these 105, 20 families were held ineligible as these farmers had not borrowed from banks and 7 out of 105 families were yet to receive compensation.

During the March 29 hearing, the court perused the affidavit filed by Commissioner for Agriculture and Director General, Environmental Management and Policy Research Institute but it did not report compliance with the requirement of payment of compensation to the 7 families. The court noted that data on meetings of 28 District Level Grievance Redressal Committees was submitted and out of these except 2 districts, rest had held only one meeting.

In Yadgir district, only one meeting was held on March 16 where names of the villages in which the farmers have been deprived of the benefits of the Crop Insurance Scheme have been mentioned. However, the court observed that there was no inquiry made in the said villages to ascertain whether there are any farmers who have been denied the benefits of the Crop Insurance Scheme. The court then directed the Yadgir Committee to send officers to these villages to find out which farmers were denied benefits of the scheme. The court also directed the state government to ensure that a wide publicity is given to the particulars of the Crop Insurance Scheme and to the fact that if any farmer is deprived of the benefits of the Crop Insurance Scheme, he has a right to approach the District Level Grievance Redressal Committee.

The court has now given the Yadgir district committee a month’s time to comply with the directions issued on March 29, about sending officers to the villages to find out which farmers were deprived of benefits of crop insurance scheme.

The court has scheduled the next hearing for May 11.

The March 29 order may be read here:

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The Karnataka High Court has asked the State Government to take a stand whether the families of farmers who died by suicide, will be excluded from government assistance of Rs 5 lakhs in order to pay private money lenders, reported LiveLaw.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice Abhay Oka and Justice S Vishwajith Shetty took strong objection to the classification created by the State Government whereby financial aid is given only to farmers who ended their life after borrowing from banks and financial institutions.

LiveLaw quoted the Bench orally observing, “Prima facie the cause for which farmer commits suicide is important…cause is he is heavily indebted…he is not able to repay the loan so he taken this option of committing suicide. What is the difference between the class of farmers who taken money from banks and credit societies and commit suicide and class of farmers who take loan from private money lenders and committed suicide? Why has the state made the distinction between the two?”

LiveLaw accessed the State affidavit submitted before the High Court Bench, that read: “The Government has no control nor there is any regulation preventing farmers from taking any loan from private money lenders and therefore this aspect is one of the reasons for determining the eligibility of the farmers to extend the benefit.

However, if the same family who have suffered at the hands of money lenders, also have taken loan from the banks or other notified institutions, the family still would be entitled for the benefit, subject to satisfaction of any and or all other conditions.”

The Bench urged the Chief Secretary to look at the seriousness of the situation. The court said, “Only in one taluka there are about 125 cases of farmers committing suicide, within a span of five years.” He directed him to file an affidavit within three weeks and keep in mind the dire circumstances under which farmers are forced to approach private money lenders to obtain loans.

The High Court in this writ petition, also considered the allegations of the petitioner Akhanda Karnataka Raitha Sangha, about the failure to implement the crop insurance scheme and failure to disburse the crop insurance loss compensation to the insured farmers in Shahapur taluk of Yadgir district. Thereafter, the State was directed to file an affidavit in this regard on December 11, 2020.

On January 13, the High Court perused the affidavit on implementation and said, “We have perused the affidavit of Shri Brijesh Kumar Dikshit, I.F.S., filed by the State Government on 12th January 2021. Prima facie, it appears that the said affidavit shows insensitivity on the part of the Officers of the State in dealing with implementation of the Crop Insurance Scheme.”

The court has also directed the State Government to place on record details of grievance/complaints of farmers, disposed of by the district grievance redressal committee at District Yadgir. The matter will be heard on March 29.

The order dated January 13, 2021 may be read here: 

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Image Courtesy:forbes.com

As many as 42,844 suicide deaths were recorded in 2019 of people involved in farming or daily wage work, as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report released on September 1, 2020.

According to the report, out of the 1,39,123 deaths in India, 32,563 deaths were of daily wage workers with 29,092 men, 467 women and 4 transgenders, amounting to 23.4 percent of the total deaths. Similarly, 10,281 persons involved in farming sector, such as famers, cultivators, agricultural labourers died by suicide last year, making up for 7.4 percent of the total deaths in India. Out of 5,957 farmers or cultivator deaths, 5,563 deaths were of men and 394 deaths were of women. Moreover, out of the 4,324 agricultural labourer deaths 3,749 deaths were of men and 575 deaths were of women.

Together these two sectors accounted for nearly 31 percent of suicides in India with farming problems as one of the prime reasons of death by suicide.

Moreover, Maharashtra recorded the highest deaths in the farming sector – 1247 deaths – while Tamil Nadu recorded the highest number of deaths of daily wage earners – 5186 deaths. Both these States are deeply invested in farming wherein many daily wage workers are also engaged as agricultural labourers.

However, Bihar, Manipur, Odisha, Uttarakhand and West Bengal recorded zero farmer suicides and no union territory recorded a single farmer suicide.

According to General Secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) Hannan Mollah said, that the data is inaccurate because there have been suicide deaths in nearly every State of India.

Talking about Maharashtra specifically he said, “There are two major reasons why farmers in this state die by suicide. The first reason is the inaccurate rate that is given for their crops. The second reason is the loan that the farmer is unable to repay due to the inaccurate rates.”

Mollah said that even banks have started putting undue pressure on farmers to repay loans which leads the farmer to take extreme decisions.

When asked about the role of cash crops in farmer suicides, he said “Wherever there are cash crops, you can see a high number of suicide deaths.”

Maharashtra Treasurer of the AIKS Umesh Deshmukh agreed with this statement as he described how improper prices of sugarcane and cotton in Maharashtra make the production cost and loans seem overwhelming.

“Production and income play a big role in causing depression among farmers. The inability to pay loans and the prices eventually make the farmer take such steps,” he said.

Nowadays, Deshmukh said the price of sugarcane is Rs.2,800 per tonnes instead of the ideal Rs. 4,500 per tonnes. Similarly, cotton should be sold at Rs.5,000 per tonnes but is sold at half the price.

The suicide figures for people engaged in farming sector in 2018 showed 10,349 deaths – 7.7 percent of the total – indicating that the plight of farmers has not changed over the years.

Regarding deaths of daily wage earners, Tamil Nadu had the highest number of 5186 deaths followed by Maharashtra’s 4128 deaths while Jammu and Kashmir (then a state, now a Union Territory) recorded 0 deaths. Among Union territories Delhi recorded the highest deaths of 548 persons.

In the case of daily wage earners, it is much more difficult to ascertain the cause of suicides. However, according to Chairperson of the Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies Dr Santosh Mehrotra, the cause may be related to the stagnant wage curve of the workers.

“It is difficult to determine the cause for the high suicides rates in the States without proper data. However, if we consider the wages of these workers over the years, we see that their earnings have either decreased or become stagnant,” said Mehrotra.

Drawing his data of casual worker wages between 2012 and 2019 he said that the real wages of workers in rural areas was extremely low. In urban areas, the wages had increased at a snail’s pace. In fact, the wage curve for daily wage earners was better prior to 2012.

“One can imagine the impact of such a stagnancy in one’s daily wage. The slightest nuisance can unsettle their lives,” he said.

Talking about daily wage workers as agricultural labourers, General Secretary Mollah said that the number of agricultural workers is increasing. However, the helplessness of not being able to find a job acts as a heavy depressant.

In 2018, as many as 30,132 daily wage earners died by suicide.

Looking at the general trend of deaths by suicide in India, the number of deaths had increased from 1,29,887 deaths in 2017 to 1,34,516 deaths in 2018 to 1,39,123 deaths in 2019. Daily wage earners and housewives – 15.4 percent – accounted for the highest deaths.

The Indian helpline number for suicides is 915298782, while an NGO called AASRA offers a 24×7 helpline number, 91-9820466726 in both English and Hindi.

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Dalit couple attempt suicide after forceful eviction, police brutality
73.2% Of Rural Women Workers Are Farmers, But Own 12.8% Land Holdings
‘Don’t vote BJP,’ Dehradun farmer writes in suicide note

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 In a suicide attempt, a helpless Dalit couple from Madhya Pradesh’s Guna district allegedly drank pesticide after their crops were forcefully razed by revenue department officials, NDTV reported. The incident which took place on Tuesday, July 14, also revealed atrocious police brutalities on Ram Kumar Ahirwar (38) and Savitri Devi (35) as they were assaulted by police officers before being dragged into an ambulance.  Disturbing visuals of the incident show Savitri clinging on to her husband as the police brutally rain blows on them with their lathis.

A #Dalit couple who were being removed from a plot of government land allotted for a college in Guna city of #MadhyaPradesh consumed pesticide in protest. In response, police beat up the Dalit man mercilessly with batons as his wife and others tried to save him. pic.twitter.com/Ff1Bj3dEDJ

— Outlook Magazine (@Outlookindia) July 16, 2020

The incident

NDTV reported that according to the government in 2018, 20 bighas (5.5 acres) of land had been set aside for building a college. Allegedly, this land was encroached upon by Ahirwar and Savitri Devi who had claimed that they had been farming there for years.

It was reported that on Tuesday, officials from the state revenue department, along with the cops, had visited the land to evict the couple and construct a boundary wall there. However, the couple resisted and when their crops were bulldozed, they drank pesticide in an attempt to kill themselves. The cops reportedly also pushed and verbally abused the couple’s children who were seen crying and pleading for mercy.

NDTV reported Savitri Devi as saying that she and Ahirwar were Rs. 3 lakh in debt and that they didn’t know whose land it was. She said, “We’ve been farming on it for a long time. When our standing crop was destroyed, we didn’t have other option, but to kill ourselves.”

The Quint reported IG Gwalior Range Raja Babu Singh as saying that the real squatter on the land was a person named Dabbu Pardhi who allegedly had many criminal cases against him and that he had sublet the land to the Ahirwars for tilling.

Action by police and government

While the police was let go scot free, an FIR was registered against the couple and they were booked under Section 353 of the IPC (Assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty, Section 309 of the IPC (Attempt to suicide) among other charges, The Quint reported.

The publication also reported that IG Raja Babu Singh also alleged that the video had been clipped and shared as the police wielding lathis, but the police was only trying to shoo away the people who were resisting the cops from taking the farmer couple to the hospital.

Opposition criticizes MP government

Condemning the incident, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter to say, “Our fight is against this mentality and injustice.”

हमारी लड़ाई इसी सोच और अन्याय के ख़िलाफ़ है। pic.twitter.com/egGjgY5Awm

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) July 16, 2020

Urging the government to thoroughly investigate the matter and saying that the incident deserved nationwide condemnation, National President of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Mayawati, took a dig at both the BJP and Congress saying that the reports of atrocities against Dalits were as common in the rule of the BJP as they were in the Congress. She urged the Dalit community to think about such incidents becoming rampant.

1. मध्यप्रदेश के गुना पुलिस व प्रशासन द्वारा अतिक्रमण के नाम पर दलित परिवार को कर्ज लेकर तैयार की गई फसल को जेसीबी मशीन से बबार्द करके उस दम्पत्ति को आत्महत्या का प्रयास करने को मजबूर कर देना अति-क्रूर व अति-शर्मनाक। इस घटना की देशव्यापी निन्दा स्वाभाविक। सरकार सख्त कार्रवाई करे।

— Mayawati (@Mayawati) July 16, 2020

A statement from the office of Kamal Nath, General Secretary of the Congress stated that if there was a dispute with regards to the land, it could have been taken care of legally instead of the officials taking the law in their own hands and beating up the couple and their other family members.

ये शिवराज सरकार प्रदेश को कहाँ ले जा रही है ?
ये कैसा जंगल राज है ?
गुना में कैंट थाना क्षेत्र में एक दलित किसान दंपत्ति पर बड़ी संख्या में पुलिसकर्मियों द्वारा इस तरह बर्बरता पूर्ण लाठीचार्ज।
1/3 pic.twitter.com/lRgOFaWHPp

— Office Of Kamal Nath (@OfficeOfKNath) July 15, 2020

Only after criticism and the growing outcry, Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan ordered for the sacking of the District Collector S Vishwanathan and Superintendent of Police (Guna), Tarun Nayak. MP Home Minister Narottam Mishra said that a high-level investigation team would be leading a probe in the matter.

गुना की घटना को गंभीरता से संज्ञान में लेते हुए मुख्यमंत्री श्री @ChouhanShivraj ने गुना के कलेक्टर और एसपी को तत्काल प्रभाव से हटाने के निर्देश दिए हैं।#JansamparkMP

— Jansampark MP (@JansamparkMP) July 15, 2020

गुना के कैंट थाना क्षेत्र की घटना का वीडियो देखकर व्यथित हूं। इस तरह की दुर्भाग्यपूर्ण घटनाओं से बचा जाना चाहिए। मैंने तत्काल अधिकारियों को उच्चस्तरीय जांच के निर्देश दिए हैं। भोपाल से जांच दल मौके पर जाकर पूरी घटना की जांच करेगा। जो भी दोषी पाया जाएगा, उसपर कार्रवाई करेंगे। pic.twitter.com/3IfCayNLRg

— Dr Narottam Mishra (@drnarottammisra) July 15, 2020

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The post Dalit couple attempt suicide after forceful eviction, police brutality appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image  Courtesy: Reuters
 
When Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Mr. Devendra Fadnavis announced “the biggest ever” farm loan waiver to distressed farmers in Maharashtra in 2017, one didn’t think that the number of farmer suicides would continue to pile up. But with government data revealing 219 farmer suicides in the state in July 2019 alone, with an average of 7 farmers killing themselves every day, we beg to ask if the loan waiver has proved to be fruitful to the agrarian community in any manner.

Close to 35,000 farmers descended on the streets of Maharashtra with a peaceful protest led by the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) in March last year with demands of a loan waiver, fair price for farm produce, the implementation of the Swaminathan Committee recommendations and compensation for hail-affected farmers among others. They were assured by the Maharashtra government of all their demands being met in six months of their demonstration. Today, the data collected by the government’s agrarian rehabilitation department discloses a grim number – 1542 farmer suicides in the first six months of 2019, as compared to 1487 in the same period last year.

P Sainath, a Ramon Magsaysay award winner, founding editor of People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI) and a staunch supporter of the Kisan Long March expressed intense distress at the growing number of farmer deaths and alleged that the official figures of farmer suicides in India had become highly unreliable along with the current condition being just more than an agrarian crisis.

While inconsistent rainfall has earned notoriety for being the number one reason for farmer deaths, ground sources show that it is actually backbreaking debt and the large dependence on private moneylenders by cash-ridden farmers that ties them in a vicious circle of paying exorbitant interest rates, a burden that they carry till their last breath.

Agricultural activist Vijay Jawandhiya explained that the cost of seeds had increased by Rs. 3000 per acre as farmers were expected to re-sow their seeds in drought affected regions. He said that though the cost of living and cost of production continued to rise, the real income of the farmer remained stagnant.

With Amravati and Aurangabad are the leading witnesses of unsound policy implementation and false promises taking their toll, the overall lack of empathy for the backbone of our nation by officials in high officesis certainly disappointing. As for the state-elections slated to be held in the next month, the major political parties are keen on wooing the rural voter by pledging to improve the plight of the farmer. Whether this, as always, remains a far-fetched promise or actually ends up being a beneficially implemented manifesto, today the life of the troubled farmer still seems to be hanging by a thread.
 

The post At least Seven Farmer Suicides a Day reveals Govt Data: Maharashtra appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
Dehradun: In Dehradun’s Dadki village on April 9, a suicide note recovered from a farmer reportedly stated, “don’t vote for BJP”. The letter allegedly also added that the BJP government has done nothing for the farmers in the past five years.
 
Times of India reported that 65-year old Ishwar Chand Sharma committed suicide on Monday by drinking poison. He died on his way to the hospital. In the suicide note, Sharma had written, “BJP government has destroyed farmers in 5 years. Don’t vote for them otherwise they will make everyone sell tea.”
 
According to the report, in his suicide note, Sharma stated that a middleman who helped him get a loan of Rs. 5 lakh was now blackmailing him. Sharma had hedged a blank cheque with the unnamed middleman for getting him to sign as a guarantor while applying for a loan. Per the note, the middleman was now threatening to use that cheque to draw the amount that Sharma had earned after selling his farm produce.
 
SHO Laksar Virendra Singh told TOI, “During the initial investigation, it was found that the deceased farmer had taken a loan of Rs. 5 lakh from a bank with the help of a middleman. The farmer in his suicide note has alleged that the middleman was demanding Rs. 4 lakh to settle the matter.” On being asked about the suicide note, the officer stated that the veracity of the letter is being checked.
 
 “This is sad that when Narendra Modi was announcing compensation for farmers in his manifesto, a farmer committed suicide in Laksar because of his wrong policies,” state Congress vice president Suryakant Dhasmana said in the report.
 
This is the 17th farmer death in the state of Uttarakhand in the last two years, per the report. The Narendra Modi government has not released data on farmer suicides in the country since December 2016.
 
The seven-phase Lok Sabha elections begin on April 11 and will go on till May 19. The counting of votes will take place on May 23.
 

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