It is the review of
article of “Farmers’ Suicides in Maharashtra” By B.B Mohanty and
Sangeeta Shroff stressing the three district of Maharashtra (Amravati, Yavatmal
and Wardha) explaining different hardship the farmers undergo due to crop
losses, indebtedness and market imperfections and other social factors which
are at work in their suicides.
According to National
Crime Report Bureau the total number of suicide committed by farmers since 1995
in India is 2, 96,438; and a Rural Reporter P.Sainath reported in Frontline is
crossing 3, 00,000 marking in 2014 farmers’ suicides in India. The huge numbers
of people do agriculture in India directly or indirectly almost 48.9% as NCRB
have been stated. The farmers’ suicide happening every day at least ten who
killed themselves; and a total of 5,650 farmers have committed suicide during
2014, accounting 4.3% of total suicides victims in the country. And major
states in which the suicide is more like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu,
Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh so on.
A suicide among the
farming communities according state government it is the deaths to crop
failures due to bad weather; the media interpret suicide as the rising cost of
cultivation. It varies in their styles and temper as well as in their major
findings. Some group attributes suicide as agro-economic problems like crop
failure, indebtedness; other highlight as politico-economic issues- blaming the
state for the tragedies. Some others suggest that it is the outcome of
historical factor associated with cotton cultivation. As (2001) study according
to Mohanty of Amravati and Yavatmal districts reveals it is the result of
complex process of interaction of both historical and contemporary
socio-economic forces.
According to NCRB
farmers are those who own and work on filed (cultivators) as well as those who
employ/hire workers for field work/farming activities. It excludes agricultural
labours.
2003 study of Mohanty
and Shroff explains the suicides of the farmers in Maharashtra with reference
to three districts of Amravati, Yavatmal and Wardha. These three districts were
formed a part of Vidarbha region of Maharashtra which were a part of Madhya
Pradesh. This region changed from 19th century due to cotton
cultivation and systematic changes in agriculture took place in the
post-independence period under the impact of land reform, new production
technology and accompanying in infrastructural arrangement.
The government of India
launched land reform under the country’s five year plan which brought positive
impact on redistribution of land; and Vidarbha region benefited mostly district
of Amravati and Yavatmal. This land reform several consequences- there was
increase of operational holdings, gross cropped area by the rise in cropping
intensity. Looking at the cropping pattern- there was change, earlier cotton
was the predominant crop, but now it oilseeds replacing food grain and cotton.
There was the demand of farmers; so credit network too expanded in which two
ways formal agencies (i.e Banks, those agencies lend money to farmers through
proper written rules and regulation) and informal agencies (i.e village
moneylender, those who don’t have any proper documentation on money lending to farmers,
just in oral way as the moneylender wish). In these moneylending process there
was several irregularities and malpractices observed in the marketing of
agricultural produce; there was an act called Maharashtra agricultural produce
market act 1963, and the principal objectives of this act were- to bring equity
in bargaining power among agriculturalist and traders, to promote mutual
confidence between the two parties, to prevent malpractices in trading, to give
a fair deal to the peasants. By the end there was a market committee which
comprised of elected representative of agriculturalist and traders, as well as
nominated numbers from the government and local bodies. The official of this
committee supervise the marketing operations.
Agricultural revolution
was initiation to prosperity for the farmers of Maharashtra which latter push
the farmers into distress; because it was the HYV varieties
which required heavy does of fertilizers, pesticides and other
complementary inputs; basically it increases the cost of cultivation
substantially. The credit facilities extended by cooperatives societies are too
inadequate. Only those large and medium farmers benefit through credit
facilities which is provided by regulated market operation and small farmers
hardly benefit out of that. The licensed of moneylenders are too ceased to play
any role; so farmers have no choice left, only the private moneylender and
shopkeeper who usually charge exorbitant interest on lending. The traditional
farming has replaced by new methods of farming which make farmers most
difficult and huge investment on agricultural inputs.
The regulated marketing
arrangement seemed to be inadequate- because the market which are regulated by
agriculture produce market act is quite far from the farmers; mostly the small
farmer benefit less compared to large and medium farmer. On account of small
farmer have less surplus crop, transportation problem, distance matters,
weighing and grading takes lot of time, and they can’t wait for payment longer,
on the other large famers have large volumes of transaction, they can wait for
payments in instalment ways periodically and they benefit because market
offered them higher price rather than local traders. Over the burden of small
farmers they don’t have any way to sell their crop- so they sell their produce
in local market which give then instant payment compare to regulated market.
In this article farmers
are taken as deceased (are those who victimized of) and control (those who are
not victimized); and it further divide into three- large farmers (those who own
land more than 4 hectares), medium farmers (those who own land less than 4
hectares and more than 2.01 hectares), small farmers (those who own land up to
2 hectares).
The farmers’ plan of
expenditure for the given year varies because it is largely influenced by the
quality of land, amount of investment, quality and quantity of agricultural
inputs, market condition, experience, socio-economic background etc. And the
loan from the informal sources, the number of indebted farmers was much less
when compared to that of the formal agencies. The agricultural income loss of
farmers of both categories was same with some variation; it couldn’t have been
the only factor that made the farmers takes the extreme step of committing
suicides. The causes of these suicides may also lie in the social experiences
of the farmers. Emile Durkheim rightly puts it as sociological model for
understanding suicides, believes to be as individual phenomena and so their
causes are essentially social in nature.
And according to study
it is found that suicides has the major reason like family problems, old age,
illness, drinking and gambling etc; other reasons include social causes like
love affairs, death of close relation; to loss of agricultural incomes and
indebtedness; addicted to alcoholism, and all other known and unknown social
issues. Many times it is the unmarried, divorced and separated farmers who do
suicide as comparison of social characteristics of the deceased and control
farmers. It is also the immunity to suicide among the individual who are
unmarried members of the family and those who face widowhood, separation and
childlessness as Durkheim rightly put it as individual phenomena. It is larger
the family size, the greater is the protection against suicide become it
represents higher degree of social cohesion due to stronger sentiments and
historical memories.
As we see the human
desire for income and wealth always increases (social wants); in due course
individual loose its limits and suffer from the disproportion between his
aspirations and achievements. This situation according to Durkheim, it
generates disappointment and feelings of failure, which latter leads to growth
of “Suicidogenic impulse” and people do suicide. According to Durkheim theory
it is always the social factor which always triggers the people in social
relationship that’s integration and regulation which operate in society.
To recap of suicide of
farmers; it is the both macro and micro level analysis which indicates the loss
of agricultural income due to failure of crop, or adverse bad weather, market
imperfections and consequent indebtedness which has pushed the farmers to
distress. And other social factors are also in work when it comes to their
suicides.
References
1.
B B Mohanty, Sangeeta Shroff (2004):
“Farmers’ Suicides in Maharashtra”, Economic and Political Weekly, Dec 25
