Too much of public discourse on farmer suicides could bring on unseemly haggling over the numbers. Activists and the media rightly question loopholes in the National Crime Records Bureau data, pointing out that several State governments often report no farm suicides, contrary to local media reportage. However, there is also much needless suspicion and conspiracy-theorising; the NCRB’s data are from police station-level First Information Reports, and FIRs are often contested documents, not conclusive proof. Attacking the NCRB for the numbers rising or falling is illogical; media reports about the NCRB changing definitions or manipulating the data this year are demonstrably false. For the government’s part, it could start by accepting that these numbers are the bare minimum, unlike Chhattisgarh’s Agriculture Minister who responded by insisting that no farmer had killed himself and the NCRB must be wrong. Moreover, while the NCRB lists several reasons, including marital and family problems and illness, as the causes of farm suicides, this should not be taken as the gospel truth; initial police reports often have little to do with the complex factors that drive someone to take his or her life. The government would do better to study more scientifically what is driving farmers to take their own lives at the rate of over one every hour.
What’s clear is that suicides represent only the tip of the iceberg that is agrarian distress in India. So far in July, an estimated 90 farmers have taken their lives in Karnataka, while the government and the media struggle to understand the immediate catalyst; these did not occur in the State’s drought-prone regions, nor was there a sudden crop failure or similar emergency. Interviews with farmers in the region have pointed to lack of institutional credit as one of the major problems, an issue that has been repeated by farmers across the country, including in the suicide epicentres of Vidarbha and Marathwada in Maharashtra. The income of an average farm household is just over Rs.6,400 a month, National Sample Survey Office data show, and this is grossly inadequate to meet consumption demands, not to mention rising input costs. Only households with over one hectare make more than they spend, and they constitute less than 35 per cent of all farm households. This leaves over half of all farm households in debt. These are no small debts; the average amount outstanding for a farm household today is Rs.47,000. These must be extremely heavy burdens for them. Farm suicides, whether owing to purely agricultural reasons like crop failure, or the complex pressures on an Indian farmer, must be tackled seriously on the basis of a comprehensive examination of the causative factors, and the context.
