SEEDS OF SORROW

Lack of structural reforms, institutional support and political will are driving farmers to suicide

- BY DNYANESH JATHAR & PRATHIMA NANDAKUMAR

Kartiki and Sri Punyavati keep asking their uncle Bhagwat Jadhav when they can meet their parents. Bhagwat, unfortunately, has no answer. He does not know how to tell the two girls, aged six and two, the painful truth—that their parents are no more.

Bhagwat's elder brother Sachin, a cotton and soybean farmer, ended his life on April 13 by consuming paraquat, a herbicide known to cause certain death if ingested. On hearing the news, his wife Jyoti, who was pregnant with their third child, drank from the same bottle discarded near their house. Two swigs of paraquat wiped out three lives within hours.

The Jadhavs' house in Malsonna, a village in Maharashtra's Parbhani district in the Marathwada region, is typical of a small farmer's dwelling. There are just two partially open rooms made of black stone, with a tin shed covering a small open space. When THE WEEK visited Bhagwat, his hands were still stained with henna—he got married only recently. “He used to constantly worry about how he would repay his debts,” said Bhagwat, as Kartiki and Sri Punyavati played nearby. “He had borrowed a few lakhs from a bank and some more from a private lender.”

Bhagwat's father, Balaji Jadhav, is rarely at home. He prefers working in the fields to distract himself from the trauma of losing his son and pregnant daughter-in-law. “Even the tehsildar was unwilling to visit until our leaders raised their voices,” said Kishor Dhage, Parbhani district chief of the Shetkari Sanghatana, a farmers' organisation led by former MP Raju Shetty. Following the state government's inaction, Shetty and his supporters organised a silent march in protest. “Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar found time to visit a nearby temple but not to offer condolences to the grieving family. Even the district’s guardian minister, Meghna Bordikar, a local herself, has not visited,” Dhage said.