Survival mode

MARCHING IN THE DARK SHINES A LIGHT ON MAHARASHTRA'S RESILIENT 'FARM WIDOWS' AND THE STRENGTH THEY FIND FROM MUTUAL SUPPORT

- PREETHA BANERJEE

SOME FILMS are forgotten as soon as the end credits roll. Others leave audiences thinking about their messages for a long time. And then there are films like Marching in the Dark, whose creation itself leaves an impact on not just the viewers, but also the people who become part of the narrative.

The 111-minute documentary by Kinshuk Surjan, a film maker who highlights the plight of farmers and is studying how films can have a more active role in social change, follows the life of Sanjeevani Bhure of Ambajogai, Maharashtra, whose husband had died by suicide in 2016. On a typical day, she gets her children ready for school, cooks for her in-laws, collects firewood, and then tends to her farm. In the afternoon, she studies in secret for college examinations. Then, she heads to Maitri Gat, a small room set up in the town, where “farm widows” like her meet.

Ambajogai is a tehsil located in Beed, a district that often features prominently in the statistics related to farmer deaths by suicide. The latest 2023 data with the National Crime Records Bureau shows that since 1995, when the bureau began collecting data, more than 400,000 farmers in the country have died by suicide. In 2022 alone, 11,290 such deaths were reported—equating to one farmer or farm labourer dying every hour. The trend can be correlated with the heavy finan-cial burden farmers bear owing to the rising production cost, volatile markets and reduction in share of earnings from the goods. But Marching in the Dark does not dwell on figures. Rather, it brings attention to the lives of the women whose husbands and sons have died by suicide.