SEEDS OF DISTRESS

Mounting debt is pushing farmers in Maharashtra and Karnataka to end their lives

- Haima Deshpande & Anisha Reddy

ON August 31 this year, 11 farmers jumped into the safety net at Mantralaya, the administrative headquarters of the Maharashtra government in Mumbai, in a bid to kill themselves. They had all entered the Secretariat separately with the authorised passes handed out to them at the Mantralaya gates. The 11—against whom the police have registered cases of attempt to suicide— say they did it out of desperation.

Most residents of Morshi village in Amravati district of the state say they attempted suicide as they were refused compensation for their land acquired by the state government for the Upper Wardha Dam project.

For over two decades, Maharashtra has hit the headlines for farmers’ suicides. On June 30, a report—which was submitted to the state government—outlined several distressing facts, including that one lakh farmer families in the Marathwada region have been categorised as “highly sensitive suicide prone”.

Like every other household, weddings are a lavish affair in the houses of farmers. They borrow heavily from private moneylenders or sawkars using their land as collateral. These moneylenders charge high rates of interest, with borrowers paying through their lives. If the farmer dies, then the burden of repayment is transferred to the family of the farmer. “The farmers do not understand the transaction with the sawkar. Whatever the sawkar says is the last word. Families, and often generations, end up paying the debt, when in reality, it has been paid several years ago,” says Ramchandra Namdar, who has been helping farmers understand the perils of dealing with sawkars.

The farmers have to also give a part of the crop yield to the