20th

August 2012, India

Bare Facts about Farmer Suicides

S.Ganesan

Ask a person about suicides in India. Instant recall will be with farmers
committing suicides. Reason is simple. This is what TV channels and
newspapers have been reporting in recent times. And, news creates
views!
Not many know that farmers suicide is only a small part of a larger
tragedy. Available statistics on suicides published by government of India
show that urban suicides outweigh farmers suicides by over 7: 1. In other
words, for every farm suicide in rural area, there are seven in urban areas.
To those who discern, the statistics reveal that between 2007 and 2011,
nearly 6.4 lakh suicides were recorded in India. Of this farmers suicides
accounted for 13%, or a little above 80,000 balance 87% (564802) of the
suicides was unrelated to farming.
Putting suicides in perspective: 70% of Indias population live in rural
areas, they are into farming and they account for 13% of total suicides,
while 30% of the population living in urban areas account for 87% of the
suicides. Yet no one talks of the urban suicide phenomenon. That is an
untold and unwept story. It is a tragic instance when a major part of the
reality does not make news.
Suicide Deaths in India. Snap Shot
Year
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Average

Farmers Suicides
(%)
13.56
12.95
13.65
11.86
10.34
12.47

Suicide rate
among others
(%)
86.44
87.05
86.35
88.14
89.66
87.53

Total Suicides
per year

Source: National Crime Bureau Report available from www.ncrb.gov.in

122637
125017
127151
134599
135585
128998

While farmers suicides have steadily declined from 13.56% to 10.34% in

the last 5 years, urban suicides have increased from 86.44% to nearly
90%. Lest I will be misunderstood, let me make it clear here that I am not
attempting to belittle farmers suicides. It is a great tragedy. I laud all
efforts to mitigate the same. However, I am attempting to bring to light
the real face of suicides in India facilitating right and holistic
understanding of the problem. What is seen in the media is only farmers
suicides. Every social issue is susceptible to be hijacked by vested
interests. The issues of farmers suicides seem to have been seized by
environmental and other social activists groups for their own agenda.
Environmental activists, who always oppose development of any kind
except their own development, have blamed farmers suicides on modern
agriculture that requires use of inputs such as fertilizers, Bt seeds,
pesticides, etc. They singled out cotton cultivation which needs to use
these modern inputs for attack and finding an easy way for some self
publicity, much needed for their survival. While the social activists lay
the blame for this tragedy at economic liberalization policies of the
government, globalization and even international organisations like the
WTO. In this melee of slogans not many noticed that Gujarat is by far the
largest Bt cotton producing state in India, and there has been hardly any
reports of farmers suicide in that state.
Continuous news about cotton farmers suicides from Vidarba region of
Maharashtra forced a visit from our Prime Minister a few years ago.
However soon after our Prime ministers visit to cotton areas of
Maharashtra came news reports claiming that farmer suicides in
Karnataka were far above than that reported from Maharashtra. While
rural suicides attract the personal attention of our Prime minister, I
wonder if urban suicides move even municipal corporators. Interestingly,
following the PMs visit to villages in Maharashtra, what is now being
debated in some circles is whether the visit and sops announced led to
decrease or increase in farmers suicides! In the years since the PMs visit,
more farmers were alleged to have committed suicides in the region.
The single biggest reason for suicides, according to government data, is
family problems followed by illness, love affairs, drug abuse, bankruptcy,
dowry disputes and poverty. Perhaps because family problems, illness,
love affairs, drug abuse, bankruptcy and dowry disputes are quite
commonplace, they cannot sensationally move general public,
consequently urban suicides hardly find a place in the press and
electronic media. As a result, general public gets a skewed picture only
about suicides in India among farmers. It is ironic. Precisely because it is
a much larger tragedy, urban suicides are accepted with equanimity and

therefore remain ignored and unnoticed. This does not happen in case of
other unnatural deaths. For example, about 100,000 Indians were killed
on Indian roads in 2010. This figure is close to annual suicides in urban
India. While authorities do not attempt to discriminate between rural
accidents and urban accidents, why should suicides be looked differently;
with apathy towards urban suicides? The issue of suicides must be saved
from the clutches of vested interests in order to have a proper perspective.
Otherwise, our priorities will necessarily be skewed because of the
distorted media attention on one, while neglecting the other. Failing to
understand suicides in India is one thing, misunderstanding the trend is
quite another. The latter could be more dangerous because it would lead
to wrong prescriptions and waste of resources, yet leaving the problem
unaddressed. Indeed, such misguided focus may end up aggravating the
problem.
Finally, suicide is a punishable offence under Indian law. Section 309 of
Indian Penal Code states: " Whoever attempts to commit suicide and does
any act towards the commissioning of such offence shall be punished with
a simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year or with
fine or with both". Suicide seems to be the only "crime" where if one is
successful, the long arm of the law can never hope to reach the " guilty",
while if one fails in his attempt, the law seeks to impose punishment for a
" crime" that was not actually committed! Clearly, the need of the hour is
a holistic debate over this tragedy, and not media friendly platitudes to
satisfy media driven priorities, which in this case may be quite different
from the realities on the ground.
Japan is the second largest economy in the world in terms of Gross
National Income (next to USA). Paradoxically, Japan has the highest
suicide rate. In the year 2010 alone, 31560 people committed suicide in
Japan, which has just 12% of Indias population. Their suicide rate is
about 250% more than Indias. Measured in international terms 27 out of
every 100,000 Japanese people commit suicide in a year. The
corresponding figure for India is 11 for every 100,000. Remember, with a
per capita Gross National Income of $ 45900 (against Indias $ 1500)
Japan is far robust economically than India and has in place a strong
social security system! Still, Japan suffers from high suicide rate.
The suicide rates in other wealthy countries such as USA, Canada,
Switzerland, Canada etc are all higher than India.
Within India too, there is considerable variation in rate of suicides (i.e.
the number of suicides per one lakh population). In 2011, Pondicherry

registered the highest rate of suicides with 44.8 followed by Andaman

and Nicobar Islands ( 35.8) and Sikkim ( 30.3). It must be noted that all
these are agriculturally insignificant states. Interestingly, Sikkim has been
following organic agriculture. In Punjab, a state known for intensive
agriculture, the suicide rate is as low as 3.5, which is way below the
national average of 11.2. Clearly, therefore, the oft- planted propaganda
that adoption of intensive agriculture leads to high suicides is totally
unfounded.
This begs a question: Is suicide linked more to peoples attitude than their
economic status? And is that why in India, urban suicide exists albeit in
an unknown and untold form?
The author is a working professional with qualifications in the field of science and
environmental law. Views expressed are personal. He may be contacted by email
ganesanicc@gmail.com