stories of Anjubai, kamlabai, chandralekhabai...

Date:3/11/15

Place: Pandharkavda.

 

        

[Source: P.Sainath.org]

Anjubai Bhusari aged around 40-45 years is a farmer in the village Podha in Yavatmal District of Maharashtra. She has a son Rahul (23) and a daughter Sunita (19), her son studies Agriculture and her daughter studies in B.Com 2^nd year in the nearby taluka named Pandharkavda. 

She lives with her mother-in-law (60) and has 5 acres of land on which she grows cotton and pigeon peas i.e. toor dal. As we were walking towords her hut I saw Anjubai working in her farm, there was a distinct smile on her face as she greeted us graciously. We asked her some questions related to the amount of money she invested in her farm and the desired income she was expecting, she told us that she invested around Rs. 30 - 32 thousands per acre and was expecting cotton yield of around 6-7 quintals[per acre] at maximum. 

The rate of cotton per quintal has fallen down this year and the minimum rate prescribed by the government is Rs. 4050/-, as the farmer does not sell directly to the manufacturer; the raw material is sold at the local market to the dealer by the way of auctions, the dealer does not pay anything more than Rs. 4050/-. This means after putting a rigorous labor in the farm for a year her profit is virtually zero. Excluding her own salary which she does not even claim. [No farmer does]

  It was claimed by the Tehsildar Mr. Shailesh Kale that farmer suicides are also resulting due to the poor management of the money by the farmers and overspending in most of the cases, he also mentioned their drinking habits being one of the major causes, however the Data given in the website of National Crime Records Bureau that Alcohol and Drug Abuse only amounts of 4-5% of Total Farmer suicides in India. Anjubai spends around 10 to 15 thousands a year on the education of her children; she spends around Rs. 20, 000/- on the food and other resources and around Rs.5-6 thousands on the treatment of her ailing mother-in-law.  

 This is her yearly spending and Anjubai is tensed because she claims that her yearly spending are increasing and also she has a daughter to marry.  Here is a family of four spending Rs 3400-/ hundred per month including food, health, education, sure what a luxury!

This is the condition of countless farmers in vidhrbha. The officers who taste the fruits of 5^th and 6^th pay commission sitting in their luxurious offices call their spending irresponsible and irrational. The statement of the Tehsildar is an example of the apathy of the bureaucracy towards the farmers and their awareness of the issues causing distress to farmers.

Anjubai’s husband committed suicide around 8 years ago due to the pending loan of Rs. 30,000/- and today the loan has gone up to Rs. 60,000/- which Anjubai has to pay. Anjubai has only studied till 8^th so the only source of regular income is the labor that Anjubai puts in others farm through which she manages to earn Rs. 100-150/- per month. The more hesitant we were at asking questions related to suicide the more relaxed Anjubai was while answering them as if suicide has become a casual affair; it was as if she had made peace with her fate, it is impossible for me to understand the amount of pain and suffering she must have gone through as she raised her kids and took care of her ailing mother-in-law after the sudden demise of her husband. But the suffering has not ended yet, the suffering continues and the suffering has only been normalized into the lives of these people, into the life of Anjubai.

Similar is the story of Chandrakalabai [Village Saikheda, Yavatmal] who has two daughters, one is married and other studies in 11^th standard, Her husband committed suicide due to the loan that he had taken at the age of 30. One of her daughter recently got married, no matter how poor the farmer is he has to bear the cost of marrying his daughter due to societal pressure and that is what happened with Chandrakalabai she had to put days of labor to be able to manage the marriage of her daughter.

When we asked her younger daughter about what she wants to become in the future Payal looked at her mom and refused to say anything. 

After much deliberation she hesitantly answered that she wants to be a teacher and wants to study further. Payal is an average teenager who has a normal and reasonable wish of being a teacher but due to the economic conditions of her family, today she feels guilty to admit that ambition of hers. Such countless ambitions of wife’s and children of farmers are now broken as they fight for the basics.

The story of Kamlabai Surpal stunned us all. Her husband was a well to do farmer but had not incurred any profits in the year in which he committed suicide. It was the marriage of his daughter and 15 days before the marriage he had no money to pay for it. He had already taken loan from the banks and other people of the village. 

Due to all options being exhausted he decided to sell the only pair of buffaloes he owned which in itself was a tough decision for him. Thus Kamlabai and her husband went to the market but the price that the market offered was not even close to what they expected and required. After roaming around in the market for the whole day the couple came back home disappointed. The same night her husband consumed poison committed suicide. 

All the three widows mentioned above did not get any government help as they did not fall into the criterion prescribed by the government, they were declared not eligible for the compensation due to some or the other reasons.

We could notice a pattern in all the three suicides, none of the widows were aware of what exactly was going on in their husbands’ minds as they decided to take such a drastic step. It seemed that the men had gone into an absolute isolation there was no help from the society as the support systems of the village which are substituted by the bureaucracy are non-existent on ground. They were troubled by the Sahukars and the Banks they took loans from.

A farmer who was once respected in the society now had to suffer the humiliation from the officers, bank officials. Disappointment from not being able to take care of his family and the increasing poverty due to degrading conditions of farming. 

It is important for these stories to come out because they give you an insight to the lives of these people and the lives of 60 percent population of this country; they are more or less facing the same problems. However these lives have been reduced down to a mere statistical number, every time a suicide occurs and I see the news somewhere below in third page of the newspaper or on the notifications on the digital media it comes to me that even the society has normalized and accepted this phenomenon i.e. farmer suicide, while nobody cared about the lives of these farmers, farmer suicide at least made news sometime ago but the cold response that a farmer death gets today in terms of its coverage by media or the public outrage as a result of that death, it seems that their deaths have also gone in vain.

What factors contribute to the farmer suicide, what economic policies should we adhere to etc. are the issues on which our views may differ, the problem with us today is not that we support wrong policies but the problem precisely is that we have stopped thinking about the consequences of our act. It is to be noted that in a democratic framework when a man makes a choice whether implied, informed or selective he uses his faculties to make that decision.
 

We are unknowingly making opinions and passing value judgments and selecting between what is right and what is wrong, also when we are unconsciously neglecting something we are giving our tacit consent to it. All these small things are later manifested into Public Opinions, Ideologies and Policies that not only affect our lives but also the lives of people around us and therefore a true citizen should be sensitive to the pain and sufferings of the others. The dialectic process of thesis and antithesis will only be fruitful if the ones taking part in it are informed and sensitive towards the sufferings of the poor and downtrodden and therefore it is important for these stories to come out and be presented to you.  

This was an overview of the life of these widows and these unsung legends who stood by and supported their families taught their children, married their daughter and still fight for a basic survival and dignified life.

I will subsequently share the views of these Farmers, Government officials and the Activists on the factors and solution of the Agrarian crisis as I share these stories with you.