The decision of P. Esakkimuthu to kill himself after torching his wife and two young children on October 23 at Tirunelveli Collectorate will sound foolish if one hears the tales of deliverance from usury in a city once set afire by an angry Kannagi. Women of grit and determination have made the brave choice between life and death.
People in Thideer Nagar know R. Santhi only as ‘Thanni Adikkira Santhi Akka’. Till a few years back, she has been pumping water from Madurai Corporation taps for water vendors and got paid at the rate of ₹5 for filling up 16 plastic pots. Pumping water from early morning was one of the ways she could earn money to repay a loan taken at exorbitant interest. Her fall into the clutches of usury was not entirely her own.
“My parents pledged the only piece of land they owned with a usurer to buy a goods vehicle. When they met with an accident they could not repay the loan. As I am the only child of the family, the usurer harassed me for repayment. This forced my family to migrate to Andhra Pradesh from Avaniapuram to work in sweet meat shops in 2000,” recalls Ms. Santhi.
After working in several places, the family returned to Madurai to settle in Thideer Nagar in 2002. In 2005, she became a member of a self-help group and her first loan of ₹2,750 was meant to buy school uniform for her children. When the moneylender pestered her to pay ₹1.5 lakh, which included interest for a principal amount of ₹60,000, Ms. Shanthi lodged a complaint with the police. In 2011, the usurer agreed to accept the payment of principal.
Six years later, Ms. Shanthi’s two sons are employed. One of them lives in Singapore from where he sends ₹30,000 a month to his mother. Her daughter is married. Ms. Shanthi lives in a house with her husband with all essential needs without being haunted by the usury ghost. “When I got married to my uncle, my parents could not offer me even a gram of gold. When I got my daughter married, I gave her 16 sovereigns of jewels,” she says.
P. Janaki of Aruldosspuram is an entrepreneur, who owns Sri Parameswari Health Products, which is involved in production and distribution of native food items made of minor millets and catering. Her family got into the usury net when her husband A. Pandi borrowed small amounts at high interest rates from friends for construction of a small house and the education of their three children.
“I used to pay the instalments from my monthly salary. At one point of time, I had to pay the entire salary as loan dues,” says the former employee of Madura Coats. “I tried to supplement the family income by setting up a tea stall, idly shop and selling milk. But that was not adequate. Hence, the voluntary retirement scheme was a godsend for my husband,” she says.
At this juncture, they had to decide whether to sell their house to repay the loans or retire from service. “She was the one who took the decision and asked me to leave my job. I paid the entire retirement benefits to moneylenders and came home empty-handed. But I don’t regret the decision,” he says.
The couple prepare 15 food items at home with quality ingredients and Mr. Pandi distributes them at shops in Sellur area. The profit margin for them is negligible but the satisfaction they get from selling quality products to ordinary people is huge.
B. Leela Devi of Gandhipuram had no other alternative but to get loans from usurers for the treatment of her mother, a diabetic. She sold all her jewels only to repay the interest. After joining an SHG, she managed to repay the principal amount.
After two decades, she has got two of the sisters of her husband married and renovated their house. More than anything, the family is out of usury. Ms. Leela Devi is now involved in getting women like her out of the clutches of usury. She is a good negotiator with usurers and has forced many to waive the interest on loans.
What facilitated the turnaround in their lives? Knowledge of laws against usury and involvement in SHG movement have had a significant impact. Institutional lending has also helped in a big way. “If we adhere to the principle that SHG movement is only for the poor and not for all, the concept works,” says N. Shanthi Maduresan, Chief Executive Officer, Dhan Kalanjiam Mutual Movement (DKMM), which is involved in getting people out of poverty.
Besides facilitating the exit from usury, Kalanjiam SHGs have also helped families in getting their men out of liquor addiction. The CEO says there is a lot of money available now for lending.
“But we look at lending only for essential needs, like medical emergency or education,” she adds. For this, a cash flow study is made before lending. The target group is divided into three – survival (highly vulnerable), subsistence (can endure with limited security) and self-employed (stable and secure).
Lending takes place on the basis of requirement for each group. The DKMM also enlightens the beneficiaries of essential spending and the need to consume nutritious food to improve health and tracks their financial improvement every year. Through poverty reduction initiatives, the DKMM has brought 4,22,924 members out of poverty in the last six years.
