Trigger warning: the following article has references to suicide. Please avoid reading if you feel distressed by the subject.
Laxmibai Damu Nawale winnows wheat at the entrance of her home, her weathered hands working hard. Constructed with corrugated metal sheets, the structure that doubles as a cattle shed sits in a field of half an acre in Pali village, Beed district, Maharashtra. She talks about the pain of losing a son a decade ago, followed by a grandson last year. “They have left us behind, along with a deadly debt,” says the 78-year-old matriarch. “I don’t know why death is not taking me away.”
In January 2014, Nawale’s son Bapu Rao Damu, in his 40s, killed himself. He had seen many years of debt and failed crops, the expenses mounting with a sister’s wedding.
In the following decade, Nawale’s daughter-in-law Sangita and her two sons, Akshay and Balu, took charge of their farm. They sold half an acre to clear some of the debt, and worked for a meagre daily wage of ₹100 to ₹150. But in March 2023, Balu, 23, also took his life. He had borrowed ₹5 lakh from friends and relatives over the years to dig a well, and experiment with different crops. None of his efforts paid off, and the seeds withered on arid land.
Last year, 1,088 farmers ended their lives in eight districts of Marathwada region, and 1,439 in Vidarbha region, as per a report from the Relief and Rehabilitation Department. In Marathwada, Beed reported the highest deaths at 269, followed by 182 in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, 175 in Nanded, 171 in Dharashiv, and 103 in Parbhani. Jalna, Latur, and Hingoli reported 74, 72, and 42 deaths by suicide, respectively. While the overall figure of 2,851 shows a lower number of suicides compared to the previous year’s 2,942, Marathwada has seen a rise by 65 from 2022. All the victims shared a common burden: debt. The survivors too now share the same burden, along with the grief of loss and the stigma of suicide.
After Balu’s death, Sangita and Akshay have taken up the daunting task of repaying the loans. “Neither my husband nor my son told me about the debts. We may have to sell off the remaining half acre to pay them off,” laments Sangita.
Grief-stricken: Shaikh Khadijah, 60, mourns the loss of her son Shaikh Latif, 30, a tenant farmer from Mochi Pimpalgaon, who took his life last month. | Photo Credit: EMMANUAL YOGINI
Data, debt, death
Veteran journalist and author P. Sainath, who runs the media website, People’s Archive of Rural India, says the number of farmer suicides could be significantly understated. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data for the same year point at 4,248 reported cases of suicide by farmers and farmhands in Maharashtra, including 239 women. “NCRB is a census that touches every police station [in the country],” he says, adding that these figures have higher statistical value than the State-level data.
Maharashtra accounted for 38% of all suicides in the agricultural community, the highest in the country. Marathwada is the State’s most drought-affected area. Last year, the State government declared 42 talukas as drought-hit, with 14 in this region. Some years though, like in 2021 and 2022, there is excessive or unseasonal rainfall, ruining crops.
Calling farmer suicides “the most tragic face of the crisis”, Sainath also says they “are the outcome of the agrarian crisis, not its origin. They are its context, not its content”.
Last year, a ‘classified’ report compiled by Sunil Kendrekar, the then Divisional Commissioner of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, found that about one lakh farmers in the Marathwada region were contemplating suicide because of pressures from mounting debt. Behind the debt was drought, crop loss, price crashes, lack of market value for produce, and medical and marriage expenses. Kendrekar took voluntary retirement after he submitted the report.
Debt burden: The parents of Amol Baban Rao Ranmare, 26, who died by suicide on his farm in January last year, have two responsibilities: to bring up his child and pay off his debt, at Dhondarai village in Georai tehsil. | Photo Credit: EMMANUAL YOGINI
Changes to life and livelihood
A short distance from Pali, Shaikh Khadijah, 60, a woman with lines of hardship etched on her face, mourns the loss of her son Shaikh Latif, 30, a tenant farmer from Mochi Pimpalgaon, who took his life last month. Seated on a stack of urea bags outside her modest dwelling on a farm of 30 guntha (a little less than 1 acre), Khadijah says, “He was a cheerful person, but suddenly one day he chose to escape life.”
“I had just made bajra (millet) roti and methi curry in the morning and went to wake him up,” she recounts. The horror of seeing his lifeless body still haunts her. Luckily his wife and two children were visiting her parents at the time. “People are saying he was troubled by debt, but he didn’t say anything about his financial struggles even to his wife,” she says, crying.
The average landholding in Maharashtra is 1.34 hectares, about 3 acres, and farmers in the drought-prone region primarily cultivate cash crops such as cotton and soybean, and the water-guzzling sugarcane. “The region is facing serious problems of climate change, shrinking of water resources, and hardening of soil. Marathwada, like Rayalaseema in Andhra Pradesh, once used to be the home of millets. In 1905, cotton arrived, and the Marathwada and Nizam regions of Telangana went into cotton in a very big way, which they were not growing earlier. This changed everything,” Sainath says. Soil exhaustion and pesticide overuse became common.
Marathwada falls in the rain shadow of the southwest monsoon, behind the Western Ghats. Sainath feels it is not all about topography though. “The topography of Rajasthan is much tougher compared to Marathwada, but farmer suicides are fewer there. Some districts in the country receive one-third of the rainfall of Marathwada,” he says. His point is that farmers should grow crops suited to the land.
Udhav Alse, retired professor of agriculture and food science, Vasantrao Naik Marathwada Krishi Vidyapeeth, Parbhani, notes that with over 80% of the area being arid, the region lacks a viable permanent crop. Additionally, many marginal farmers rely on non-institutional sources for credit, mainly sahukars (moneylenders) as they offer quick loans. “They take instant loans at very high interest rates — 30% to 40% — for crops, marriages, and to repay previous loans. The cycle never ends,” says Alse, adding that banks, including rural and cooperative ones, check farmers’ credit score, which he says is “most ironic”.
Inconsolable: Sunitha Kalyan Phatangade with a portrait of her son, Umesh, who died by suicide on July 31 last year, at Murmagaon in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. | Photo Credit: EMMANUAL YOGINI
Hard days and nights
Located about 45 km north of Beed town, Dhondarai village in Georai tehsil has seen 14 suicides in the past three years. Amol Baban Rao Ranmare, 26, died by suicide on his farm in January last year, leaving behind a debt of ₹2 lakh. He was married and had a child. His wife then remarried, leaving their one-year-old daughter with her in-laws. Now, his parents have two responsibilities: to bring up a child and pay off a debt.
“He resorted to the extreme step under the influence of alcohol. It has become a major issue in our villages,” says Dhondarai sarpanch Shital Sakhare. She says desi daru (country liquor) is a major problem. A doctor in a primary health centre in the region says it is hard for men to go to a deaddiction centre because they will lose out on daily wages or a day’s labour. Many of them also engage in card games and matka (a game of dice), betting their hard-earned money away.
Across the region, many men in their 20s and 30s have taken their lives. Responsibilities of the extended family, like eldercare or the marriage of a sister, still seen as a man’s duty, keep young men on marginal farms. Even those who migrate to cities like Aurangabad and Pune in pursuit of better opportunities, often find themselves compelled to come home for long durations, during the harvest season or following a family tragedy.
“The number of deaths has seen a sharp rise in the last couple of months, and a majority of the victims are young. The government gives ₹1 lakh as aid to the bereaved families, but why can’t they come up with a solution to stop the suicides?” says Kailash Tawar, a resident of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and member of the Shetkari Sanghatana, a farmers’ union. Input costs, including that of seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides, have doubled in recent years, he adds, questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment to doubling farmers’ incomes by 2022.
The production cost of cotton, for instance, ranges between ₹6,500 and ₹7,000 per quintal, while the current market price hovers around ₹6,800, making it challenging for farmers to break even, Tawar explains, alleging that government schemes are failing to reach farmers.
Subsidising debt
Maharashtra Agriculture Minister Dhananjay Munde claims his government gives farmers a comprehensive safety net: ₹12,000 annually, with ₹6,000 from the Centre’s Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana, and ₹6,000 from the State’s Namo Shetkari Mahasanman Nidhi. “We are giving crop loans at ₹1 premium, and National Disaster Response Force and State Disaster Response Force compensation for crop damage due to unseasonal rain,” says Munde, who hails from Beed district. He does agree though that something more has to be done. In the rhetoric of a seasoned politician, he urges young people to view farming as a profitable sector. “We are going to forecast prices and advise farmers on specific crops based on market conditions,” he says.
Meanwhile, in Murmagaon of Paithan taluka in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Sunitha Kalyan Phatangade tearfully contemplates a future where she works for ₹250 a day, three or four times a week, to clear the debt left by her son Umesh, 24. “He was my only hope, my pillar of strength. Now, I feel lifeless,” she whispers, her voice carrying the weight of grief.
As she stares at a portrait of her son, Phatangade says Umesh left to spray pesticide on the cotton crop around 7 p.m. on July 31 last year. “He asked me to make his favourite dal-bati (grilled wheat balls). From there he called his sister, who lives in Ranjangaon Dandga, and said he wanted to end his life,” she remembers. Between the time of the call and Phatangade rushing to the field, Umesh had died. “Now, I have to repay a loan of ₹4-5 lakh, which was taken to build our home and for crop investment,” she says.
Back in Beed, Nawale says no woman should have to see the death of a man crushed in spirit.
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