India’s food granary is following a suicide trajectory. One farmer is committing suicide everyday in the Punjab with the worst-affected districts in eastern parts of the state.
Fear of the Naxalites gaining ground in Punjab and revival of militancy is forcing the government to downplay the continuing spate of farm suicides in the food bowl of India.
Rubbishing the government’s argument, Inderjit Singh Jaijee, who runs a movement against state repression in Punjab said, “This is a ploy to overlook the deep agrarian crisis in the state which contributes the largest to the central food kitty. Farm suicides is a serious problem and needs long term and consistent solutions.”
According to estimates, there were around 1,800 farm suicides in two particular sub-divisions of Punjab from 1990-2008. The crisis slowed down a bit after 2008 as land prices improved in the state but have now resumed as the roll out of the economic slow down impacted the agrarian state.
Sadly, the governments, both at the Centre and the state, try to hush up reporting of such incidents arguing the Naxals and militants may take advantage of the farm crisis, alleged Mr Jaijee. Pained at the official apathy, Mr Jaijee has even written to the President to personally intervene in the matter. Punjab is presented as the country’s “success story” and still contributes 70 per cent of wheat and 48-50 per cent of rice to the national pool, while it has only 1.5 per cent of the arable land area of India. But the rising suicides expose a vulnerability thus far cloaked, neglected and exacerbated, said farm experts. The centre had selected Punjab as the recepient of its Green Revolution policies.