Book Review

Exposing the Plight of Farmers in Punjab

Gursharan Singh Kainth

Debt and Death in Rural India: The Punjab Story

Aman Sidhu and Inderjit Singh Jaijee

Sage Publications India, New Delhi,

2011, Rs 750/-, pp 360.

The plight of debt ridden farmers seems to have found an ear which resolved to shake the illusion of many a self-congratulatory eye.The paradox is painful. Farmers are hailed as one of the building blocks of the nation, shoulder to shoulder with the soldiers. A slogan like Jai Jawan Jai Kisaan establishes their glory for posterity. But when the illusion breaks, reality hits hard. That is the paradox our farmers have to face. If they are not rich landlords, they can be doomed to a life crushed by debt and penury.For those who cannot face the prospect of a lifetime of servitude, death is the next best option. One farmer less, one orphan with strangely empty eyes more and life goes on. That is the reality of farmers across the nation which no one sees or does not want to see.

In the late 1980s, the Movement against State Repression (MASR) headed by Inderjit Singh Jaijee, constituted to take up cases of human rights violation by state security forces, and also started to probe farmer suicides. Since Jaijee’s ancestral village falls in this area, he had firsthand knowledge of the growing crisis. He had the assistance of her daughter Aman Sidhu who helped her father in the extensive research needed. The outcome is a detailed exposition in the form of a book ‘Debt and Death in Rural India-The Punjab Story’.

Punjab traditionally grain bowl of the country is under attack from a variety of sources, not the least of them being from socially conscious intellectuals who have pursued the story of farmer suicides in the state. The investigation into the suicide trail was accidental. Farmers’ suicides in Punjab have been reported essentially from the Malwa region which has, ironically, dominated Punjab’s political scene for the last about two decades. No surprises there. The state’s politicians have traditionally tried to brush farmer suicides under the carpet even though unseemly facts were beginning to emerge during the third term of Shri Parkash Singh Badal as Chief Minister of Punjab beginning 1997. For the first few years, the government refused to even acknowledge such cases. But the MASR was the first to draw the government’s attention towards the crisis.

The scientific technology consisting of seed-water-fertilizer technology popularly known as Green Revolution made Punjab the breadbasket of India. This has changed the economic scenario of the state. Now post-Green Revolution Punjab is going through a period of crisis. The agrarian society is debt ridden and suicides are on the rise. Green Revolution in its wake has had some serious environmental consequences like salinization and water logging. The wheat-rice cycle has led to a fall in the water table and increased dependence on tube wells. Punjab struggles for survival and this work has proved to be an exhaustive study, as it attempts to understand the economic and political forces in play.

Debt and Death in Rural India is a study of farmer suicides in rural Punjab from the mid-1980s up to 2008.Based on comprehensive original research work, it examines various factors ranging from central to state policies and critically analyses political, economic and social trends that led to the dismal condition of the farmers between 1988 and 2008.This study presents a unique trajectory on the issue of farmer suicides and contextualizes the problem within a historical and geographical framework. It includes interviews of family members of a number of farmers who committed suicide in the subdivision of Sangrur district of Punjab, India, which constitutes the area of the study.

The study was conducted in Lehra and Andana blocks of Moonak subdivision that falls in Sangrur district and covers the time period of mid-80s up to 2008. During the mid-80s, the spate of suicides was increasing and these were attributed to drug abuse. When probed further, it became evident that the suicides had economic causes which were further accelerated by social and political conditions. As a researcher for the Movement against State Repression (MASR), the researcher began documentation which showed great disparity in the suicide figures provided by Punjab and those of MASR.According to a 2009 report commissioned by the Government of Punjab, there were an estimated “close to 3,000 suicides” among farmers and farm labourers in just two of Punjab’s 20 districts.

This study presents a unique trajectory on the issue of farmer suicides and contextualizes the problem within a historical and geographical framework. It includes interviews of family members of a number of farmers who committed suicide in the subdivision of Sangrur district of Punjab, India, which constitutes the area of the study.Analyzing Punjab’s historical and geographical framework, the book probes the main factors responsible for rural suicides. The unjust distribution of river waters, unfavourable government policies, land ceiling, dependence on the local "artiya" for informal credit are just a few reasons that have contributed to the rising debt among the agrarian community. Also, the fragmentation of landholdings, rising aspirations and the process of globalization has seeped into the very fabric of rural society. Heavy industry has been denied to the state by the Centre on the pretext of its closeness to the Indo-Pak border restricting the job opportunities to the rural masses.

This outstanding work analyses the interplay of economic and political forces and recommends concrete policy measures to enable Punjab to break out of the vicious farmer-suicide cycle.This book includes details about the quantification process of the suicides and the figures which made the state government and media take the case of farmers’ suicides seriously. The writers are very vocal about the fact that the government does not want to acknowledge the mass scale of rural suicides. The efforts of the writers need to be lauded in highlighting the increasing debt and penury among the farmers. This book has broken the silence surrounding farmer’s deaths. Interviews of family members of suicide victims constitute an important part of the research. Unlike other works, this book also offers practical recommendations which can go a long way in tackling the vicious circle of debt.

But we met someone who is determined to make everyone see. Chasing the story of farmers’ suicides is difficult, reducing that story to statistics for the powers that be is even more so. The authors want the story of Punjab farmers to cut through the self congratulatory illusion of fertile fields and happy farmers riding imported tractors, their sons in universities and their wives bedecked in jewels. The book under review is a chilling story and an excellent study about the plight of peasants and brings to light the apathetic attitude of the government.It exposes the yawning gulf between the haves and the have nots.

eSS Book Review, Kainth on Sidhu and Jaijee

December 2011