Abstract
Almost every day newspapers in India publish news of farmers’ suicides from states in agrarian distress like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa and Punjab. There have also been cases of multiple suicides in a household. Not only heads of households (usually males), but also women (mostly wives of heads of households) have been known to have also committed suicide. Till date, many studies have tried to understand the phenomenon of agrarian distress and farmers’ suicides in suicide-prone states. What is a particularly serious matter of concern is farmers’ suicide in agriculturally developed states, particularly Punjab, and it needs urgent attention of both academics and policy makers. Earlier studies of farmers’ suicides in Punjab have only focused on the suicide victims (farmers as well as agricultural labourers) and tried to understand the reasons behind this phenomenon from investigating the suicide sample only. There is a dearth of research on comparison of suicide and non-suicide households with same socio-economic conditions.
The present study by Lakhwinder Singh, Kesar Singh Bhangoo and Rakesh Sharma titled ‘Agrarian Distress and Farmer Suicides in North India’ (2016) studies the socio-economic conditions of suicide as well as non-suicide households. Also, this book compares the conditions of both suicide (deceased) and non-suicide (control) groups and reveals the factors behind the farmers’ distress and suicides. The selection of control group households is done on the basis of same size land holdings from the same villages, blocks and districts. This study is based on a sample of 1,392 households consisting of farmer households (deceased and control), and agricultural labour households (deceased and control). The sample consists of 510 each of deceased and the control farmer households and 186 each suicide of the suicide and the control agricultural labour households. The sample of 1,392 farmer and farm labour households comes from 22 villages of the three most suicide-prone districts of the state—Bathinda, Mansa and Sangrur. Hence, the results from this research based on such a large sample can be considered representative of the populations being studied.
This research is new and unique in many ways. Firstly, it compares the socio-economic conditions of suicide and non-suicide households of both farmers and farm labour. Secondly, the large sample of 1,392 households helps in more meaningful and deeper understanding of the problem. Thirdly, the data are collected from a sample of 1,392 households with proper sampling techniques and data are collected from this sample with the help of well-structured questionnaires. Finally, a census is conducted in the Harkishanpura village (whose village panchayat—or local self-government body—had put the entire village on sale due to severe agrarian distress) of Bathinda district to understand the deep-rooted, complex and multidimensional problem of farmers’ suicide.
This book consists of seven chapters. The first two chapters introduce and provide the background of the problem. The first chapter applies the political economy perspective to agrarian distress, and discusses the objectives, methodology, data and sample design of the study. The second chapter reviews relevant theoretical and empirical studies related to agrarian distress and rural suicide, and discusses various aspects of this problem.
The third chapter focuses mainly on agrarian distress and rural suicides against a backdrop of the history of agricultural development in the Indian Punjab. From the prosperous days of the Green Revolution, or the development of agricultural technology transfer initiatives that took place in the period 1930–60, to the current agrarian distress days are studied from secondary data. This chapter focuses on the complex issues of agrarian distress and the reasons behind this current grave situation from a macro perspective. Further, analysis is done on the basis of policies undertaken by the state government and the effect of these policies on the agrarian situation. The relationship between economic development and rural distress is also studied.
The fourth chapter of the book analyses the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, collected through primary survey. Further, comparison of suicide (deceased) and non-suicide (control) households is done with the help of descriptive statistics in terms of age, sex, caste, education and landholding status of suicide and non-suicide households. While studying socio-economic conditions of deceased and control group farmers, this study finds that 48.6 per cent farmers and 57.5 per cent farm labourers who committed suicide belonged to the age group of below 35 years. This implies that younger-age farmers and agricultural labourers are more dissatisfied with their current economic conditions and have little hope for betterment of their future. In comparison with control and deceased farmers, 95 per cent head of the household are males for deceased group. In the category of deceased farmers, 94 per cent belong to general category and only 6 per cent belong to Other Backward Classes and Schedule Castes. This implies that agrarian distress impacts on all castes not only lower castes. Fifty-six per cent deceased farmers were illiterate at the time they took their lives, and only 2 per cent of the deceased farmer households completed their senior secondary education. Seventy-six per cent of the deceased farm labourers were illiterate. In fact, more than 50 per cent of households from the control group for both for farmers and labourers had no education at all. The researchers further find that 50 per cent farmers of the deceased group belonged to the category of marginal farmers (possessing land up to 2.5 acres) and for the control group, it is 40 per cent. Thirty per cent of farmers belonged to small farmers’ category (land up to 5 cares) for both deceased and control groups. As the findings are based on a large sample, it can be generalized that suicide problem is related to mostly small and marginal farmers. The average size of landholding per farmer is 2.61 acres for deceased group and 3.49 acres for the control group. The average size of land holding is higher for the control group and it positively related with more output and income. Farmers from the deceased group have more un-irrigated land and are much more dependent on canal irrigation which is not sufficient in the villages located at the tail end of the canals. This suggests that suicide victims faced more constraints than their control group counterparts. Smaller land holdings and lack of irrigation facilities make the agrarian occupation unprofitable.
The magnitude of the agrarian distress and its determinants based on field survey pertaining to most suicide-prone districts like Bathinda, Mansa and Sangrur have been studied in the fifth chapter of the book. Reasons for both farmer and farm labourers suicides have been studied in this chapter. A detailed study of income, expenditure and indebtedness has been done and additionally, reasons for non-repayment of loan have been studied for both groups. An attempt has been made to study the causes of suicides for both farmers and farm labour. Further analyses show that non-remunerative prices of farm products, low and stagnant yields, fall in net farm incomes, successive crop failures and high and increasing costs of cultivation have pushed small and marginal farmers deeper into debt trap. Small and marginal farmers of both the deceased and the control group are heavily indebted as their share in debt is 75 per cent. According to this study, this burden of debt is negligible for medium and large farmers. This grave debt causes small and marginal farmers to commit suicide. In addition to that, agricultural labourers are also heavily indebted. Deceased farmers and farm labourers are indebted more too non-institutional sources and borrow from multiple sources. These costly loans from moneylenders are exploitative in terms of high interest rates, which further aggravate the problem.
It also emerges that the causes of non-repayment of loans are low farm income and crop failure. Further, smaller land holdings and low incomes in return push farmers into debt trap. The inability to escape from this debt trap due to low incomes among rural people is the real reason behind suicides. The contributing factors for suicides are economic distress leading to indebtedness and indebtedness, in turn, leading to humiliation. Deceased farmers’ families sell, mortgage and lease out their land after suicides to pay debt and leave agriculture behind as a source of livelihood.
In the sixth chapter, an in-depth study of the highly distressed village of Harkishanpura of Bathinda district is presented. As the Panchayat (local self-government institution) of this village had put this entire village on sale, a microscopic analysis is made to understand the factors behind this distress. Socio-economic conditions, asset and land holding status, indebtedness status are carefully studied. Case studies are carried out on deceased and control farmers for better understanding. The case studies confirm that rural distress lies in the structure of economic activities. Cultivation of paddy, wheat and cotton is not at all profitable, and cultivation of other crops such as sugarcane, pulses, oilseeds and other cereals and vegetables is absent. Housing conditions of the residents of this village is not satisfactory. The village lacks basic facilities and institutions of education, health and economic development. In regard to consumption pattern, similar and subsistence consumption pattern is found to exist for both farmers and farm labourers. Little expenditure on fixed assets and machinery and further loan and high interest payments are responsible for low incomes and these further results in debt accumulation.
Summary, conclusions and policy suggestions are presented in the last chapter.
Though unique in certain aspects, the study can be said to have some shortcomings mainly from methodology point of view. The analysis presented in the book lacks application of statistical tools to check relationship between variables. Even very simple statistics tests like t-test results are missing in the analysis. While analysing determinants of debt and suicide, no relationship between these two variables and others is verified through simple correlation and regression.
Secondly, the determinants of indebtedness are investigated only on the basis of reasons identified by deceased and control farmers according to their perceptions. Relationship between indebtedness and other variables (on which data are collected) which can cause indebtedness such as cost of cultivation, income, household expenditure, etc. have not been studied.
Thirdly, not much emphasis has been laid on the different types of incomes, like farm and non-farm income, and share of non-farm income in total income. Thus, it is not known if there is any significant difference between non-farm income for suicide (deceased) and non-suicide (control) group. What kind of non-farm incomes are available in the rural sector in these suicide-prone districts is also not known. A more detailed analysis of non-farm income would provide great help to serious policy making. Rural non-farm income sources are necessary for providing livelihood to displace people from agriculture, especially small and marginal farmers, and to get some extra income to cope up with low farm incomes.
Fourthly, while income expenditure gap is studied and shown to be negative, analysis of the pattern of expenditure is missing in this study. For instance, it is not known how farmers spend their income, and how much amount on food, non-food, liquor and other intoxicants, education and health expenses, social ceremonies and marriages. Thus, the relationship between expenditure pattern and debt condition is not studied.
Lastly, exploitation by moneylender in terms of high rate of interest and other problems faced by farmers because of interlocked market are not taken into account. These issues have a connection with the indebtedness problem.
Despite these minor shortcomings in methodology, the book at hand provides thought-provoking analysis of a very crucial issue based on large dataset. This book will help those (economists, sociologists, policy makers) who are interested in understanding the nature, gravity and causes of the agrarian crisis in the agriculturally developed state of Punjab. Policy suggestions made by the authors based on the analysis will be useful if taken seriously by policy makers to overcome the current farm sector crisis in the state of Punjab.