Lehragaga, April 2
If human tragedy has a face, one saw it in painful abundance here today. Gathered in the nondescript segment of Sangrur — the farmer suicide capital of Punjab — were over 300 woebegone men and women who waited to tell their distressing tales.
For long they have suffered in silence fearing repercussions of revelations made about suicides by their relatives owing to debt fuelled by agrarian crisis. But now their patience has hit the abyss and there is no way out but upwards.
So they spoke fearlessly, revealing shocking details. National Samples Organisation data shows “whereas the average annual loan taken by farmers in India is Rs 13,000, the corresponding figure for Punjab is Rs 40,000.” It also shows that around 40 per cent Indian farmers want to quit farming due to the cost it involves.
These statistics strengthen the argument that indebtedness is the primal cause of farmers’ suicide in most parts of India, including Punjab.
And no matter how hard the Punjab Government tries to conceal facts, pain will speak for itself. As it did today when the first People’s Tribunal on suicides organised by the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN), the Voluntary Health Association of Punjab and Navdanya progressed at Lehragaga.
As people from 10 villages spoke of how their families had witnessed double, even triple, suicides in a year, everyone knew of the havoc debt and unsustainable agricultural practice had wreaked on farmers in the state.
The government claims there have been 2,116 suicide cases between 1998 and 2005, but activists say this is gross under-reporting.
Inderjit Jayjee of the Movement Against State Repression says: “Andana and Lehra blocks of Moonak subdivision in Sangrur alone have reported 1,360 farmers’ suicides between 1998 and 2005. If all of Punjab’s 138 blocks show roughly the same level of suicides, the number would exceed 40,000 for the given period.”
The affected families agree — right from 26-year-old Paramjit Kaur from Chakalisher village of Mansa, whose husband set himself afire to escape the fatal cycle of loan repayment, to 60-year-old Sucha Singh from Bathinda, who talked of how his son consumed pesticide.
“Harcharan killed himself when his commission agent confiscated 20 quintals of wheat from the fields to make up for outstanding debt,” he said.
Also present were 15 women from Pullan village (Sangrur), infamous for its widows. Vimla, a mother of two, said: “Our men have died protecting farms. And there are no farms. Our lands have become unyielding as our fates.”
Voices of dissent against commission agents (who charge 36 per cent annual rate of interest on loans) and the police were louder than before, with Buta Singh from Harkrishanpura (Bathinda) demanding action against Commercial Bank and the commission agent who forced his brother to repay debt of Rs 3 lakh. His brother hanged himself.
Significantly, none of the sufferers knew that there are SC
judgments that say “poverty is not a crime”. If someone cannot repay the loan due to genuine reasons, he cannot be forced to do so. In no circumstances can he be robbed of basic means of livelihood as commission agents in the state are doing.The occasion united affected families for the first time as they demanded “right to livelihood”.
After recording of 60 heart-rending testimonies of farmers’ suicide by legal experts, the stage was set for filing of the first PIL in the Supreme Court.
Colin
Gonsalves, SC lawyer and Director, HRLN, said: “We will file a special leave petition and demand action against the Government of Punjab. The stories reflect trauma and hopelessness and these need to be highlighted lest the deadly spate should continue.”
The PIL will seek total moratorium of outstanding debt of farmers’ families, stay on transfer of farm lands to commission agents, prosecution of commission agents who have, in 90 per cent cases, abetted suicides by forcing victims into repayment of loans when they had no money and rehabilitation of widows and children.
Experts also said it was illegal on part of commission agents to loan money at 36 per cent rate of interest (ironically the government gives loan to MNCs at the rate of 8 per cent).
The testimonies were recorded by Mr
Gonsalves, Prof Bawa Singh from the Minorities Commission and Mr T.S. Cheema, former Sessions Judge.
