A burden too heavy

Each peasant suicide in Punjab — known for its prosperity — indicates the plight 
of millions of the rural poor. Women bear the burden of managing the demands of 
fatherless families. They pay a heavy price, writes Ranjana Padhi

FOR the widows of farmers of Punjab who took their lives when caught in the vicious cycle of agrarian debt and misery, the ubiquitous picture of the content and smiling Punjabi farmer — seen on many a calendar — seems like a cruel joke. The ground reality reveals depression, alienation and suicide.

Measures undertaken to shore up the production of foodgrains during the Green Revolution have now led to the deterioration of the soil, an increased demand for expensive pesticides and chemical fertilisers, and a network of institutional funding that has spread its tentacles to non-institutional sources, too, putting the farming community in the vicious grip of indebtedness. A study by Panjab Agricultural University in the districts of Bathinda and Sangrur indicates 2,890 suicides between 2000 and 2008. The figure for the entire state would obviously be much higher.

Each peasant suicide in the state — known for its prosperity — is an indicator of the plight of millions of the rural poor. And it is the peasant women who suffer the most from the grave situation threatening to engulf their lives, as the preliminary findings of the study reveal.

According to interviews conducted between November, 2008, and July, 2009, with peasant women of the affected families in 47 villages across 10 districts — Ferozepore, Muktsar, Bathinda, Moga, Mansa, Sangrur, Patiala, Ludhiana, Barnala and Faridkot — 80 per cent of those who committed suicide were between 21 and 50 years of age. Approximately 40 per cent of the victims were Dalit landless agricultural labourers. There were also four suicide cases involving women. In some instances there were two or three suicide occurrences on a single day. In 70 per cent of the cases, consumption of pesticides emerged as the mode of suicide.

Since agriculture is based on family labour with the household’s economic activity being an integral part of the agricultural economy, the total number of those affected by these suicides would be around five times their number, with dependents — those below 18 and above 60 — comprising 55 per cent of the affected.

It is the adult women who have to bear the huge burden of managing the demands of fatherless families. The price they pay is immense and takes the form of depression and other health problems caused by the overwhelming psychological pressure of grinding poverty. Even the paltry widow’s pension of Rs 250 per month given by the Punjab Government does not reach many on time.

Housework, childcare and nursing of the elderly become more arduous in this context as women are left with the traditional responsibilities of marriage and family without a semblance of the protection that it may bring them. Yet, sadly, women’s economic activities in tending to livestock, collecting fodder and doing all kinds of work within the home to make ends meet are still not accorded the status of "labour" by society.

Traditional restrictions on women’s mobility make it impossible for Jat Sikh women to take up wage labour. It is only women from the lower castes — like Mazhabi, Ramdasia and Ravidasia Sikhs — who largely work on daily wages and even seem proud of doing so. As one Jat Sikh woman in Mansa district observed: "The day I step out to work, no one will talk to me in the village. Even if we have namak and chutney with roti, we cannot do wage work." But there were instances of women forced by circumstance to defy caste norms. For instance, a 65-year-old Jat Sikh woman resorted to picking cow dung for Rs 450 a month, but only when there was no earning member left in her family. While seasonal labour like picking potatoes, carrots and radish or cotton does fetch around Rs 50 a day, such work is available for just two or three months a year.

So what do the women do to make ends meet? Over 65 per cent women in the sample interviews are engaged in maintaining livestock and fodder collection with household expenses met by the sale of milk to local shops or to large dairy concerns like Nestle’s or Verka’s in some areas. These women are able to make Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 a month. Over 94 per cent of the women are engaged in intense domestic labour and 54 per cent in caring and nursing of the elderly, and this incapacitates their ability to earn. A 35-year-old woman in Bathinda district revealed that she could barely visit her mother to gain some comfort and relief from grief. "I look after the house, my mother-in-law, the children and the buffaloes, too. I help my father-in-law with agricultural work. How can I ever travel to my mother in Sangrur district?" she sighed.

The cruel patriarchal practice of dowry places the heaviest burden on poor families. They have to take loans for dowry and marriage. They are either landless labourers or small and marginal farmers.

The future appears bleak for great many in Punjab today. Drug addiction is rampant among the male youth, and the rigid caste structure — characterised by the overweening pride of being from the landowning Jat Sikh community — prevents many young adults from stepping out of agriculture for a livelihood, despite agricultural incomes being on the decline. If agriculture is not flourishing, there has not been much growth in the secondary and tertiary sectors of the state either.

The burden of these realities end up ultimately on the women of the household, especially those left behind to fend for themselves and their families after their husbands have died or committed suicide. A 55-year-old woman in Sangrur district eloquently summed up the stress that farm widows routinely experience: "The doctor tells me not to worry and sleep more. But how can I? I worry through the night, every night." — WFS

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