|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Aman Sidhu was a research scholar with the Department of Sociology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, and this is her original piece of work. Due to her untimely death she could not complete her doctorate. Debt and Death in Rural India is based on her doctoral findings that have been compiled and expanded by her father, Inderjit Singh Jaijee.
Analysing 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 globalisation have seeped into the very fabric of rural society. Heavy industry has been denied to the state by the Centre on the pretext of its nearness to the Pakistan border. This limits the job options open to the rural population. 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. 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 farmers deaths. Interviews of family members of suicide victims constitutes an important part of the research. Unlike other works, this book also offers recommendations which can go a long way in tackling the vicious circle of debt. Debt and Death in Rural India is an excellent study about the plight of peasants and brings to light the apathetic attitude of the government.
|
The Green Revolution with
its mechanisation of agriculture and high-yielding variety of seeds made
Punjab the breadbasket of India. It was aimed at changing the economic
scenario of the state, but now post-Green Revolution Punjab is going
through a period of crisis. The agrarian society is debt ridden and
suicides are on the rise. The Green Revolution in its wake has had some
serious environmental consequences like salinisatiion and waterlogging.
The wheat-rice cycle has led to a fall in the water table and increased
dependence on tube wells. Now, 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.