306503961-farmer-suicides-in-india.docx

1. Introduction The large number of suicides by farmers in various parts of the country is perhaps the most distressing phenomenon observed in India over the last decade. These suicides, which reached almost epidemic proportions in certain pockets of the country, were first picked up and reported by an alert press around the late 1990s. India is an agrarian country with around 60% of its people depending directly or indirectly upon agriculture. Farmer suicides account for 11.2% of all suicides in India. Since 1995, more than 253,000 farmers have been reported to have committed suicides in India, making this the largest wave of suicides in the world. In 2014, the National Crime Records Bureau of India reported 5,650 farmer suicides. 1 The highest number of farmer suicides were recorded in 2004 when 18,241 farmers committed suicide. The farmers suicide rate in India has ranged between 1.4 to 1.8 per 100,000 total population, over a 10-year period through 2005.2 Activists and scholars have offered a number of conflicting reasons for farmer suicides, such as monsoon failure, high debt burdens, genetically modified crops, government policies, public mental health, personal issues and family problems.3 There are also accusation of states fudging the data on farmer suicides. The public concern that these reports led to forced some of the state governments like Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra to set up enquiry commissions to go into this phenomenon in the respective states. Moreover, the National Policy for Farmers 2007 also attempted to change this worrying facet of modern India.4 This project seeks to explore the statistics regarding farmer suicides in India, attempt to understand its causes, and finally offer viable policy options to effectively and expeditiously tackle with this problem.

National Crime Reports Bureau, ADSI Report Annual – 2014 Government of India, Page 242, Table 2.11 Gruère, G. & Sengupta, D. (2011), Bt cotton and farmer suicides in India: an evidence-based assessment, The Journal of Development Studies, 47(2), pp 316–337. 3 Das, A. (2011), Farmers’ suicide in India: implications for public mental health, International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 57(1), 21–29. 4 Schurman, R. (2013), Shadow space: suicides and the predicament of rural India, Journal of Peasant Studies, 40(3), 597–601. 1 2

2. History In the 1990s India woke up to a spate of farmers’ suicides. One of the major reporters of these suicides was the Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu, P. Sainath. The first state where suicides were reported was Maharashtra. Soon newspapers began to report similar occurrences from Andhra Pradesh. 5 In the beginning it was believed that most of the suicides were happening among the cotton growers, especially those from Vidarbha.6 A look at the figures given out by the State Crime Records Bureau, however, was sufficient to indicate that it was not just the cotton farmer but farmers as a professional category were suffering, irrespective of their holding size.7 Moreover, it was not just the farmers from Vidarbha but all over Maharashtra who showed a significantly high suicide rate.8 The government appointed a number of inquiries to look into the causes of farmers suicide and farm related distress in general. Subsequently, then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Vidarbha and promised a package of Rs.110 billion to be spent by the government in Vidarbha. The families of farmers who had committed suicide were also offered an ex gratia grant to the tune of Rs.100,000 by the government. Despite government efforts at pumping in more money into the suicide belt the suicide epidemic among farmers remained unabated through 2006-07.9 Traditionally support systems in the villages of India had been provided by the government. However, due to a variety of reasons the government had either withdrawn itself from its supportive role or plain simple misgovernance had allowed facilities in the villages to wither away.

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The problems of the farmers were quite

comprehensive, and several causes have been forwarded to explain this phenomenon. They will be discussed later in this project.

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Tim Dyson (1991), "On the Demography of South Asian Famines: Part I", Population Studies, Volume 45, No. 1, pp 5–25. 6 Ajit Ghose (1982), Food Supply and Starvation: A Study of Famines with Reference to the Indian Subcontinent, Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 34, Issue 2, pp 368–389. 7 Ganapathi, M. N. and Venkoba Rao, A. (1966), A study of suicide in Madurai, Journal of Indian Medical Association, vol. 46, pp 18-23. 8 Nandi et al (1979), Is suicide preventable by restricting the availiability of lethal agents? - A rural survey of West Bengal, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 21, pp 251-255. 9 Hegde RS (1980), Suicide in rural community, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 22, pp 368–370. 10 Ratna Reddy (1993), New technology in agriculture and changing size-productivity relationships: a study of Andhra Pradesh, Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 48(4), pp 633-648.

3. Statistics To put matters into perspective, farmer suicide data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) for all the Indian states between 1995 and 2010 will now be examined. Figure 1 presents an annual time series plot of the total number of farmer suicides reported in India between 1995 and 2010 at the all-India level and for the top 8 and top 4 states.

Two patterns are visible in Figure 1. First, for the all-India numbers as much as for the top 8 and top 4 states, there is an overall trend of increasing farmer suicides between 1995 and 2010. While it is true, and a welcome development, that there is a break in the increasing trend line in the mid-2000s, the overall figures in the late-2000s are way above the numbers in the mid-1990s. At the all-India level, total farmer suicides reported in 1995 was below 11,000; in 2010, it was hovering around 16,000. Second, and more problematic, is the fact that the 4 states that account for about two-thirds of the total farmer suicides in the country show a very mild decline since the mid-2000s. The trend line

for these 4 states have basically flattened out since the mid-2000s, highlighting the fact that the states with the highest incidence of farmer suicides have not made much progress. This fact must then temper the optimism, if any, arising from the decline in the all-India numbers since the mid2000s. Figure 2 presents the time profile of farmer suicides in the 8 states that have consistently witnessed the largest number of farmer suicides in India, accounting for about 66 percent of the all-India total in 2010. In descending order of farmer suicides in 2010, the states are: Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh (including Chhattisgarh), Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. Two patterns are visible in Figure 2.

First, there is an overall trend of increasing farmer suicides in these 8 major states between 1995 and 2010. In 1995 and 1996, these 8 states together had reported a total of 8988 and 11715 farmer suicides respectively; in 2009 and 2010, the corresponding figures were 14431 and 13591 respectively. While the total for these 8 states has declined a little from the phenomenally high

numbers in the mid-2000s, the total remains much higher than what was reported in the mid1990s. Second, there is a clear division among these 8 states into two groups. The first group consists of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. These 4 states are in a league by themselves, reporting more than 2000 farmer suicides per year over the last two years, and accounting for 62 percent of the total farmer suicides in the country between 1995 and 2010. Most alarmingly, the trend of farmer suicides within these 4 states, accounting for twothirds of all the farmer suicides in the country in 2010, is increasing over time. While Maharashtra reported lower number of farmer suicides compared to the astronomical highs in the mid-2000s, the others have continued their upward trend. Moreover, even Maharashtra reports much higher suicides today compared to the mid-1990s. Hence, the overall trend in this group of 4 states is increasing over time. The second group consists of West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. In recent years, these 4 states have accounted for about 20 percent of all the farmer suicides in the country and have consistently reported between 500 and 1000 farmer suicides every year, with Uttar Pradesh reporting the lowest figures. The trend among these 4 states, for the period between 1995 and 2010, is flat. These states have witnessed some declines since the early 2000s, but that has only brought them to levels that they reported in the mid-1990s. Over the whole period since 1995, these states do not show any significant decline in the number of farmer suicides. More than 253,000 farmers have been reported to have committed suicides between 1995 and 2010; the actual number is likely to be higher because of deficiencies in reporting suicides. Four states account for about two-thirds of these suicides: Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh (including Chhattisgarh), Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Another four account for a fifth of all the suicides: West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. Even though the all-India number of farmer suicides have declined slightly since the mid-2000s, the 4 states that account for most of the farmer suicides have not shown much decline.

4. Causes To understand the macro-level linkages running from policy changes to the phenomenon of farmer suicides, the causes of the same need to examined. Farmers are clearly suffering from acute distress, and once cause behind this is unsustainable levels of indebtedness, mostly because

their incomes are systematically falling below their expenditures. Farmers are very vulnerable to shocks. If there was a medical emergency in the household or if there was an important life event like birth, marriage, death or if there was a crop failure due to weather shocks of growth of pests, the household had to per force incur debt. This debt is in addition to the debt that the farmer would already have incurred if he/she had decided to move into the cultivation of cash crops like cotton. However, as with any suicide, mono-causal explanations for farmers’ suicides would be totally inadequate. And they cannot be explained purely in terms of behavioural patterns and personal, psychological motivations; they have to be seen as social phenomena and one has to unearth the underlying social causes. A contrary claim often made is that a number of farm suicides are not attributable to agrarian crisis and are due to factors like unsustainable life styles of farmers, alcoholism, large expenses on marriages, or due to some incurable diseases etc. These types of explanations are seriously flawed since they do not view suicides as a social phenomenon. The frequent attempts to use these ‘causes’ as explanatory factors underlying farmer suicides shift the burden of explanation from the social context to individual suicide victim, and hence, in effect end up blaming the victim, and they are hardly helpful in devising appropriate policy interventions in dealing with the distressing phenomenon.

4.1.

The present acute agrarian crisis as a central factor

While these socio-economic factors are extremely complex, it would take a strong sense of denial not to see the present acute agrarian crisis as a central factor underlying this epidemic of farm suicides. This crisis has been there from around the mid-to-late 1990s, and this is the period, as we have seen above, when farm suicides have been high and are increasing. But farm crisis in the country has been acute, persistent and widespread – with almost every state and region in the country experiencing this crisis in one way or other. As for the vulnerability of the region, it is a backward region with a low level of development of productive forces in agriculture and industry. The region is highly water stressed with a low degree of irrigation and with scanty, uncertain rainfall. As with such semi-arid regions, the soil quality here is poor – and worsening – and varies a great deal across space. It is also a region with a diversified cropping pattern with coarse cereals accounting for a large proportion of the cropped area – but this is a type of diversification which is dictated by poor agrarian conditions

rather than by agricultural modernization. The cash crops in the region – like cotton - are largely cultivated under poor agronomic conditions, with low levels of irrigation. This type of diversity – dictated by backwardness and adversity – hardly makes for any stability; if anything, it adds to instability and vulnerability.

4.2.

Neo-Liberal State Policies since 1990s

This agrarian crisis was precipitated by the neo-liberal state policies in operation since the beginning of the 1990s. There were a number of dimensions to it, each reinforcing the other in engendering this crisis. With the decline in capital expenditure by the state as part of its stabilization measures, investments in agriculture – and irrigation, soil conservation etc. – came down and this would have very serious consequences in a region where soil and irrigation problems are already acute. Banking sector reforms meant that organized credit to agriculture practically dried up. With the withdrawal of agricultural subsidies, costs of production, particularly of cash crops like cotton, shot up. On top of all this, external trade liberalization, in the form of withdrawal of farm quotas and tariffs provided the ground for farm price crash, again, particularly in cash crops like cotton. The extension and price support services provided by the state were drastically curtailed. All this obviously would have very serious consequences on a fragile agrarian economy dependent on state support.

4.3.

Dwindling Institutional Credit

After nationalization of the banking system in 1969, there was an impressive expansion of credit to the agricultural sector. The share of agricultural credit in total bank lending nearly doubled from around 10% in the mid-1970s to about 18% in the late 1980s. Financial liberalization, an important part of the neoliberal policy regime, reversed this trend. The share of agricultural credit in total bank lending declined from the peak of 18% in the late 1980s to about 11% in 2005 (GOI, 2007). The decline has continued since then. Financial sector reforms also struck down the policy of branch expansion to rural areas in the mid-1990s. The result has been along expected lines: rural branches of commercial banks has declined from 51.2% in March 1996 to 45.7% in March 2005. Data also shows that the share of agricultural credit cornered by farm sizes of more than 5 acres has increased.

4.4.

Growth of private agents in areas like credit and seed supply

The space vacated by the state was taken up by private agents particularly in areas like credit, supply of seeds and fertilizers, extension services (like advice and help on crops to be grown, digging of bore wells etc.), marketing of crops etc. These agents, often combining all these multiple roles were mostly from the urban centres in the region and, with next to no regulation of their operations, their relationship with farmers was essentially a predatory one exploiting the latter’s vulnerability during the period of crisis.

4.5.

Lack of Alternative Livelihood Opportunities

All this resulted in loss of livelihood for a large section of farmers. What added to the crisis was the almost total absence of alternate livelihood opportunities that they could have fallen back on in a time of crisis like this. Many regions in India are very poorly developed even in terms of sustained, decent non-agricultural opportunities. Tamil Nadu is an exception and thereby an example of how alternative livelihood opportunities can help beleaguered farmers. It is not only the most urbanized state in the country, it also has the best spatial spread of a large number of small, medium and big towns. This, along with a good road network and a good public transport system has resulted in a situation where alternative non-farm livelihood opportunities are available to the poor in nearby towns during periods of agrarian crisis. And this has provided a buffer against large scale suicide by farmers.

4.6.

Stagnant Revenues

Income from agricultural production has been dwindling because revenues have been stagnant (or falling) while costs of agricultural production have gone up. Revenues have been stagnant because of a complex set of factors, as under: 4.6.1. Yield (crop output per unit of land of most crops has stagnated This stagnation is the direct result of the increasing pressure on cultivable land: the total area under cultivation has declined while the number of operational holding have increased, implying that each operational holding is now much smaller than in the early 1960s. Between 1960-61 and 2003, the total number of operational holdings increased from 50.77 million to 101.27 million. During the same period, the total operated area declined from 133.46 million hectares to 107.65 million hectares. Thus average operated area declined from 2.63 hectares to 1.06 hectares. On

top of this is the fragmentation of each holding into multiple plots. Thus, the declining size of operational holding, along with continued fragmentation, has meant smaller production units in terms of land area. This constrains the ability to use improved technologies of production, and has been one of the main reasons behind the stagnation of yield growth. 4.6.2. Neglect of rural sector Due to the aforementioned neoliberal policy orientation and the neglect of the rural sector, agricultural research and extension services have virtually disappeared from the country; thus new and better crop varieties have not reached the farmer. Along with this, irrigation (surface water) infrastructure has been neglected, and soil improvement and management efforts have been drastically curtailed. Compounding this has been the excessive use of fertilizers in several areas of the country that saw the so-called Green Revolution. All this has led to degradation in the quality of the soil, and contributed to the stagnation of crop yield growth. 4.6.3. Removal of Import restrictions Gradually doing away with import restrictions has meant a flood of low price agricultural imports, the low prices from US and European countries being supported by massive subsidies in those countries. By a perverse turn of policy, the minimum support price (MSP) for many crops have been kept below market prices. Both these factors have put downward pressure on crop prices, especially for smaller farmers who lack storage and transportation facilities and have to sell to the local trader right after harvest.

4.7.

Rising Costs of Cultivation

One of the main reasons behind the rising costs of cultivation is the gradual change in crop patterns that have been directly and indirectly induced by policy changes. Lifting of export restrictions and entry of multinational corporations have encouraged to farmers that they could shift from traditional crops (like rice, wheat, pulses, etc.) to cash crops like cotton, potato, tomato, etc. Cotton is the quintessential crop that lies entwined with the wave of farmer suicides. Production of cotton requires large capital outlays, large in comparison to typical earnings of farmer households. Seeds need to be bought from the market every year (because of restrictions put in place by the MNCs selling the seeds); large quantities of fertilizers and pesticides are also

needed (whose prices are increasing because of reduction of subsidies). Cotton cultivation is very water intensive. Since, during this same period, provision of irrigation was being systematically reduced, farmers had to make investments in bore well (tube well) technology to secure the supply of ground water. This involved substantial outlays, most of the time a sum that was far beyond the reach of the average farmer. Taken together, these factors implied increasing costs of cotton cultivation. Most of the time, these costs could only be met with credit. The credit was provided by the same agency that sold the seeds, the fertilizer and the pesticide, along with the knowledge that was required to carry out the cultivation. With such interlinked markets, there was a serious conflict of interest in the sense that the agency would almost always “advise” farmers to use much more than the optimal quantity of inputs.

4.8.

Rising Essential Expenditures

The same neoliberal policy framework that reduced subsidies on fertilizer and diesel and petrol, let the irrigation infrastructure gradually disintegrate, opened up the import and export of agricultural crops, increased the cost of electricity, also reduced the rural component of development expenditures. For instance, gross fixed capital formation in agriculture as a share of GDP declined from 3.1% during the late 1980s to 1.6% during the last part of the Ninth Plan period. Again, and probably more relevant for our purposes, the share of plan expenditures devoted to the agricultural sector fell from 13.1% to 7.4% during the same period. This meant that the burden of health care, social security and educational expenditures now fell on households, including poor farmer households.

5. Recommendations and Viable Policy Options Whatever may be the long-term impact of globalization and WTO regime on Indian agricultural commodities in the last few years, it has had an adverse impact on the income of farmers. This is compounded by the cut in the agricultural and power subsidies and increase in the cost of cultivation. No year offers to the farmers of India cheers because of the alternate scourges of drought and floods. Poor farmers are forced to choose between a deluge and a drought as nature’s inevitable fury year after year. This has been the ordeal before and after the Independence with the so-called crop insurance scheme still remaining a mirage. The new farm

policy, while promising a lot for those who dare venture into agro business, offers little hope for marginalized farmers. There are many flaws in that as well. First, let us consider the payment of compensation. According to the guidelines framed by the government, a family will be eligible only if the farmer who committed suicide owing to inability to repay the loan has borrowed it from a bank or a credit institution recognized by the government will be eligible. It is well known that suicides are caused more by the inability to repay loans to private moneylenders rather than to banks. Over half the number of claims have been rejected on grounds of ineligibility. The ground realities seem to have been ignored.11 Another issue that requires careful scrutiny is the Crop Insurance Scheme, intended to take care of cases of crop failure and provide genuine relief to the affected farmers. The scheme seems to be facing hurdles. The General Insurance Corporation rejected several claims as fraudulent. The issue of farmers’ suicide cannot be looked in isolation, but from the broader perspective of the agriculture scenario in the country. According to a study on suicides of farmers in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, a trend is seen towards food crops making way for commercial crops in most of the areas where suicides have occurred. This involves purchase of wider range of inputs with ready cash. Most of the suicides are by small and marginal farmers who fall into the trap of private moneylenders. If the crop is good, the price of the produce goes down, and they do not reap the benefit. If it fails, they become indebted. If the crop fails continuously, they become more indebted forcing the farmers to commit suicide. It is time to adopt policies, which are realistic and aimed at short term as well as long term solutions. In the first place, strategies must be devised to enable the small and marginal farmers to have greater access to institutional credit and discourage them from the shylocks tempting them with informal credit. Farmers need to be educated to adopt proper crop-mix. There is a need for shift in the mindset from a commoditycentered approach to an entirely new cropping or farming system based on integrated natural resource management. We need to develop a comprehensive policy taking into account all the related aspects – agrarian reforms, rural credit system, agricultural insurance, crop changes, employment opportunities and the role of Panchayat Raj Institutions. There is a need for the total

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A. Ravindra, “Born in Debt, Die in Debt,” The New Indian Express (Bangalore), 19 October 2003.

revitalization and revamping of the farm sector and rural financial institutions to ensure average per cent age of sustainable growth per annum for the sector; otherwise the ambitious target of eight per cent growth rate per annum during tenth plan (2002-2007) would remain a dream. Given the various long-term ramifications of the urgent problem of farmer suicides, swift and holistic policy changes are imperative. These must, of course, be accompanied by civil society action for societal change. The government cannot wait on its hands for social change, which is by nature slow and painstaking. At the same time, governmental policy changes alone will not provide the silver bullet. In order to provide a realistic timeline for progressive, holistic, and lasting change, the following recommendations are divided into immediate, medium, and longterm action. However, the urgency of the issue of farmer suicides—apparent in the increasing incidence and the various repercussions on agrarian society—dictates that the longer-term recommendations should not be perceived as simply aspirational. All of the below need to be part of a concerted effort on all levels and are envisioned to be implemented in a five-year timeframe.

5.1.

Agriculture related strategies

5.1.1. Families of farmers who have committed suicides should be provided compensation. Given the plight of the surviving family members and the disturbing phenomenon of multiple suicides within one family where the accumulation of debt leads to successive family members committing suicide, the Central Government must provide short-term compensation packages to families of farmers who have committed suicides, as it has done for other states. To sustain the family of the deceased, all the financial help should be provided as ‘Fixed Deposit’ in the bank, with quarterly payment of interest. 5.1.2. Informal money-lenders should be regulated in a way that does not eradicate their business. While the money-lender is an integral part of agriculture and cannot be eradicated without risking a credit vacuum in these villages, both the Center and State governments can impose regulations on money-lenders similar to the previous British legislation that limited the interest rate, instituted a ceiling on payback amounts, protected against land alienation, and shielded farmers’ primary assets. Also, Debt Conciliation Boards may be set up as dispute resolution

mechanisms in situations where loans have been given at exorbitant interest rates and have no prospect of repayment. 5.1.3. Formal/institutional credit sources (government and private) should be increased. The credit market needs immediate attention; the formal credit structure should be revitalized. A dearth of formal sources vests immense power in the hands of the informal money-lenders. This power allows for the vicious system of abuse that contributes to the suicides. While informal money-lenders cannot be replaced quickly, more formal lending sources will help create healthy competition for the money-lenders as well as alert their borrowers to fair practices. These Institutionalized Credit Systems must be simplified for them to stand as viable alternatives to money-lenders. There is a demand for credit, but the supply side of rural financial market is not responding due to some constraints. Enabling the formation of an information bureau will help formal institutions to judge credit worthiness of an individual. When moneylenders operate in a village, they take the help of a prominent person of the village to gather information on credit worthiness of an individual and at times also use their influence to recover loans. In return, they pay him a commission. 5.1.4. Pension fund and crop insurance should be created for farmers. The farmer’s problem is rooted in his exposure to risk – yield as well as price shocks. Insurance schemes may be devised to mitigate these. This can be done in three possible ways. Credit insurance can look into the credit default. A fund with contribution from the creditor, the debtor and the Government may be created for this. Appropriate mechanisms to look into its modus operandi should be devised. Crop insurance will be linked with yield risk. Implementation of this should be village and if possible plot of land specific. Theft of crop and loss due to fire or other calamities should be taken into consideration while administering this. The earlier mentioned information bureau could also help in this endeavour. Income insurance will address the poor returns, particularly for marginal and small farmers and also tenants. The poor returns could be because of poor prices, low yields or high transaction costs arising out of low quantity of produce.

A comprehensive Agricultural Insurance Scheme should be launched. Specific attention should be given to cover cash crops – like cotton, sugarcane and edible oils. Such measures would provide a security net for farmers in the case of serious loss due to environmental factors. Otherwise, losses of one bad crop year accumulate quickly and create the desperate situations that might prompt suicide. 5.1.5. Management of Resources In the selected districts where agriculture is largely rainfall dependent, strategies to increase irrigation potential (particularly, through watershed development), should be devised so as to provide scope to increase value addition. The Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Scheme (MEGS), the National Watershed Development Project for Rainfed Areas (NWDPRA) and the RIDF can be used for this. Expedite the completion of already initiated irrigation projects. For completed projects take measures that ensures utilization is up to potential, and there is better utilization of water through drip/sprinkler. Excessive use of fertilizer and pesticides and mono-cropping can affect the fertility of land. Appropriate land management techniques should be devised. This should complement the efforts in improving water management. The MEGS and RIDF can be used for this. 5.1.6. Encourage Organic Farming It will be beneficial on two counts - to reduce costs associated with pesticides and fertilizers and reduce the availability of pesticides for committing suicide. We have also observed its successful practice in two cases during our survey. Replication of such experiments should be encouraged. For instance, shifting from inorganic to organic farming will give low returns in the initial two to three years. This acts as a deterrent for marginal and small farmers. Compensating them during initial years would help. This can be done through MEGS. It would be similar to payment of wages to the landowner under horticulture scheme of MEGS. The help provided should also be in terms of technical know-how (agricultural extension), certification & quality control and marketing.

5.2.

Other Suicide Mitigation Strategies

5.2.1. Civil society organizations should partake in suicide prevention education. The melancholy and sense of resignation in the suicide-affected villages and surrounding areas is palpable. Civil society campaigns should engage with villagers to explain options and the longterm ramifications of suicide on the farmer’s family. These campaigns should bring psychological and cultural issues underlying suicides to the fore. For example, the shame related to having large unpayable loans has been repeatedly cited as a reason for suicide. While such social pressures and prejudices cannot be removed overnight, the village community should be steadily shifting towards change. Villagers must be encouraged to stand by each other in solidarity since nearly every small and marginal farming family is undergoing similar pressures of high input costs and low returns from agriculture. 5.2.2. Set up helplines Introduce helplines and disseminate the numbers in the villages so that individuals in distress can turn to someone. To begin with, the helplines of organizations operating in urban areas can be disseminated. 5.2.3. Reduce access to pesticides: Reduce the easy access and availability of insecticides/pesticides. From those available, toxicity should be reduced to non-lethal levels. The containers of these toxic chemicals should have prominent warning signs as also instructions for proper handling, storage and usage in local languages. Wherever possible, add emetics or stenching agents to make insecticide/pesticide repulsive while consuming. Consider providing formulations that cannot be readily absorbed in human body. The providers/suppliers of insecticides/pesticides should be part of this exercise and held accountable for their lapses. As mentioned earlier, encourage other forms of pest control. Encourage bio-pesticides and phase out chemical pesticides within a time frame. 5.2.4. Public Healthcare facilities should be increased to save more lives The average distance to reach a health facility which can handle poisoning cases is more than 20 kilometres in many districts of India, and there are instances where this is about 100 kilometres away. The primary health centres (PHCs) should have trained staff and be equipped with necessary material to handle cases of poisoning. This will reduce travel time and save more lives.

The personnel at the primary health centres should also be trained to identify, intervene (improve their listening skills) and refer patients with suicidal tendency for personalized care. Educate the community to identify depression and alcoholism and initiate treatment. The native healers, practitioners of alternative medicine and faith healers can also be trained to identify such cases and refer them for more specialized care. 5.2.5. Responsible reporting standards should be established for the media Guidelines by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on suicide reporting should be disseminated among the media fraternity to promote responsible reporting of suicides. Government-Media-Academia can come together to improvise on the guidelines to suit to the local condition. Enable the media personnel to form a regulatory and self-monitoring system. Sensationalizing, graphical depiction, providing too many personal details and depicting the act to be a method of resolving personal crisis should be avoided. Reporters usually get their information from government officials. The latter too have an important role in shaping the report that media presents to the public. Officials should refrain from a ‘no comment’ response; should avoid dictating how the suicide should be reported and help by giving accurate and responsible responses to the reporters’ queries. There is a case for coordination between the administration and the media.

5.3.

On Documentation and Compensation Criteria

5.3.1. Decriminalize attempted suicide and establish clear guidelines for the police A person attempting suicide is not a criminal. She/he needs psychosocial help. Decriminalizing attempted suicide and widely disseminating that will help reduce the shame and stigma attached to the act. This will change the society and the caregivers approach to them. This will also improve reporting and documentation of suicides. In India, all suicides are supposed to be reported to the police. The police should have clear guidelines to identify farmers’ suicide cases and inform the civic administration so as to facilitate scrutiny for compensation. The civic administration should also report to the police if any suicide case is reported to it directly. 5.3.2. Streamline collection and maintenance of data A common electronic format should be used to collect and maintain data on farmers’ suicides. The entry in this format should be done at the source (preferably Talukas and if not possible

Districts). From Talukas it should be sent to the concerned District headquarter, Divisional headquarter and Mantralaya electronically at the same time. This electronically entered coded unit level data without revealing basic identification of the deceased should be made available on the Internet to help research and public discourse. 5.3.3. Criteria for compensation The criteria for compensation should be clear, unambiguous and minimise scope for subjective interpretation. The scope for subjective interpretation while scrutinising should be minimized.  Definition of farmer/cultivator should be broad. Legal ownership of land should not be the only criteria for considering an individual to be a farmer. It should include individuals who cultivate land without having the legal ownership (spouse, children, other family members and also tenants). Information on farmers should be maintained at the village level and updated regularly. Loan from moneylenders and other informal sources should be included while evaluating indebtedness status. It will always be difficult to verify informal loans. However, this can be reduced if the operation of moneylenders is regulated. Independent of indebtedness status, crop loss should also be another criterion for providing compensation. It is generally observed that crop loss can be village specific or localised in a group of villages, but situation leading to crop loss by an individual farmer due to theft, fire or other reasons should also be considered.  Minimizing error While administering any compensation there can be two possible errors: (1) not giving compensation to a deserving case and (2) providing compensation to an undeserving case. Both errors should be minimized, but their nature is such that minimizing one might increase the error of the other. While striking a balance, decisions should be taken to minimize the former error, which we consider to be more serious.  Quick processing The time taken for scrutiny and receipt of compensation should be streamlined and minimised. An appropriate routine may be designed for this. For instance, the last Monday of every month can be allotted for this and decision taken through a single window. Once decision is taken it

should be conveyed electronically or by fax to the districts and there should be standing order for the district administration to proceed immediately.  Help all suicide case households: Whether an individual is eligible/ineligible for receiving compensation, the vulnerability of the surviving members of a household increases and more so if the deceased happens to be one of the major income earners. In fact, it would be appropriate to provide help to all suicide case households. Preference may be given under existing welfare schemes that provide some regular income earning opportunities for the other members (particularly, spouse). Older family member may be considered for receiving pension. Children of the household should be admitted to government run boarding schools to ensure schooling till at least 14 years of age