THE AGRARIAN CRISIS OF INDIA

A REPORT ON

KERALA

ANDHRA PRADESH

MAHARASTRA

ARTICLES

by

SAINATH . P

DEVINDER SHARMA

JAIDEEP HARDIKAR

SRIJIT MISHRA ( IGIDR )

Thanks “THE HINDU group”

Indiatogether.com

Collection by Ezhilan.L

http://www.daysthatspeaks.com/
 THE AGRARIAN CRISIS IN KERALA

The cross and the crisis

P Sainath finds that the declining fortune and health of the religious establishment in Kerala's
Wayanad region mirrors what is happening to the parishioners themselves.

December 2004 - WAYANAD (Kerala): There is no neighbourhood in Mullankolly that does not
have its own church. Or churches. This single panchayat of Wayanad district has some 27 of them.
Together with Pulpally next door, that number crosses 35. With its cash crops of pepper, coffee,
cardamom, tea and spices, this district has been one of the biggest foreign exchange earners of Kerala.
And the churches, says K.M. Thomas, a farmer with four acres here, are "a symbol of prosperity.
Locals took pride in building them."

The 'locals' were mainly from the central and other parts of Kerala. Vast streams of settlers came
mostly after World War II to this beautiful little Adivasi region on the north-eastern tip of the State.
The strength and support of the Church made Wayanad a godsend for the settlers. (Indeed, one place
in Mullankolly is called "Parudeesa" — Paradise). And so churches — built in thanks — dot the
landscape in great profusion.

Churches in trouble

But the churches themselves — of most denominations — are now in trouble. Together, they have
lost crores of rupees in a very short time. The Malankara Catholic Church alone may have seen a loss
of Rs.70 lakhs in just the past year. Many places of worship have seen their Sunday collections fall to
10 per cent of normal. Monthly contributions are also down quite badly. A few churches work out of
unfinished buildings. There is no money to complete their construction.

Many well-off parishes that once donated lakhs of rupees to their diocese centres now depend on the
latter for life-support. Some priests have not got their meagre salaries for months. Weddings are far
fewer than they were just five years ago. Which means that the two per cent charge on dowries that
some churches extract also adds up to much less these days. Feasts and other activities occur less
often. Students at some church-run schools — by far the best in Wayanad — struggle to pay even the
nominal fees there. At least one church-run hospital with 20 beds in Mullankolly has shut its doors.
Farmlands owned by most religious orders lie fallow and the income from these has crashed.

It all has to do with two words: "kaarshika prathisanthi." Or agrarian crisis. A phrase now firmly
locked into the local lexicon. For many, regardless of faith or profession, this is Paradise Lost.

The crisis sweeping Wayanad did receive much attention in April-May. At that time it was also
sharpened by drought. And by Quick Wilt, a disease that withered the pepper vines. Long after that
phase has passed, the damage deepens. The crisis itself, which goes far beyond those disasters, is
entrenched. It now reflects in every sphere of life. "With farming in trouble, everything will be
affected," says Fr. George Vettikatil. He is Procurator at the Catholic Bishop's House in Sultan
Bathery. And has a keen sense of how deep the process is biting. "Our links are to small farmers and
daily wage labourers. So the impact of all this is greater on our members. That has to reflect in how
the church is doing. If they starve, it affects us."

Mullankolly with 33,000 people and Pulpally with about 35,000, are where the Church is strongest.
This is pepper territory. The huge fall in prices has savaged the district. And more so this region.
Pepper prices have fallen from Rs. 27,000 a quintal in 1997 to about Rs. 5,400 a quintal now. In just
two months of July and August this year, prices dropped by Rs. 900 a quintal. Grown on some 70,000
hectares, pepper keeps tens of thousands of farmers going here.

Lethal mix

Price rigging, the dumping of imports and crop failure have proved a lethal mix. "Foreign and
domestic corporate and trade cartels are behind the price crash," says P. A. Muhammad, Convener of
the South Indian Farmers Co-ordination Committee (SIFCO). "Those in coffee, pepper and tea in this
district" he points out, "have suffered a loss of at least Rs. 1,003 crores a year since 2001. On pepper
alone, cultivators have lost Rs. 1500 crores since that year."

The Church is the central social organisation of this belt. (In Mullankolly alone, over 60 per cent of
people are Christians.) Thousands of small farmers are its members. So the chaos on the ground
affects it strongly. Besides, the Church itself is a cultivator. Almost every place of worship owns
some land on which it grows pepper and coffee. And employs labour. The Malankara Catholic
Church has some 45 parishes, each of which own between three and five acres. It also has what the
Coffee Board terms `a model coffee plantation' at Nambiarkunnu. And a 90-acre coffee and pepper
plantation at Kattikulam.

"Last year," says Fr. Vettikatil, " we got just Rs. 50,000 from those 90 acres." In better times, that
should have been Rs. 20 lakhs. Besides, each of the 45 parishes used to give between Rs. 1 lakh and
Rs. 2 lakh every year to the diocese centre. Their farm
base wrecked, most now depend on the centre.
"Our links are to small farmers and
daily wage labourers. So the impact of
The effects are across the board. "Our members, so many all this is greater on our members.
of them small farmers, have been badly hit," says Fr. A.K. That has to reflect in how the church is
Varghese in Padichira. "Most cannot pay their dues and doing. If they starve, it affects us."
are in arrears." A retired professor of English, he is the
Vicar of the St. George Orthodox Church in Kolavalli. Fr. Varghese himself has not seen his salary
for some months now.

In Mullankolly, Fr. Jose Mundakal of the St. Mary's Church confirms the picture. This church has
about 1,000 families affiliated with or attending it. Sunday collections the week we visited, he says,
"were below Rs. 500." That's 10 times less than what they touched in the good days. "Almost 100
per cent of our members are farmers," says Fr. Mundakal. "They have suffered a lot. Five years ago,
the Feast of Our Lady, the main one at this church, was sponsored by just one person. Today, that's
impossible. No one can afford it."

Many suicides

The crisis, of which the price fall has been one major part, has sparked off many suicides. "Small and
marginal farmers have been devastated," says N. Surendran. A small farmer himself, he is also district
secretary of the Indian Farmers Movement (INFAM). "Yes, drought and disease hurt us. And this
high-pesticide chemical farming model must also go. But it is these free trade policies that have
driven prices down."

Meanwhile, says Fr. Vettikatil, "the small farmers are in a debt trap. Their lands, and ours too, are
lying fallow. One, prices have crashed. Two, we cannot invest. Neither can they. Their distress is
ours. We are all badly affected now."
So near to God, so far from Heaven

Church income has fallen sharply as the laity have gone into debt in Wayanad. But the larger reality is
also more complex. While the church does reflect the pain of its farmer base, it is also, in some cases,
a source of at least a few of the dues that worry them, notes P Sainath.

December 2004 - WAYANAD (Kerala): The rapid decline of the economy in this once rich cash-
crop district reverberates across the spectrum. For the first time since perhaps the late 1950s, even
Bishops of the church have joined people's protests. Some have flagged off marches taken out by the
distressed farmers of Wayanad. "People cannot even ensure their basic existence," says Father Baby
Elias of the Mar Basil Church in Cheeyambam. Fr. Elias, a Jacobite, is also with the Indian Farmers
Movement. INFAM is a body that has strongly raised farmers' issues.

Media reports reckon that some 120 farmers have taken their own lives in Wayanad since January 9
this year. The Government admits to no more than 50 distress suicides in that time. On the surface,
the figure of 120 may seem small beside, say, the suicides in Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh. That
district saw an average of 600 each year during a five-year period. Yet, at one level, Wayanad's
suicides are almost as intense. Anantapur has nearly 37 lakh people. Wayanad has some seven lakh.
On that base, its 120 suicides add up to nearly the same as Anantapur's. (The data in both cases are
flawed, but give us some sense of the trend.)

Farmers of Christian background might be more affected. Yet, the suicides of Wayanad have cut
across faith and community. In the households we surveyed, those taking their lives included Hindus,
Christians, Muslims, Adivasis and Dalits.

The numbers apart, the pain and intensity are real. A.C. Varkey, chairman of the Farmers Relief
Forum is appalled by the trend. The FRF has launched some militant actions on farmers issues and
plans more. "We educate people and ask them not to commit suicide," says an angry Varkey. "I say
that if we must do that, let us do it en masse at the government headquarters. Make it an act of
political struggle, not one of individual despair."

As in Anantapur, most see the suicides as just a symptom of a much wider crisis. One that has hit all
sectors.

By March this year "every acre of land in the Mullankolly-Pulpally region carried a debt of Rs. 2 lakh
to Rs. 3 lakh," says M. Prakash of the Brahmagiri Development Society. "The price crash had made
repayment of loans impossible," he points out. "The five-fold drop in the price of pepper was a huge
blow. Quick Wilt disease enhanced its impact." Growing debt, says Prakash, forced many to fell
countless trees on their lands to sell the timber. In this ecologically fragile zone, "that only doubled
the damage."

In the strongly Christian belt of Mullankolly-Pulpally that boasts over 35 churches, that chaos spills
across the board. "We are very concerned," says a worried Bishop Geevarghese Mar Divannasios at
the Catholic Bishop's House in Sultan Bathery. "The drought, the price crash, the disease, all have
hurt people. As have changes in lifestyle. Of course we are anxious. Their suffering has to affect us."

It has. Church income has fallen sharply as the laity have gone into debt. But the larger reality is also
more complex. While the church does reflect the pain of its farmer base, it is also, in some cases, a
source of at least a few of the dues that worry them.
"Waive all church dues," is the first slogan of a group of the faithful seeking relief. Benny
Kurumbalakatu, state president of the Kerala Catholic Almaya Federation is clear about this. "People
gave generously to the church when they were doing well. The church must aid them when they are
doing badly. When crisis hits their lives, religious authority must work to help them. That's regardless
of the religion of those who are suffering."

"If church members fall behind in their dues, they suffer," says Benny. "Baptisms, weddings,
funerals, all rituals are put on hold until the members pay their arrears. When couples are at the altar,
the priest raises the issue of the dues. I was present at one such marriage. This is unconscionable and
should not happen." The couple at that wedding were unable to produce their Rs.1,500 arrears and
Benny put up the money for them.

Since the agrarian crisis hits everyone regardless of faith, his group asks for waivers that cover people
of all religions. "For instance, children in church-run schools are of diverse faiths. If their parents are
unable to pay the fees, they must get concessions regardless of their religion. These waivers should
apply to all those of farming backgrounds."

Benny shot off a letter to his Bishop this August on this count. His group's other demands include:
those from farm backgrounds must get free treatment at hospitals linked to churches; job reservation
for children of such backgrounds - of all religions - in church-related institutions. And all church
groups must coordinate their resources to give financial aid to those in distress.

There are churches of many hues and denominations in Wayanad. And some deny any pressure in
recovery of dues from their members. "We do not have such a dues system. So there is no compulsion
in our set-up," Fr. Jose Mundakal of the St. Mary's Church in Mullankolly clarifies.

Some others, however, do have such systems. And the pressure to change them is growing. "Yes,
there is a tradition and norm that dues must be cleared," says Fr. A. K. Varghese of St. George's
Orthodox Church. "You must know this is a discipline of the parishioners themselves, set in better
times. Not a law from our side. Now no one can pay and we have relaxed these norms. For instance,
two burials were sanctioned after 20 per cent of the dues were paid."

Some dues systems are graded on a class basis - or `A, B, C, D' based on the earnings of the
members. The amount for each group could vary with the church. But such practices are under stress.
In Fr. Baby Elias' church too, things are happening. "From last year, our general body meeting
decided that the rule on delaying rituals for dues should not be enforced. Not in such a crisis."

"Our parishioners are good people," says Fr. Varghese. "But the times are such that all struggle to
pay." This belt may have over 35 churches. And the devout may have one within a few minutes walk.
But for too many right now, it's a case of so near to God, so far from Heaven.

Hope dies slowly in Wayanad

Many plantations have shut down, throwing thousands out of work. The once-numerous Tamil
migrant labourers are far fewer today, and out-migration of local labour is the new trend. P Sainath
finds the off-screen agrarian crisis is very dramatic too, and has emptied the audiences for big screens
in the region.

December 2004 - WAYANAD (Kerala): It's a theatre called Hope. Only, there isn't any left. "The
last two years killed us," says Manager Babu Thomas in Padichira. "Before that it ran well for almost
20. We lost Rs.60,000 each year in 2002 and 2003. After that, it could not continue for long." It
didn't. Prateeksha (`Hope' in Malayalam) lies locked and deserted. And has been that way for some
months now. "The last movie was a new one at the time here," says Thomas. "A Mohan Lal film -
Mister Brahmachari - it should have done well. But it did quite badly. There were no audiences."

Why? "The general disaster of this district reflects in our own. That's the main thing. The agrarian
crisis has destroyed the spending power of our audiences. And it's not just us. Five theatres across
Wayanad have closed down in 24 months. Another six or seven are facing closure."

The damage engulfing this once-rich cash-crop region now touches every sphere. "The collapse of the
pepper price was a huge blow. Then the closure of so many plantations. With that, labour had no
money to buy tickets," says Thomas. "Then the migrations, too, hit us."

Major tea and other plantations have shut down, throwing thousands out of work in the past two
years. Besides, the Tamil migrant labourers that employment once drew in tens of thousands are far
fewer now. Further, out-migration of local labour desperate for work also hit the cinema business.
Prateeksha's 500 seats went empty some days.

"Often, towards the end, we just had to cancel some shows. Over two years ago, we sold 250 tickets
or more daily and had three shows. Then agriculture failed and so did wages. Our sales fell to 100
tickets. (Upper class seats cost Rs.12 and lower Rs.10.) In the last months, we sometimes came down
to only one show a day, selling just 20-25 tickets for it." Eight months ago, the staff - Thomas, the
projectionist and the gatekeeper - brought down the curtains for the last time.

Theatre Swagat in Pulpally had closed down earlier. Fully dependent on migrant labourers, it showed
only Tamil films. "When the plantation economy collapsed, so did we. Tamil workers stopped
coming," says M. Jose, Swagat's owner. "Where is the money to go to the cinema," asks T. Rajan, a
mason in Pulpally's Tamil colony, Meenankolly. "Our people are in fact leaving Wayanad in large
numbers. There used to be 500 families here. Now, less than 100. There 's no work to be had at all."

"Before the trouble began, we used to pull in up to Rs.2,500 a day," says Jose. "We sold maybe 250
tickets (rates: Rs.13 and Rs.9) and ran three shows daily. With the crisis, this fell to two screenings.
Then came days on which there were 10-15 people in the audience. I had to cancel such shows. Our
running cost was Rs. 800 daily. And too many days we made less than half that."

Jose plans to build his residence where Swagat now stands. "Anyway, only the front façade and the
projection room were pucca. The rest is just a shed."

Raman Kutty has no such options in Irulam. He spent a fortune building Ragini as a permanent
cinema when Wayanad's economy was booming. "It's put me Rs.30 lakhs in debt," he says ruefully.
"Today we have a new film, first show - and an audience of 11." (The film: Killukil Pambaram,
Spinning Top.) "In 1988," says his son, E.R. Gopinathan, "we paid tax of Rs.10,000 to the panchayat
each week. Now we are paying Rs. 300 a week. Things slowed down for us since 1991, but the past
three years have been terrible. We would gladly sell this theatre, but there are no buyers."

Did the television/VCR revolution trigger the decline of cinema in Wayanad? After all, the richer
locals live in what Kutty calls "the TV, video, CD / DVD age."

Babu Thomas is dismissive. "We went through that phase much earlier. The maximum impact of
that was the loss of 20 per cent of our customers. We still did fairly well. Our main audience was
poorer workers and migrants. They do not own TV sets, let alone VCRs. No, the agrarian distress
finished us." "Television did cause us problems," says Raman Kutty. "But the past three years
demolished us. Take the two large plantations near my theatre. Both are in collapse. The number of
workers is down. The migrants are down. Wages are down. Pepper, coffee, everything is down. Only
debt is up."

"My audiences had no television, cable or CDs. Only theatres," says Jose at Swagat. "They were
almost entirely Tamil migrants." The destruction of their earnings killed his theatre. All the owners
are clear that while several factors hurt them, "what destroyed us was "kaarshika prathisanthi" - the
agrarian crisis.

Babu Thomas adds one bizarre reason to the rest. "The coming of the women's Self-Help Groups
(SHGs) also undercut us," he says. When families went out to see films, he observes, women were the
driving force. (The men would rather have hung out and had a drink.) "But poor workers have only
one day off weekly. And once the ladies started holding their SHG meetings on their weekly holiday,
it added to our decline."

One of the earliest theatres to close down was Jyothis in Vythiri. Owners T.J. Kurien and Mercy
Verghese cite all the reasons the others do. But add that "audience tastes have also been corrupted by
sexually-loaded films." They call these 'Shakila-trend' movies, after the famous actress of that genre.
But other owners insist those films are not doing well either.

Mercy Verghese is retired headmistress of a Roman Catholic high school. "We had another theatre by
the same name in Thariode," she says "That one too, we shut down. Where once we made Rs. 2,000 a
day, we were getting less than Rs. 300. Honest people cannot run theatres profitably these days."

The devout owners of Jyothis have allowed the one in Vythiri to be converted into a church. Perhaps
appropriate for a theatre whose name means Divine Light. Is God proving a better box office draw?
It's hard to say. This structure, the St. Mary's church Vythiri, mainly functions once a week on
Sundays. And you don't have to buy tickets, either. But it does have a captive audience. "We attend
this church, too," says Mercy.

Crisis drives the bus to Kutta

Prior to 1995, KSRTC did not have a single bus on this route, but nowadays there are 24 trips
between Manathavady in Wayanad and Kutta in Kodagu, Karnataka. By the second stop on the
journey, there is not a seat vacant. P Sainath continues his series on the agrarian crisis in Wayanad.

December 2004 - WAYANAD (Kerala): The bus journey from Mananthavady in Kerala to Kutta in
Karnataka is a tense one for B.J. Mani. His colleagues are missing. In the estate where he must labour
on the Karnataka side of the border, Mani won't be allowed to work without the three-man team he
promised. "If the others don't show up, I have to go look for them," he says. "Which means I will lose
even more on bus fares and, quite likely, the day's wages as well."

Thousands of people from Wayanad are crossing the border into Karnataka and Tamilnadu every
single day, looking for work. Several do this journey two or three times a week, sometimes more.
Mani is just one amongst dozens jostling for space in the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation
bus that carries us at this moment. Wayanad's rich cash-crop economy has fallen apart, shattering
employment in the district. This single 6 a.m. bus from here to Kutta in Karnataka's Kodagu district
clearly captures that process.

Bus conductor Lawrence Jacob, who has been on this route since 1997, has watched it unfold. "There
were six trips a day to Kutta in 1995. Today, you are on the first of 24 trips daily - a 400 per cent
increase." Prior to 1995, the KSRTC did not have a bus on this route.
Lawrence, who is also an activist and local CITU leader, links the explosion in the traffic to
Wayanad's ongoing agrarian crisis. "The people in this bus will work in Kodagu district at half the
wage they used to get here. That is, on those days that they do get work. Many are trapped into fake
agreements which their new bosses have no intention of honouring. But they have no choice. There's
no work in Wayanad."

Five years ago, says Lawrence, the bus was dominated by poor adivasis. They are still the main
travellers and their numbers have grown. But now there are also many masons, carpenters,
electricians, students and traders. Then there are non-adivasi farm labourers in large numbers. And
small and medium farmers, too. A few of the latter trying to lease land cheaply in Kodagu to cultivate
ginger and other cash crops. At home, it's all in a mess.

"When there was work in Wayanad," says Mani, "I got a daily wage of up to Rs. 120. Now I work
for Rs. 80 a day in Kolikuppa." It's worse than it looks. "My bus fare to the place is Rs. 34 - one
way." Mani tries coping by doing the journey only three times a week and staying over the other
days. "It means I spend very little time with my family. But what's the way out? This slump in
pepper and coffee prices really hit us."

P. K. Siddique is an estate worker too, heading for Kodagu. He gets Rs. 75 a day. "And no bus fare,"
he laughs. Which means he pays the Rs. 27 it costs to his particular stop and back. Besides him sits
Shinoj Thomas, a mason. With his skills, he can make up to Rs.150 a day in Karnataka minus the
Rs. 30 he spends on bus tickets. "But I get a maximum of 15-20 days work in a month," he says.

"All work in Wayanad has come to a standstill," says Thomas. "Just see the countless unfinished
houses in the district. These houses were begun when farming was doing well. Once the crisis came
along, construction ceased. No one had any money to continue. That's why we work across the
border for much less than what we used to earn in Wayanad."

We're just past the second stop and the bus is already more than full. It has 48 seats, but with over 20
standees it now carries around 70 people. Not all 24 trips travel this full, but 55 to 60 would be the
average, says conductor Lawrence. "there's at least 1200 people on this route daily," he says. "And
that goes up quite a bit on market day. Mind you, the ticket cost (Rs.13.50 till Kutta) is higher now
than it was a few years ago. Yet, the numbers of people going has shot up in these past two years."

"Construction workers used to come to Wayanad, not leave it," K. Nirmalan, a KSRTC workers'
union leader at the Sulthan Bathery depot had told us. "Then construction stopped. Plantations drew a
lot of workers. Then those went into lockouts and closures. Earlier pepper was booming. Now that's
gone. Even this rise in outgoing buses doesn't tell the whole story. There are many services other than
KSRTC's. Those of the other states, and also a host of illegal ones."

Many on the bus, like Shinoj Thomas, had not ventured out before 2002. Now they do so in
thousands. Buses on most outgoing routes have doubled to cope with the flow. That from several
centres - and not just to Kutta. The basic story is one of comprehensive collapse of employment in
Wayanad. Each traveller out of the district reflects that in his or her own way. Thousands of people,
their earnings halved or worse, seek unsteady work across the border.

A little over an hour later, in Kutta, a dejected B.J. Mani says his colleagues have not shown up for
work. "I'll have to go back looking for them. "My whole day will be gone, not to speak of the bus
fare." He boards the return bus an hour later. Meanwhile, new loads of workers descend from the
incoming bus. People mill around waiting for transport that will take them further into Kodagu. A
group of seven young carpenters from Wayanad is amongst them. "I've been doing this for two
years," says A.M. Biju from the group. "We will stay a month in Karnataka in a room provided by the
man we are working for. Before, there was a lot of work in Wayanad. Now there is none, so here we
are. That is our story."

On the bus to Kutta, everybody has a story.

Fewer jobs, more buses in Wayanad

It's no longer just landless labourers on the bus to Kutta. Many masons and carpenters are also
crossing the border into Karnataka in search of work, spurred on by the collapse of employment in
Wayanad. P Sainath continues his series on the agrarian crisis in Wayanad.

December 2004 - KUTTA, KODAGU (Karnataka): It's only when Bimala gets down from the bus at
Kutta in Karnataka that we realise she was the only woman on it. She did not board at the point of
origin, Mananthavady in Kerala, as we did. But from the Begur adivasi colony in between. She will
go on further to Nathayal "to do weeding work in an estate there."

Her face and her walk betray her fatigue. Like on every other day, she's been up since 4 a.m. "I have
two children and a husband down with TB," she explains. She has to finish cooking, cleaning,
washing and get things ready for the children to go to school. "And I have to leave by 7 a.m. to reach
here in time for work. Here, the sahucar's vehicle will pick me and others up to take us to his estate."

There, Bimala will earn Rs. 50 for her weeding work, which keeps her bending for eight hours in the
sun. But she will lose Rs.15 each day on bus tickets. She takes her food from home. "At the work
place we get nothing. Not even a cup of tea."

At home, where she reaches after 7 p.m. there's still much to be done. Including trips every two or
three days to Kattikulam (bus fare Rs.3.50 each way) to buy provisions. Since Bimala has very little
cash in hand at any given moment, she cannot buy enough at one time and thus reduce the number of
trips she makes. So, this often cuts further into the Rs.35 she scrapes out of her trips to Nathayal.

On whatever is left she looks after two young sons (in the 8th and 9th standard) and a sick husband
who cannot work. Bimala sleeps at ten p.m. or after, most nights. The family survives and runs on
her 16-18 hour workday and the Rs.25-30 it leaves her with. She answers the questions put to her by
Prof. Balagopal of St. Mary's College and Krishna Prasad of the Karshaka Sangham (Kisan Sabha)
without self-pity.

"Our Begur colony has 60 families and all are in the same condition," she explains. "Most come here
like me, seeking work. I've done this for four years. The only thing is, I hardly ever see the children
awake." Wayanad's already marginalised adivasis have been pushed deeper into debt and penury by
a crisis that has sharply reduced any employment they could get.

Earlier, too, the large-scale conversion of paddy fields into cash crop farms deprived adivasi women
of countless workdays each year. Paddy transplantation had till then been a major source of work for
them. Besides, "we used to get some weeding and other work closer by, in the forest." But the Forest
Department has cut that to a minimum. And the plantations - even those launched by the state for
adivasi welfare - are in the doldrums.

Now with the district's economy crumbling, those like Bimala, always on the margin, have simply
been crushed. She has been travelling on the bus to Kutta a lot longer than the non-adivasi job
seekers. Together their numbers are huge. The explosion of bus services from Wayanad to obscure
points in Tamilnadu and Karnataka reflects this. Scores of services have sprung up along routes
where there were few or none just four years ago.

"They come in ever larger numbers," says M.K. Mohammad in Kutta, in Kodagu district. He works in
the local mosque and has seen the job hunters from across the border swell from a trickle to a flood.
"Yes, there is more work in Kodagu. After all, this side of the border there are huge holdings - up to
2,000 acres. But this giant tide of people means that the work is getting less. And, obviously, wages
are getting much lower."

Back in Wayanad, the only earnings that have risen are those of the Kerala State Road Transport
Corporation. Little known destinations in Karnataka and Tamilnadu now bring in higher earnings per
kilometre (EPKM) than bus services to major cities within Kerala. The bus to Kutta rivals - and on
some days exceeds - the EPKM of the service to Kozhikode. This is also true of buses to Pattavayal
and Gudalur in Tamilnadu.

"Out-migration has increased," says P. K. Chandran, district transport officer at the KSRTC office in
Sulthan Bathery. "This is new. Five years ago, there were just three or four trips a day to Pattavayal.
Now there are 32 trips daily. Indeed, that route is the best revenue earner for KSRTC from this
Bathery depot, alongside Kozhikode."

The soaring number of out-bound bus trips signals the intensity of Wayanad's agony. Unlike much of
the rest of Kerala, this district never saw major out-migration. It's cash crop wealth ensured quite the
reverse.

"Till 2002, people came here in great numbers, seeking work," K. N. Subramanian had told us. He is
a district leader of the Karshaka Sangham (a unit of the All-Indian Kisan Sabha). "The Pulpally
region alone drew almost ten thousand migrant workers. Mostly from Tamilnadu."

Other districts exported labour to the Gulf. But Wayanad, says Subramanian, "was known as `the
Gulf of Kerala.' The Pulpally-Mullankolly region was called `The Kuwait of Kerala.' It gave work to
thousands."

But even some who once provided a bit of that work now seek it themselves in Karnataka. P.V.
Poulose, K. Biju and E.V. Babu are farmers from Wayanad getting down with us at Kutta. Together,
they are leasing ten acres at a total cost of Rs.1 lakh in Barnani near Mysore. Crushed by the crisis at
home in Mananthavady, they're going in for ginger cultivation in Barnani. This is a high-risk game,
with ginger attracting a lot of problems from pest to theft. Not to speak of the environmental damage
their chemical farming model entails.

Input costs and other risks, too, are very high. Their finances are thinly stretched and failure would
bankrupt them. "We have no choice," says Poulose. "We have to offset our losses at home which have
been severe these past three years."

Meanwhile a new busload of people arrives in Kutta from across the border. The agrarian crisis has
transformed a district known till now for in-migration into one seeing huge, anarchic out-migration.

Wayanad: Arrack as distress trade

Toddy is legal in Kerala, while arrack is banned. Also, while a litre of toddy costs Rs. 30, a sachet of
arrack goes for Rs. 11. As the farm crisis sees thousands of migrants crossing over into Karnataka,
arrack shops right on the border are booming. P Sainath continues his series on the agrarian crisis in
Wayanad.

10 January 2005 - PADICHIRA, WAYANAD (KERALA): "I don't want to glorify my profession,
but we too are human beings. Understand our problems as well," said M. Uttaman, mild reproof in his
voice. And what is his profession? "I own a toddy shop."

Shouldn't you be doing much better these days, journalist K.A. Shaji gently asks. After all, in this
kind of depression, people must be drinking a lot more. They are, says a morose Uttaman, but not
toddy. "This arrack from across the border is killing us."

"The fall in the purchasing power of the poor in Wayanad hit us very badly," says the toddy shop
owner. "We pay a heavy fee to the Government for our licenses. In the middle of this agrarian crisis,
where our clients are earning nothing, this has become a burden. Then when cheap and strong arrack
is smuggled in from Karnataka, it just destroys the economics of our trade."

Threat from across the border

Toddy is legal in Kerala, while arrack is banned. Also, while a litre of toddy costs Rs. 30, a sachet of
arrack goes for Rs. 11. As the farm crisis sees thousands of migrants crossing over into Karnataka,
arrack shops right on the border are booming. Travellers from Wayanad can find one within a
minute's walk of most bus stops they get down at in Karnataka. One shop, just across the river Kabini
in Byrekuppa, accounts for a good bit of the boat traffic to that town.

Uttaman's reading of the damage arrack is doing to his trade is quite accurate. Take Kutta in Kodagu,
Karnataka. There are four arrack joints around this tiny town. In the first ten minutes we spend in one
of them, a dozen customers come in, buy several sachets and move on. Some consume a couple of the
sachets on the spot and pack the rest that they buy. All this brisk activity in the morning - the leanest
period for such shops.

Doomed trade

On an average, these four small shops together sell around 5,000 sachets of arrack daily. (A lot more
on market days.) This means they are making around Rs. 55,000 each day. Or a stunning combined
annual turnover of close to Rs. 2 crore in a single town of less than 6,500 people. Which implies that
the trade all along the border runs to tens of crores of rupees. Uttaman's toddy trade does appear
doomed.

Kutta's own buyers simply do not support such volumes. So who does? Bus traffic from Wayanad to
Kutta has gone up 400 per cent in recent times. Wayanad's rich cash-crop economy has collapsed.
And over 1,000 people from there touch this point daily, seeking work on this, the Karnataka side of
the border. The main revenue for the arrack shops comes from these and other travellers.

A source of income

For some, it's a source of income in these desperate times. "It all happened when agriculture crashed
in Wayanad," says Uttaman. "Labourers cannot get a day's work here. So now, some go to Karnataka
and buy 15 packets of arrack and return to sell them in Wayanad. They cost Rs. 11 but sell here for
over Rs. 25 and even more. This undercuts us badly."

"A typical arrival," says C.C. Subbaiah Surat in Kutta, "might buy six sachets." He is a local
businessman and BJP activist. "Two packets he consumes on the spot. The rest he takes back and
sells at home. There he will get at least Rs. 25 a packet or more." An investment of Rs. 66 can earn its
owner Rs. 100. Minus the bus fare and the cost of the two packets consumed, it still leaves over a few
rupees. In short, it's almost a self-financing scheme. In the midst of Wayanad's economic chaos, those
at the bottom scrape around for ways out. This seems to be one of them - arrack as a distress trade.

Illicit brewing

Adding to the complexity is the illicit brewing of arrack in Wayanad's own villages. A number of
marginal farmers and landless workers, both settlers and adivasis, are into this now. They see no other
way of tiding over the ongoing crisis. At least this brings in some income, however meagre, at a time
when all other avenues have failed. There is also some brewing of bootleg in remote parts of the
forest, beyond police and excise department reach.

For Uttaman, though, it all adds up to bankruptcy. "I pay the Government a yearly license fee of
Rs.48,000," he says. "Then there is the welfare fund payment for my eight employees, which is
almost a lakh of rupees. We tap nearly 120 litres of toddy a day. Remember it's a perishable good. If
you can't sell it in 48 hours, you throw it away." Since toddy is a major item in Wayanad and closely
linked to the employment of many, the issue gets more tricky.

"Five years ago, I sold 250 bottles a day. Now that's down to just 10 or 15 daily. Toddy fetches Rs. 30
a litre. But the tapper gets his daily wage of Rs. 22 regardless of how it goes. To add to it all, the
bootleg mafia around here also undercuts us further. This business is cracking." So are a host of
others. Many small shops and provision stores around here have folded. Some now work only 6:30
am to 9 am and then again from 5 pm to 7 pm.

"It's across the board," says Uttaman grimly. He locates his problem clearly within the agrarian crisis
that has crushed Wayanad's economy. "The cinemas have closed, so have the teashops. Pepper,
coffee, cardamom - everything is doing badly. People have no money," he says. What are the options?
"It seems to me the pressure is so great that some toddy shops, too, will start buying and selling
arrack on the sly. How do you expect people to survive?"

Commerce and crisis hit students

Two processes have hit Wayanad. One is the policy-driven commercialisation of education. And the
second is the collapse of Wayanad's economy. For the first time in decades in this education-proud
state thousands of students are dropping out of college and school. P Sainath continues his series on
the agrarian crisis in Wayanad.

31 January 2005 - WAYANAD (KERALA): At age five, Anushree is the youngest commuter on the
bus. The Class I student spends 12 hours a week this way. That too, crossing the State border twice
each day. She journeys from Kutta in Karnataka to school in Mananthavady, Kerala, and back. She
travels on these crowded buses with schoolgirls only a few years older keeping an eye on her. By the
end of each week, she's logged nearly 400 km on that bus.

For those from outside Kerala, Anushree's story is astonishing. Her father is a Malayalee casual
labourer based in Kutta, presently working in a flour mill in Tholpetty on the Kerala border. In
Wayanad's ongoing agrarian crisis, he'd be lucky to find work 15 days in a month. Yet, he wants his
daughter to have the best education she can get. For him, that's an English-medium school in
Mananthavady.
This costs much more than sending her to just any school in Kutta. But a better school for his
daughter is important to the man who could go days without work. And he spends even more to send
her there spotlessly turned out. A moving and inspiring act. But this is Kerala where people place an
enormous value on education. For girls, too.

Three of the many other girls on the bus - Vaishali, Razine and Shruti - also travel quite a distance
daily. They are all in Class IX of a Government school. They are Malayalees commuting every day
from inside Karnataka on student passes costing Rs.195 for three months. Not cheap. But their
parents seek a Malayalam-medium school. Besides, they know that schools in their home State are
better. You know this is Kerala when the three girls tell you their preferred sporting events are
"hammer-throw, shot put and discus." But also on the bus are young people who have dropped out of
college or school. These include Class IX and X students returning from back-breaking work in the
fields of Kodagu. Many from Wayanad have moved to or beyond the border, seeking work in
Karnataka. Even the children on the bus have a sense of the crisis gripping Wayanad. "Maybe 20 kids
from poor families have dropped out these past two years," says Vaishali. "Four from my class
alone." This pupil is also aware of "three suicides amongst farming families" in her neighbourhood.

Two processes have hit Kerala - and Wayanad in particular - very badly. One is the policy-driven
commercialisation of education. This has evoked angry protests across the State. And the second is
the collapse of Wayanad's economy. For the first time in decades in this education-proud State
hundreds, even thousands, of students are dropping out of college and school because their parents
can no longer pay the fees. It's worse at the college level.

"Some drop out after spending Rs. 2-3 lakhs," says Fr. A.K. Varghese of the St. George Orthodox
Church in Padachira. "In this very parish, 20-30 students have left their professional courses in
Karnataka, Tamilnadu, even Delhi. With agriculture failing, their parents can no longer afford it."

"In my own class," says Prof. Balagopal of St. Mary's College who is on the bus with us, "students
find it hard to cope. This year's annual excursion was delayed as less than half the 45 pupils could
afford it."

The crash of coffee, pepper, and vanilla prices has made things a lot worse. And rackets linked to the
commercialisation of education are thriving. "When coffee and vanilla were booming," says Krishna
Prasad of the Karshaka Sangham (Kisan Sabha), also on the bus with us, "people sent their children
to expensive institutions in Karnataka. For instance, to nursing colleges that charge over Rs.4 lakhs
for the whole course."

Countless students were recruited for such colleges by shady agencies. W.T. Sajith was one of them.
"I, and some 3,000 others, went to Bangalore in response to a newspaper advertisement from such an
agency," he told us. This was for a B.Sc nursing course.

"The agency assured us bank loans - with no collateral. The `hostel' turned out be a tiny home with 18
people packed into it. The college was not recognised by the Indian Nursing Council." The reason for
the fake promises was simple. The college needed large numbers of students to gain recognition.
Once it did, it demanded exorbitant fees from them.

But with the rural economy in collapse, "no one could pay," says Sajith. "The management used
goondas to chase us out. When we wanted our school certificates back, they demanded Rs.15,000
from each of us." The agency had already extracted Rs.60 lakhs from them as "service charge" at Rs.
2,000 per student. (It had also made Rs.3 crores from the college - at Rs.10,000 per pupil recruited. In
all, it made Rs.3.6 crore on this single deal.)
In Pulpally, farmer K.P. Varghese's daughter Nisha and her friend Annie cannot meet the demands
their college in Karnataka now makes. A college which is "awful, with no teaching hospital attached."
All such `private' nursing and medical colleges basically depend on government hospitals. They will
never build the needed infrastructure themselves. But the girls are in too deep, having completed the
first year. So they hope to somehow finish the three-year course. But bank loans are out. Banks are
linking educational loans to agricultural dues. "I was turned down just this morning," says Varghese,
who has pending agricultural loans.

Meanwhile, Kerala now emulates Karnataka. The Government is encouraging the spread of private,
high-fee and `donation based' colleges. But for the State's students, the process is traumatic. It has
meant a radical reversal of Kerala's educational policies. Those first introduced in 1957 by the then
Namboodiripad Government had a dramatic impact. Even the poor in remote parts of Wayanad had
access to better schooling. Together with other reforms, that enabled Kerala to emerge as India's one
success story in education.

Meanwhile, the agrarian crisis goes down to the school level in Wayanad. "Parents are appealing for
tuition fee waiver in school," says Fr. George Vettikatil. He is Procurator at the Catholic Bishop's
House in Sultan Bathery and is in charge of one of Wayanad's best English-medium schools. "The
school is losing money. But people who paid easily earlier are now really hard up."

Churches have played a hugely positive role in education here. But new dilemmas crop up. Church-
run schools have always helped poor children. Yet church-linked bodies also own many high-fee
institutions at the higher levels. So a few of those who fight for debt relief for Wayanad farmers also
own colleges from where the children of those farmers drop out for want of money. Some are a little
defensive about this.

"Modern institutions need lots of money to run," says Fr. Baby Elias. He is with the Mar Basil
Church, Cheeyambam. Fr. Elias feels the Government is wholly to blame. "They won't spend a paisa
on the education sector. Nor do they ensure remunerative prices for farmers. That's why children are
dropping out."

At the Mananthavady depot, Anushree waves goodbye as she makes her way to school. As
Wayanad's crisis deepens, the five-year-old is fighting a larger battle than she knows.

Coffee sails globally, sinks locally

This is coffee territory, yet you cannot get the local brew in any restaurant here. Drop in at the Coffee
Board in Kalpetta to enquire why this is so - and they offer you a cup of tea. P Sainath continues his
series on the agrarian crisis in Kerala's Wayanad region.

7 February 2005 - WAYANAD (KERALA): "What do you mean you have no fresh coffee?" we
asked. But the waiter was firm. "We have Nescafe." This is coffee territory, yet you cannot get the
local brew in any restaurant here. Drop in at the Coffee Board in Kalpetta to enquire why this is so -
and they offer you a cup of tea. "We do have a filter," our host apologises, "but there's no powder in
the office just now."

There are tonnes of powder everywhere else. Wayanad produces 82 per cent of Kerala's coffee. It has
been a huge income and foreign exchange earner for years. But it is now deeply enmeshed in the
crisis sweeping the region. And its volatile reign extends far beyond the district. Coffee is the second
most highly traded commodity in the world after oil. (Third if we count narcotics.)
"The collapse of coffee prices has ruined countless farmers in the district," says M.P.
Veerendrakumar. He represents Wayanad in the Lok Sabha and is a former Union Labour Minister.
"So many lives are tied to that crop," he says. There are over 70,000 hectares under coffee here and
some 60,000 small growers. "The slide in prices is a key element in the farmers' suicides that have
occurred." Almost all the suicide-hit households we surveyed here were small growers of coffee and
pepper.

Maria Kutty with her 1.5 acres in Irulam. E.D. Vasu with 75 cents in Edavaka. Mohammed Ali with
58 cents in Porunnannur. These were just three of many farmers sunk by the price of coffee and
pepper. Their debts rose as farm-gate prices fell. They, and some 120 others like them, committed
suicide during 2004. "Maria took her life after a local bank sent her a notice," says a neighbour.

All this is well known here. Yet, last December, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath told
the Lok Sabha the Centre had received no information on coffee grower suicides in the State. "Retail
prices are not doing badly," points out Mr. Veerendrakumar. "It's the producer's price that has
plummeted." Coffee prices dropped to a low of Rs.15-16 a kg for the raw cherry by mid-2004. "This
from a high of Rs.70 - 80 a kg for the cherry. And up to Rs.130 a kg for the beans only a few years
ago."

Coffee still makes big bucks at the global level. But Wayanad's growers have lost over Rs.800 crore
on it since 2001. "Foreign and domestic cartels and trading houses are behind the price crash," says
P.A. Muhammed. He is Convenor of the South Indian Farmers Coordination Committee. And he
knows it's a worldwide story.

In 1992, points out Martin Khor of Third World Network, "producer countries earned $10 billion
from a global market worth around $30 billion. In 2002, they made less than $6 billion in a market
that had doubled in size."

That cataclysmic drop in share of revenue from 33 per cent to less than 10 per cent within a decade
hit poor producers worldwide. Wayanad briefly saw a great rise in prices in the late 1990s when frost
hit the Brazilian crop. "And also because," says a senior Government official who has tracked exports
for two decades, "of sheer rigging. Four major companies dominate the world market. When faced
with a worker's strike in Brazil, they hike prices for Kerala coffee. So there's a boom. When the
crushed Brazilians return to the fields, the companies pull the plug on us. Now they have two major,
cheap sources."

Wayanad's exposure is worse than most because its coffee has no internal market. Unlike Karnataka
and Tamilnadu, Kerala is not a coffee drinking land. Wayanad is home to one of the best Robusta
varieties anywhere. Yet there is little effort to promote coffee within the district or State. Expensive
but poor quality instant coffee rules the roost here

Hotel owners can buy high quality, fresh Wayanad coffee powder for Rs.90 a kg. "But the price of
one kilo of instant coffee from Nestle," points out P. A. Muhammed, "is between Rs.900 and Rs.
1,400 a kg." And imports of instant brands that use the cheapest beans - and lots of advertising - are
on the rise.

"Nine-tenths of the price you pay for your instant coffee," says the journal New Internationalist, "goes
to powerful companies who ship, roast and retail the product. Just one-twentieth reaches the people
whose lives are spent growing and harvesting it."

Why buy costly instant stuff when top quality fresh coffee is available? "It is absurd that Wayanad
coffee is not drunk here," says A.P. Sreekumar, a big grower and district Congress leader. "But there
has never been any branding for our coffee. It's never been promoted locally." Our host at the Coffee
Board goes further. "This is the land of coffee and no one knows how to prepare it." Others charge the
Board with only serving exporters. Not growers.

There is also little processing of coffee within the district. "If you try doing it," says Mr. Muhammed,
"the buyers boycott you." Most in Wayanad are clear that state action is urgent and essential. More so
in areas like credit and a minimum support price. Also by revising import policies and helping
growers do their own curing and processing.

"The cartels have strong local links. And sometimes they encourage over-production," says the senior
Government official. "That works well to keep prices down. At the same time, their control over the
market and our lack of access ensures their profits don't fall. Only our prices do."

The global market has too much coffee. Often hundreds of millions of kg more than it needs. "Eight
per cent more coffee is being produced than consumed," says OXFAM.

The price crash has devastated Wayanad's growers. "They may be getting three paise on each rupee
that coffee generates," says Mr. Veerendrakumar. "How can the farmers survive?" Last year, too
many of them decided they just couldn't.

Spice of life carries whiff of death

Imports of pepper from Sri Lanka, including large quantities that are simply routed through that
country but not actually produced there, have devastated farmers in Wayanad, home of the world's
best pepper. P Sainath continues his series on the agrarian crisis in this region.

13 February 2005 - WAYANAD (KERALA): Over 500 years ago, Vasco da Gama, so goes the
story, asked the King here if he could take home some Malabar pepper, the best in the world. The
monarch consented. Were they around today, neither Vasco da Gama nor the King could certify that
the pepper found here is from the Malabar.

"This place is drowning in third-rate imported pepper," says E.M. Samad. He is a young trader
shuttling between Wayanad and Delhi. "Cheap, low grade imports are killing our pepper. This stuff is
from Vietnam, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and other places." This massive inflow has savaged the growers
here and knocked the bottom out of the district's economy. "Wayanad farmers have lost Rs. 1,500
crores on pepper alone since 2001," says P.A. Muhammed, convenor of the South Indian Farmers
Coordination Committee. "Disease and drought have sharpened the crisis."

Cheap imports

The cheap imports have proved costly. "The import lobby brings in these large amounts of bad
pepper," says Mr. Samad. "It mixes this with Wayanad pepper (which is premium grade) and exports
it to Europe and elsewhere for huge profits. This triggered the price crash and killed the farmers of
Wayanad." The district saw 150 farmers or more take their lives in 2004. Most of them pepper and
coffee growers, all of them deep in debt. The spice of life now carries a whiff of death.

"As it is, production costs quadrupled in the past few years," says K.M. Thomas. His five-member
family works a four-acre plot in the worst-hit region of Pulpally. "This was our mainstay. Now we
earn less from each acre than we invest in it." Pepper prices - Rs. 27,000 a quintal a few years ago -
fell to just over Rs. 5,000 a quintal by 2004. Or Rs. 50 a kilo. Debts rose as prices sank. And credit
dried up. In Pulpally, thriving farmers once owned hundreds of motor vehicles. Now many of these
are off the roads, sold or lost in debt repayment.

"Import duties needed"

V. Baby was famous as the district's "model farmer." Indeed, he had won the "Best Farmer Award"
from banks here happy with his prompt loan repayment. Then came the price crash.

"Pulpally pepper is the best in the world," says Mr. Baby with pride. "But this inferior Sri Lankan
product is hurting us like anything." As prices slipped, the model farmer found himself over half a
million rupees in debt. Deeply hurting for a man proud of his fine record. And without credit, it is
hard to come out of it. "The Government should impose duties on these imports," he says. "And there
should be a five-year moratorium on loan repayment."

However, much of what passes as "Sri Lankan pepper" is really from many nations. It just comes via
Sri Lanka. That country's output at the time the price slide began in 2001 was just around 7,800
tonnes. About half of this was locally consumed. Yet, Indian "imports from Sri Lanka" in the same
period were almost higher than that nation's production!

"There is zero duty levied on such imports from SAARC countries," points out M.P.
Veerendrakumar. He is the Lok Sabha member from here and a former Union Labour Minister. "So
all this third rate pepper is routed through Sri Lanka. How can they export more than they produce?
Multinationals and cartels are rigging both the flow and the price of pepper."

Drop in output

With prices smashed by the imports, output sank. Adding to the crisis was the onset of Quick Wilt
disease and other problems. "Four years ago, I harvested 70 quintals of pepper," says farmer K.I.
Matthew in Mullankolly. "In 2004, that fell to seven quintals."

Locals believe much damage might have been caused by inferior imported species entering the
production chain. And by the reckless use of dubious seed varieties that crowd the market.

There is no relief. "Because ours are cash crops, there are no concessions," says K.N. Subramanian.
He is a district leader of the Karshaka Sangham (a unit of the All-Indian Kisan Sabha) and himself a
small farmer. "The compensation levels are crazy. A dead banana tree gets Rs. 50. A destroyed
pepper vine fetches Rs. 40, though pepper is a long-term crop. One you can earn from for half a
century."

Pepper from here has long been a big foreign exchange earner. Kerala accounts for 90 per cent of
India's production. During 2003, Indian exports fell to 17,200 tonnes, a fall of 31 per cent from 2002.
But black pepper remained the most favoured spice in the globe. The world consumes more of it than
perhaps all other spices combined. Yet India's share of the trade has dived. And its imports have
soared. Vietnam has emerged the globe's unlikely top producer.

Kerala's response has been to bureaucratise everything. "The idea was that the government would buy
pepper at Rs. 75 a kg from distressed farmers," says Kozhikode-based journalist K.A. Shaji. "For this,
farmers wishing to sell pepper must now have the local village officer certify that it was grown on
their own land. This could take weeks. And sometimes the officers demand bribes. Then the
government procurement agency has to verify it too. Next, the agency appoints an `expert' to conduct
a `pepper vine census' on the farmer's land.
"Only farmers with two hectares or less will get help. And only those who have got no government
aid in four years. Which rules out the families of those who committed suicide in despair! It would be
far simpler to check the imports at the port of entry than to try and police thousands of farms. But this
is the system now in place."

"It's a mess," says Mr. Veerendrakumar. "The government's approach has failed totally." He points to
the need for "geographical indicators," which would specify where the pepper is from. And "the
regulation of imports. This re-mixing of Wayanad pepper with low quality stuff is ruining our export
markets."

In Wayanad, the King of Spices is now a pauper.

Weddings on hold as prices crash

"It is time for my daughter to get married but where's the money? We ran a teashop for a long time.
That folded as people had no more to spend." P Sainath finds that as the agrarian crisis has deepened
in Wayanad, many people are now simply unable to afford weddings.

28 February 2005 - WAYANAD (KERALA): When P. Devasia of Pulpally took his own life last
week, he was upset because he could not raise the money for his daughter's marriage. The 48-year-old
farmer was also the first victim of the government's new rules of pepper sale. These require a lengthy
and intrusive process. One that makes it very hard for the farmer to sell his own produce without
entering a bureaucratic maze that could tie him down for weeks.

Yet Devasia's act of despair reflects a growing problem in Wayanad. The number of weddings has
fallen sharply. In this crisis-hit district, many are simply unable to afford them.

"People are not willing to send their daughters to Pulpally," K.C. Chacko told us. "Earlier they were
eager to." Mr. Chacko is retired principal of St. Mary's Higher Secondary School. "This was once the
most prosperous area," he says. "Now it is in the doldrums." At the St. Mary's Church - the biggest in
Pulpally - Fr. Jose Mundakal says that "weddings are down almost 50 per cent as compared to five
years ago."

In Kabinigiri, Chinamma Jose explains why. Her husband E.T. Jose was one among 150 or more
farmers who committed suicide in 2004. "He could not complete the house we were building. Now I
don't know what to do. It is time for my daughter (aged 23) to get married but where's the money? We
ran a teashop for a long time. That folded as people had no more to spend and stopped coming."

No takers for agriculture

"I'd sell what remaining land we have - 70 cents. But there are no buyers. Who will touch agriculture
now? We had more land, but sold off an acre four years ago when the troubles began. Just one month
before he died, my husband sold off another 35 cents. It raised very little cash. When pepper and
coffee prices collapsed, we even leased some land for growing paddy. But earned nothing. It seems
the only option is to keep my girl studying until I build that house. No one will marry her till it is
complete."

That tends to be the story in many farm households. Daughters' weddings on hold. It's a painful issue
for people to talk about. But some face up to it.
Marriages delayed

At St. Sebastian's Church in Mullankoly, Fr. George Alukka and some of his parishioners confirm
the problem. "There are now three to four year delays in many weddings." Girls here normally wed
around age 20-22, "but now there are some unmarried at 30." The agrarian crisis gripping this
district is having a profound impact on the institution of marriage.

"People have even tried offering land as dowry," says farmer K.M. Thomas, "but the bridegrooms
don't want it." Dowry problems and pressures are now intense. To the extent of creating serious
stress for the brides, says Fr. A.K. Varghese, Vicar of the St. George Orthodox Church in Padichira.

"This gets worse where there are more girls in the family. The burden of expenses is in itself hard to
bear. But problems of status also creep in."

"Say, the first girl got married four years ago. The family might have given Rs. 5 lakhs in dowry.
Now, for the second girl, they perhaps cannot afford even Rs. 20,000. The first girl has married into a
household of higher economic status. The second into a much poorer family. To be honest, it can
create serious tensions. Besides, there are now many girls above 25, even 30, with no one to marry. It
brings huge imbalances, within and between families. Parents' ties with their children can also suffer."

Fr. Baby Elias of the Mar Basil Church in Cheeyambam also confirms that weddings are down. "In
our parish, we would expect 12-18 weddings each year," he says. "Last year, there were only five."

Catering hit

Meanwhile, the effect of what is for many an unwritten moratorium on marriages is clear in related
fields, too. "Catering for weddings is down by at least 30 per cent for us. Others too, have been hit,"
says C.H. Balan. He is proprietor of Hotel Kalpaka, one of Sultan Bathery's most famous eating
places. "But the damage goes beyond that. Not only are orders for wedding dinners down, the number
of items people ask for when placing such orders is far less than it was four years ago. We are also
losing money because gas, electricity, provisions - everything is more expensive now."

But Mr. Balan is trapped. He cannot offset this by hiking prices even in his popular eating joint.
"People don't have money. This crisis and price crash means they cannot afford what they earlier used
to. Our own costs are up but I cannot raise the price list on my menu. All I've done is to charge one
rupee more for full meals. The number of people eating at the deluxe section of this restaurant has
fallen. The number of tourists and visiting merchants has dropped sharply. We're hit in more ways
than one."

'Cultural transition'

"There is also a big cultural transition," says Fr. George Vettikatil. He is Procurator at the Catholic
Bishop's House in Sultan Bathery. "Earlier, the whole neighbourhood helped with a wedding. The
people next door brought chairs, food and other help. But the past decade has seen that change. It got
very commercial. And weddings came to depend on individual family expenditure rather than on
community effort. That loss of community now hurts in the time of crisis." And the more commercial
it gets, the more it hurts.
AGRARIAN CRISIS IN ANDHRA
P Sainath is one of the two recipients of the A.H. Boerma Award, 2001, granted for ,,his
contributions in changing the nature of the development debate on food, hunger and rural
development in the Indian media. In July 2004, he was awarded the Prem Bhatia Award for
excellence in political reporting and analysis for 2003-04 in recognition of his "outstanding, indeed
exceptional, work on the problems of the poorest of the poor, especially in Andhra Pradesh." He is
the Rural Affais Editor at The Hindu.

Drought in the driver's seat

The worse things have become in Anantapur district, the more fancy cars have shown up in town.
Drought, says P Sainath, is the organised plunder of the poor.

July 2003, Anantapur town (AP) - Anantapur has 610 Tata Sumos. It has 130 Tata Spacios (air-
conditioned). It’s not doing too badly on the Qualis front either -- 85 of those are registered here. Nor
does it lag on the latest. Barely 48 hours after the national launch of the Scorpio, there were six on
these roads. There are now 30.

Much of the swanky stuff has shown up in the last two years. The local road transport authority’s
records are a gold mine. There is a modest fleet of Tata Safaris. Plus heaps of Indicas, Santros and
Zens. And more Mahindra jeeps than you can count. Anantapur town, where these are registered, has
just around three lakh people. This startling research from Eenadu (the biggest Telugu daily) also
shows that many more of these vehicles actually run here, but are registered in Hyderabad and
Bangalore. Even counting only those listed locally, this little town might have more SUVs and fancy
cars per capita than either of those metros.

All in all, amazing signs of progress and prosperity.

Except that Anantapur is one of the poorest districts in Andhra Pradesh. It is also the most crisis-
ridden one in the state, along with Mahbubnagar.
Agriculture has collapsed since the mid-1990s. More The district’s poverty and structural
farmers have committed suicide here than in any other part inequalities are huge. But drought is
of the country. Large numbers of people have left the still offered as the cause of all that
district. Thousands of students have dropped out of school goes wrong. Hundreds of crores of
and college in the past three years. Including many who rupees have poured into Anantapur in
were on scholarships. Add to all this, a drought that is the past five or six years in the name
biting deep. A genuine one. Against a normal rainfall of of fighting ‘drought.’ And now there’s
544 mm, the district got 270 mm last year. This year, it has a real one, it helps bring in even more
had no rains at all thus far. So where did all those fancy funds.
cars -- placing Anantapur in the fast lane -- come from?

Drought is the great provider.

Anantapur’s crisis has many causes. But is always reduced to a generic ‘drought.’ The actual
variation in rainfall over the last 125 years is far from dramatic. And the average of 522.mm during
1991-2000 was better than during the previous ten years. For 1981-90, the average was just 463 mm.
So rainfall in the 1990s was in fact just above the normal of 520 mm. There have been a couple of
bad years since then. Including 2001, in which the rains came aplenty -- but too late. Overall, the
data do not support the notion of drought as eternal villain. Drought just makes an unbearable
situation worse.

The district’s poverty and structural inequalities are huge. But drought is still offered as the cause of
all that goes wrong. Hundreds of crores of rupees have poured into Anantapur in the past five or six
years in the name of fighting ‘drought.’ And now there’s a real one, it helps bring in even more funds.
This money has rarely translated into jobs for people. Or improved living standards. Or enhanced
nutrition and health. It has largely gone into contractor-led ‘projects.’ And most recently into a food
for work programme that private contractors have captured.

The worse things have become in Anantapur district, the more cars have shown up in Anantapur
town. Drought, as the organised plunder of the poor. Contractors, sub-contractors, traders and local
politicians own these cars. (Often, that’s the same bunch of people.) So do bureaucrats and even, oh
yes, NGOs.

As in all things Indian, there is a caste hierarchy in the cars. The research on the whole issue by
Eenadu ace reporter Narasimha Reddy bears this out. He has done more stories on rural distress,
farmers suicides and the misuse of development funds than most journalists in the country. “The flash
and latest ones are owned by the top contractors,” he says. “The Zens, Santros and Indicas are mostly
the preserve of the bureaucrats.” The NGOs understandably do best amongst the jeeps.

While the cars colour the town and highway, the villages move down another road. Tens of thousands
daily visit gruel centres to pick up what will be their main, if not only, meal. A helping of gruel made
from ragi, water, a little salt and jaggery. Thousands more battle to save their tiny farms from money
lenders.

And still thousands more stand in desperate queues at the cattle camps. Waiting for those five
kilograms of straw for their animals. The district administration runs five such camps now. Each with
about 10,000 head of cattle that their owners can no longer feed. Despair has driven new records in
the distress sales of farm animals. Over 1.6 lakh head of livestock were sold off by May. That’s
60,000 more than were sold in the whole of last year. And at absurd prices. “Animals we bought for
Rs. 10,000 last year, we are selling at Rs. 3,000 this year,” says Seenu. He’s talking to us in
Daniyancheruvu village of Nallamada mandal. Seenu is one of many who have brought their starving
cattle to the camp here, hoping to feed them.

The crowds at the camp are so large that lots of tea and food stalls have sprung up around it. To
service the thousands of farmers who have not only deposited their cattle here, but have stayed on.
“There is no work to go back to,” says Seenu’s friend Raghu. “Might as well hang on here and make
sure the cows are fed and treated for disease. These cattle are our lives. They must have that fodder”

Luxury cars may be common in the town. Here, fodder is a luxury. Any of the 2,000 farmers standing
up to 12 hours in the queue for it would confirm that. There is a link, though, between fodder and
luxury cars. Last year, the Animal Husbandry department claimed a loss of Rs. 385 crore due to the
‘drought.’ They had to save so many animals. Which mystifies anyone looking at the condition of the
cattle they’re supposed to have rescued. But in the block headquarters are shiny new vehicles.

Drought is fodder for the fortunate. The last straw for the poor, but a big meal for the luxury class.

Yet, the current administration of the district is a sensitive one. It is more responsive to people’s
distress than many in the past. And it has shown the courage to take on touchy issues like caste and
communal violence. The administration here also showed restraint when faced with a state-wide
protest in May. The Left parties were picketing the Collectorates on the issue of hunger. But the
authorities did not, for once, resort to standard strong-arm methods to disperse the 1,000 protestors.
Also, on hearing of the crush at the cattle camps, Collector B. Rajashekar moved to stagger the fodder
hours. Each village the camps serviced was given a different time. The idea being to shorten queues
and reduce chaos.

But Anantapur’s crisis is far older than the present set up. And rooted in larger factors both within and
outside the district. In state and national policies which have wrecked its fragile equilibrium. In a path
of development hostile to the poor.

In April, Adappa gave up. Creditors were squeezing the small farmer from Oddicheruvu mandal.
He’d sunk borewells to 500 feet at great cost on his land in Dabruvaripalli village. They didn’t work.
Spurious pesticides and bad seed cost more. The crop failed yet again. Adappa took his life in despair.

Self-declared lenders soon showed up. “They claimed he

owed them Rs. 60,000,” says his son Jaichander. “But they
would not show me the promissory note. Yet, they hoped
to change the name on the note from his to mine. And
wanted me to sign to that effect. I declined.” Many
families just cave in and sign. And end up as bonded
workers of such creditors. “Every household here is deep
in debt,” he says. “Even selling land won’t help pay up.
Land worth Rs. 25,000 an acre eight years ago won’t fetch
Rs. 6,000 now.”
Zero investment and a collapse of
credit have ravaged agriculture. The
landless poor have seen working days
crash as a result. Crippling rises in the
costs of seed, fertiliser, power,
pesticide and water have crushed small
farms. The deeper the policies bite, the
greater the casualties.

Ramachandra Reddy of Choukuntapalli village in Nallamada mandal was another of those in debt.
By March, Reddy could no longer support his young son studying for a computer science degree in
Hindupur. Nor afford to get his youngest daughter married. He consumed pesticide. The four days it
took him to die cost his family Rs. 40,000. Which they had to borrow. Medical costs are at an all
time high.

Now his widow Lilavatiamma could lose their four acres to creditors. She is hit in other ways, too.
Three years ago, she would have got Rs. 10,000 under the Family Benefit Scheme to help her after
her loss. But with suicides mounting in Anantapur, the government changed the rules. The sum was
reduced to Rs. 5,000. As the deaths rose still further, the scheme was scrapped altogether for suicides.
“So I cannot get the Rs. 10,000 that would help my son complete his education,” she says. Adappa
and Reddy are just two amongst 2500 suicides in Anantapur over the past six years.

Zero investment and a collapse of credit have ravaged agriculture. The landless poor have seen
working days crash as a result. Crippling rises in the costs of seed, fertiliser, power, pesticide and
water have crushed small farms. The deeper the policies bite, the greater the casualties.

There is a savage drought of compassion afflicting policy makers.

Back in the town, more luxury cars roll out of what is known as the “Goodwill Colony.” This is an
island of expensive apartment buildings. ‘Goodwill’ is the term used to describe the ten per cent
kickbacks paid on all contracts in the district. Money from such kickbacks financed most of the
buildings here. So Eenadu calls it the ‘Goodwill Colony.’ Another name for it is The Food For No
Work Programme. The same people with homes here own so many of those cars.

The ‘Automobile Revolution’ -- that beloved cliché of countless magazine covers -- has arrived in
Anantapur. But it’s a very different kind of revolution than that which people here had hoped for.
While the Scorpios zip around the streets of the town, the wheels of economic and social justice turn a
lot more slowly in Anantapur. Here, drought is in the driver’s seat.
Sinking borewells, rising debt

June 2004: NALGONDA, MEDAK & NIZAMABAD (Andhra Pradesh): Musampally has more
borewells than people. This village in Nalgonda district has barely 2000 acres under cultivation. But it
boasts over 6,000 borewells - two to every human being. Over 85 per cent of these wells have failed.
The rest are in decline. The desperate search for water has bankrupted a once prosperous village.

Borewells loom large in the latest round of farmers' suicides in Andhra Pradesh. All those who took
their lives had run up huge debts. A hefty chunk of this money (borrowed at interest rates of 36 per
cent and above) was spent on borewells. Just 12 households that have suffered suicides recently had
invested in 52 of them. All but four or five failed. They had spent close to Rs. 8 lakhs on these. And
that is not counting the cost of pump sets.

MHJ8*+89usampally has spent over Rs. 6.52 crores on its 6000 wells. If less than a third of that had
been invested in completing a minor - and long-pending - irrigation project, the village would have
been better served. "I have tried my best to persuade them," says Narasimha Reddy, the dynamic ex-
MLA of the area. "But the borewell craze is deadly." Mr. Reddy had several water harvesting and
canal-link projects sanctioned during his tenure. But borewell mania has since run berserk. In the
2004 election campaign, says Mr. Reddy, "TDP and Congress candidates sank 400 wells free as part
of their campaign." The `free' wells have added to the village's costs.

The unchecked exploitation of ground water has caused havoc in Andhra Pradesh. In the beginning,
this simply meant that whoever could afford a borewell got the water. It also meant the privatisation
of ground water. The richer you are, the more bores you sink. The more water you collar. Until it
runs out.

The reigning champ in Musampally is Byrra Reddy. The village now calls him "Borewell Reddy."
He has sunk 55 wells in 20 acres of citrus. "Of these," he says, "49 have failed. It has been
crushing."

When 49 fail, why sink a 50th? "You can lecture us about wasting money on borewells," says
Jitendra Reddy. "But we have invested our lives in this crop. So we just have to find that water.
What alternatives have we been given?" From successive governments so far, none. They have in
fact encouraged a shift to often water-guzzling crops. And pushed for further privatisation of water.
The obsession with borewells is an optimism driven by despair. One more crop failure will send
others into the suicide abyss.

"We have no skills for anything but agriculture," says Ramakrishna Peddaiah. His family sank 30
wells. Ten of them in a single month, which saw his father B. Peddaiah lose his sanity. "All ten failed
and it drove him out of his mind," says Ramakrishna of his father, who sits by his side,
uncomprehending.

What would you do to get water if you had some money, we ask the people of Musampally. The
answer is unanimous. "We'd sink more borewells." That's from people who have each sunk 20-30
failed ones. Musampally is not alone. Millions of bores have been sunk across Andhra Pradesh for
some years now. No one knows how many. The water table lies devastated. Yet in this season, the
highway crawls with mobile drilling rigs off to sink more wells.

The borewell industry seems to be booming. Shops dealing in them crowd almost every town in
Telangana. There are 12 within close proximity in Kama Reddy in Nizamabad. "It costs about 35
rupees a foot for the first 200 feet," says one employee at the Siva Ganesh store. "Then it's ten rupees
extra for every additional foot." Since the wells require protection in sandy soils, they need a casing.
This runs to between 40 and 60 feet and costs Rs.95 a foot. With casing, labour and transportation
costs a well of 250 feet costs around Rs.15,000. You need another Rs.20,000 to even think of a pump
set.

And bores here run to depths of 300-400 feet these days. Of course, Anantapur outdoes Telangana
districts in matters of depth. Bores crossing 800 feet have long ago ruined the water table there.

Lingaiah in Biknor mandal of Nizamabad district sank the only successful bore in his village. "It
ruined my life," he says. His upper caste neighbours harassed him till he sold them his four acres at
below the market price. The well is with the victors.

The laws meant to regulate the spread of the wells have failed. "To monitor it at the field level," says
a senior IAS officer, "you must at least have working panchayats." Since those were badly
undermined in this past decade, the option does not exist just now. Collective action is almost
forgotten. Each farmer thinks in terms of more borewells on his land and little else.

"The process was wild and unregulated," says Prof. K. Nagaraj of the Madras Institute of
Development Studies. "From the start no questions were asked about who owns this water? Who does
the aquifer belong to? What are the implications of siphoning it off this way? The earlier tank systems
were quite iniquitous but there was some element of sharing. Small farmers were very dependent on
this. The large number of small water bodies in and around the village was a great support to them."
With the coming of the borewells, these sources rapidly dried up. In thousands of villages, the local
tanks have not filled up in years. The crisis of surface irrigation wounded the small farmer badly.
Now even the big farmers who overmined the aquifer are hurting. "If there is one perfect example of
the anarchy of the market," says Prof. Nagaraj, "this is it."

In Musampally, Dharma Reddy shows me his ultimate symbol of the village's decline. The locked
doors of "Manjeera Wines." The local `brandy shop.' It used to do "business worth Rs. 10, 000 a day,"
he says, wistfully. "Now look at it." Over here, liquor won't be flowing like water for a while. And
neither will water.

When farmers die :

June 2004: Andhra Pradesh is in the midst of an agrarian Emergency. The tragic farmers' suicides
are, finally, an extreme symptom of a much deeper rural distress. The result of a decade-long
onslaught on the livelihoods of millions. The crisis now goes way beyond the families ravaged by the
suicides. And beyond the farming community itself. There is an urgent need to end the suicides. But
doing so without addressing the larger distress is to try and mop the floor dry with the taps open.

Over 300 farmers have taken their lives these past six weeks. And thousands since the structured
assault on agriculture in Andhra Pradesh began years ago. For every farmer who has committed
suicide, countless others face morale-sapping despair. Large numbers of people are also in a zone
marked by growing hunger and a fragile equilibrium. There have been hunger deaths, too, this year.
One more bad season could push many over the edge.

Much as sections of the media would like to believe, this is not a new development. Nor something
that can be pinned on a month-old Government. The suicides have been occurring for over seven
years now. And in some periods, with even greater intensity. So too has hunger been growing. Even
last year, this publication reported that crisis in the state. (A gruel-ing season) And the callous
indifference of the Chandrababu Naidu Government to what was going on. (Hi-tech, Low Nutrition).
This year, the chickens have come home to roost.

A survey this month, covering scores of rural households across many districts, strengthens that
picture. These include dozens of families whose breadwinners have committed suicide. The issues are
complex and the linkages many. And cannot be reduced to that old favourite: drought. Sure that's a
big problem. But one amongst others. Farmers are taking their lives in better-irrigated regions too.

The rural landscape is a shambles. Agricultural credit and finance systems have collapsed. Taking
their place are new entities that can make the village moneylender seem relatively less coercive.
Prices have pushed most inputs beyond the reach of the small farmer. For many, the move from food
crops to cash crops proved fatal. In some cases, the shift was towards high-outlay, water-guzzling
crops such as sugar cane. All this, in an era of huge power tariff hikes. A steady shrinking of local
democracy further deepened the chaos.

Add to this, big drops in purchasing power. And the worst performance in rural employment seen in
years. Both landed farmers and agricultural workers have taken a terrible beating. The people of
Andhra Pradesh are paying the price for a 'Vision' that sought to displace 40 per cent of those in
agriculture from that sector. Without a clue as to where to take them next.

All the households surveyed had incredible levels of debt. Many had failed to gain the credit needed
at the start of this season (one reason driving the latest suicides). All have seen crop failure for two or
more years. Almost every one of them had made distress sales of land or cattle or both in the past few
years. Just 20 of them combined had health expenditure running into a few lakhs of rupees. Most had
changed crops in recent years. All of them had spent unbelievable sums in their search for water.
Mainly sinking borrowed money in borewells. All were selling their produce to creditors of some sort
at well below market price.

This is the canvas that Prof. K. Nagaraj of the Madras Institute of Development Studies calls "a
predatory commercialisation of the countryside." The farmers have been its prey.

The new awareness of the media is welcome, if ironic. Journals that never once said a word on the
suicides when they were most intense now do body counts. Maybe the media are trying to make up
for their silence but cannot admit it. The suicides, though, have been going on for years. Some
journalists in the Telugu press did a magnificent job of keeping the issue alive. It was the 'national'
media that treated it with scorn, even disbelief.

To lay the deaths at the door of the new Government, as some have sought to do, is to ignore the
fundamental evidence: That the victims gave up after years of trying to cope with a situation made
impossible by others beyond their control. After seven or more years of being crushed, defeated and
ruined. People did not wake up one morning and say: "Hey, the government has changed. I think I'll
take my life today." Theirs was a heart-breaking, ultimate protest against a society that showed no
concern for them. It would be right to haul up the new Government if it fails to give the state a
fundamental directional change. But the latest suicides have roots that lie in years of past failure.
About the most cruel thing being said, though, is that people are taking their lives to `gain' from the
compensation. What a contradiction in terms. Lose your life and gain from it.

Suppose for one moment this crazy thought is true. That people are taking their lives because a
government has announced compensation for their families. What does it say of the society that we've
built this past decade? That a farmer would rather take his or her life and get Rs. 1 lakh for the
children rather than go on living amongst us? It speaks far less about them, far more about us. It also
ignores the fact that there were a huge number of suicides in 2000-01 when the 'compensation' had
long been stopped.

This notion measures not the 'gain' of the farmers but the loss of our own humanity. The profound
indifference to the suffering of others that the 'me-first decade' has legitimised. The idea that a mother
and father both end their lives leaving behind aged parents and tiny infants to 'gain' is a heartless one.
Or, as in one case, a father and son commit suicide within a year of each other. To make money out of
it?

Why has this happened more in Andhra Pradesh than anywhere else? After all, the basic economic
model we see here did and does exist across the country.

For one thing, Andhra Pradesh under Mr. Naidu was far more aggressive than any other state in
pushing that model. With the national - and global - elite backing him, he acted without compunction.
Most of the support systems the poor in the state had (some put in place by N.T. Rama Rao) were
ruthlessly dismantled. Also, no other state and leader were so totally exempt from critical scrutiny.
The media didn't just hail the Emperor's New Clothes. It was so busy weaving them, it failed to see
Andhra Pradesh's fabric being torn apart. The Emperor could do no wrong. So why look? The
farmers' suicides never made the cover of a national magazine in the years they were most intense.

For another, the decline of democracy in the state. The 'Janmabhoomi' model of development
sidelined the panchayats, robbed them of resources and demoralised local democracy. This meant a
collapse of collective action at the village level. The panchayats have played little or no role in
dealing with the crisis. The dying of local democracy had a clear corollary. Extreme external
interference. Andhra Pradesh was not run by or for its people, or on their wishes. It was run on the
blueprints of McKinsey, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the DFID and others of
that fraternity. By thousands of expensive 'consultants.' All, unelected and extra-constitutional centres
of power.

There have been farmers' suicides in other states too. Karnataka saw a large number last year. They
have also occurred in Maharashtra, Punjab and Rajasthan. Even Kerala. Maybe with a change in
media attitudes now, we could learn more about what's happening elsewhere.

The new Government has at least acknowledged that the deaths continue. You can dispute its
numbers but it has not tried to deny the suicides. Its short-term measures include several that are a
must. Like help for the affected families. And the proposed six-month moratorium on debt. But the
problem won't end there. Even in the short term, there's an urgent need for food-for-work
programmes. And the Government must use the six-month period to work out more lasting moves on
debt relief. It has to plan on raising incomes and purchasing power amongst the poor. On restoring
support systems. On building rural employment as never before.

The new Government at the Centre must surely also have a sense of how deep voter anger ran in this
election. But does it know just how intense the crisis is? Seems doubtful. Parliament met on June 2.
The first day of the new session, eight farmers took their lives in Andhra Pradesh. By the time the
session ended on June 10, 69 had died the same way. It was a new Lok Sabha meeting after a historic
election. Yet the Finance Minister was absent from the House on the very first day. He was busy
drying the tears of the distraught millionaires of Dalal Street. Not the happiest signal of this
Government's priorities.

Almost every sector of Indian democracy failed the Andhra Pradesh farmer; the Government and the
political class; the tame intellectuals and planners. The human rights groups and a once-activist
judiciary. And a media that failed in their simplest, yet vital duty in a democracy: to signal the
weaknesses in society.

Death of a carpenter

June 2004: MUKUNDAPURAM, (Nalgonda, A.P.). No one had ordered a plough in three years.
Nor axe and spade handles either. Which meant that Bangaru Ramachari, who made tools and
implements for farmers, was in trouble. He had been Mukundapuram's sole carpenter for years. He
owned no land or cattle and was not a farmer. But his well-being depended on how agriculture in this
village in Nalgonda fared.

"When farming does badly," says S. Srinivas, a political activist here, "everyone does badly. Not just
farmers." Ramachari did worse. He died of hunger. In a village that falls in the command area of the
Left Canal of the Nagarjun Sagar project. Where farming had earlier done well for years

The fault lines of the farm crisis are sending tremors far beyond the immediate community itself.
Potters, leather workers, carpenters and numerous other non-farm groups have been hit by the crisis
of agriculture that is driving the farmers' suicides in the state. The delicate and age-old linkages of the
sector are under severe strain.

"I was away in Vijaywada working in a chappal company," says Aruna, Ramachari's widow. Women
from the Voddrangi (carpenter) caste do not normally migrate in search of work. "There was no
choice," she says. "I had never been a migrant worker before. But the chances of finding work here
were nil." So she migrated a month at a time, leaving their three children with her husband.

"Ramachari used to have around 40 clients," says Srinivas. "They paid for his services with paddy.
Each gave him 70 kilograms a year." Of the 2800 kg he got this way, he kept what his family needed
and sold the rest on the market. "He could get around Rs. 250 for 70 kg. Remember this was paddy,
not rice." Yet, after retaining what his family required, he could make Rs. 4,000 in a year this way.
"With that, he took care of the family."

He had even more clients earlier but problems began in the boom time. The coming of 12 tractors in
the village reduced work. "That hurt those who work with their hands," says K. Lingaiah. Landless
workers like him also did badly from then on. For Ramachari, it was a blow. But he kept at his trade,
trying to make things work. "He had no other skills," says Aruna. He had studied till the 5th class.
She till the 4th.

The tractors, though, were just the beginning. Much of the 1990s saw no investment in agriculture,
public or private. Crop failure accompanied the stagnation. Farmers were no longer replacing their
tools and implements. This was a disaster for Ramachari. "What would we replace the tools for?
How could we afford that? What would we do with the new ones?" ask people in the village. At the
same time, the older, worn-out tools further damaged what little agriculture was on.

That the canal now had little or no water didn't help.

Meanwhile, everyone was getting into debt. As input costs rose and farming failed, many borrowed
just to keep afloat. Ramachari, 45, a proud and skilled artisan, was not keen on that route. In fact his
debts of around Rs. 6,000 are surprisingly low for this region.

"This village owes the Cooperative Society Bank alone Rs.22 lakhs," says K. Reddy an official of that
body. They also owe the Gramina bank around Rs.15 lakhs and the State Bank of Hyderabad close to
Rs.5 lakhs. "And that's not the major amount," says Left activist S. Srinivas. "Mukundapuram owes a
great deal more than that to moneylenders." Perhaps, say people here, three times more.

Which means this village of 345 families carries a debt of over Rs.1.5 crore. With life becoming a
survival game from there on, farming began to sink. And land prices have crashed from Rs.120,000
an acre to Rs. 60,000 an acre. "Normally, people would
hate to lose their land," says Gangi Narain Reddy a ryuthu The whole village was hungry this
sangham leader in the district. "But now even for those past year. Ramachari more than most.
desperate to sell, there is no one to buy." Ironically, two of the worst years they
went through, India was exporting
Some of the tractor owners lost their machines to creditors. grain at prices less than those paid by
It brought no relief to Ramachari as even the non-tractor poor people in this country.
farmers were no longer replacing tools. "He was down to
three or four clients in a year," says Srinivas. And in just recent times, the villagers lost over 30
bullocks in distress sales. That too, meant less work for the carpenter who made various items linked
with their use.

Next came the migrations. "Earlier," says Gangi Reddy, "500 labourers used to come here each year
seeking employment. That's gone. Now 250 people from here go as migrants searching for work."

The whole village was hungry this past year. Ramachari more than most. Ironically, two of the worst
years they went through, India was exporting grain at prices less than those paid by poor people in
this country. The only time the carpenter borrowed a little money from a neighbour, he bought some
nokalu (broken rice) with it. The remains of the nokalu are still in the house. Aruna hasn't the heart
to throw it away.

While she went to a sweatshop in the city, hunger was biting Ramachari. "We helped the children
often with meals," says Muthamma, a neighbour. "But he would act as if he was fine. He had not had
a morsel for five days in his last week but was too proud to admit it." The neighbours, too, were doing
badly. Yet, their help kept the children going. On May 15 this year, Ramachari collapsed. He was
dead before Aruna raced back from Vijayawada.

Ramachari was swamped by a crisis of many layers. Most of which have also driven the farmers'
suicides in this State. That have devastated Andhra's agriculture. Zero investment. High input prices.
Crop failure. Rising debt. Criminal governmental neglect. Falling demand for his skills. And other
layers, too.

Aruna clings on to the hope that the Government will step in to help her family. As for Ramachari
himself, the only government programme he had ever applied for was `Adharna.' One that gives
artisans new tools. But the carpenter was gone before the tools could arrive.

Anatomy of a health disaster

July 2004: NALGONDA, Medak & Nizamabad (Andhra Pradesh): Janreddy sat wracked in pain, a
picture of ill health. "Why isn't this man on his way to hospital?" we asked the neighbours crowding
around his bed. "Well," they said nervously, "we just brought him home from one. He was there for
days. This family has already lost all its money on hospitals."

Janreddy died hours after we met him. His daughter-in-law, who became a bonded labourer to keep
the family afloat, will remain one till debts of Rs.5 lakh are paid off. Over Rs.3 lakh of that was
incurred on medical costs. His wife, who donated one kidney to her son - both of his had collapsed -
does any work she can find. The son, Narsi Reddy, confined to home, has to drink only the purest
water in a place where there is none. His medicines cost around a thousand rupees each month.

The huge medical bills of this family of six were incurred despite the son getting free operations at
the Osmania Government Hospital in Hyderabad. They had first gone to private hospitals for
checkups, a biopsy and other tasks. As the costs mounted they sold off land and cattle to meet them.
That Narsi Reddy had sunk four borewells didn't help. All of them failed. The crisis on their four-acre
farm in Chelliagudam village of Nalgonda district saw Janreddy's health too, cave in. "They might
just have survived the crop failure," say the neighbours, "but their medical costs destroyed them."

Health spending is amongst the fastest growing components of rural family debt. More so in Andhra
Pradesh. For years, the state boosted the private sector in health, promoted corporate hospitals and
pioneered the "user fees" system in Government ones.

"The Naidu Government dismantled the public health system," says M. Geyanand, a leading doctor
from Anantapur district. Dr. Geyanand is also State president of the Jana Vignyana Vedika (JVV), a
body that aims to promote popular science and the scientific temper. "Ninety per cent of patients
who go to public hospitals are poor. When that system fails them, they turn to private ones at a huge
price. Health costs often count for as much as 20 to 25 per cent in the total expenditures of such
households. And a single medical emergency can ruin them."

A common thread running through the farmers' suicides plaguing the State has been very high
medical spending. Just five households affected by such deaths had health costs totalling around
Rs.4 lakhs. All of them farming families who held between half an acre and three acres of land.
(Some of that mortgaged.) Janreddy's family has not seen a suicide. But it fits this profile rather
well.

As do countless other poor households. Even last year, we ran into a farmer who had attempted
suicide in the Nallamada mandal of Anantapur district. His friends just managed to get him to a
hospital in time. The rescued farmer abused his saviours. The reason: the four-day stay and treatment
in hospital cost Rs.45,000. "I tried to commit suicide because I could not pay debts of Rs.1.5 lakh," he
said bitterly. "Now I owe even more."

Many of those who succeeded in taking their lives this year had huge medical bills. P. Hanumantha
Reddy's family in Nizamabad district owes Rs.2 lakhs. The survivors of A. Narasimhalu in Medak
have to rustle up Rs.70,000 plus interest. The tab for K. Shivarajaiah's family in the same district is
Rs.50,000. All this was money borrowed at absurd rates of interest.

"There is a link between the suicides and the crisis of health in Andhra," says Dr. Geyanand. "The
collapse of the public health system is crucial. In any poor villages, you can see people dying of
diseases that should not kill them. Malaria is just one example. For years now, all their support
systems have been slashed. The costs are so high, they run out of money halfway through treatment.
Those who fall ill are selling land, gold, cattle and other assets to pay medical bills. They also take
loans they can never repay."

In the past decade, the little access the poor had to health sharply declined. So Gunala Kumar
discovered when he had to fork out Rs.40,000 in medical costs to private hospitals in Medak. That
remains a big chunk in his total debt of over Rs.2 lakhs. A debt that caused him to take his own life in
Meerdoddi village this month. Like his father who committed suicide last year.

"Maybe it is better to die," says Yekalapu Husein of Shabuddlapur in Nalgonda. "How will we pay
the fees they ask us to at these hospitals?" A toddy tapper who suffered a fall from high in a tree
while at work, Mr. Husein has run up huge bills himself. Then came his malnourished wife's illness.
His `medical debt' now stands at Rs.2 lakhs. "Even if we get free care at Osmania Hospital," he
laughs, "we do not have money for the bus fare to Hyderabad and back."

In G. Edavalli village in the same district, the local Rural Medical Practitioner sold all his land to pay
his own treatment costs of Rs.4 lakhs at a corporate hospital in Hyderabad.

In the years these dramas unfolded, public hospitals were starved of funds, medicines and drugs.
Given Rs.600 crores by the World Bank for public health, the Naidu government spent this mostly on
buildings. Very few doctors or nurses were recruited with it. The buildings now show decay for lack
of maintenance. Mr. Naidu also authored a Government `tie-up' with corporate bodies. Under this,
employees of the State went to corporate, not public hospitals. The Government reimbursed their
costs. This meant a windfall for those hospitals. It also meant many scams in the shape of inflated
reimbursement bills. Meanwhile, health institutions in the public sphere suffered.

"The introduction of `user fees' made health even less accessible to the poor," says a senior IAS
officer. The fees have since been withdrawn by the new Government. Also dumped was an idea of
handing over some super speciality departments of public hospitals to `private management.' That is,
to corporate hospitals.

The damage, though, has been done. The medical costs of those who preferred death to debt still
plague the living. We pass Janreddy's wife at the bus stand, looking for any `coolie work' she can
find. There are, after all, bills to be paid.

Micro-credit, maxi risk

July 2004: Nalgonda (Andhra Pradesh): When Korvi Salaiah killed himself by swallowing pesticide,
he had unusual mourners. Amongst them, K. Mallesam and B. Bhiksham who deeply regretted the
passing of the small farmer. Both Mallesam and Bhiksham are landless. Both are from G. Edavalli,
the same village as Salaiah. Each had a decent equation with the dead farmer. The two are even
poorer than he was.

Both are also tiny money lenders. And amongst Salaiah's creditors.

Agricultural workers as money lenders? It's not unknown. But there are, in their own count, nearly 75
of them in this village. And similar numbers in others. That's new. These `lenders' are often as
vulnerable as their loanees. Sometimes more so. They operate at extremely high risk.

They are little-known casualties of the debt-driven farmers' suicides in Andhra Pradesh. The new
state government has launched some steps to hold off predatory creditors. Something necessary and
vital. But, as local ex-MLA Narasimha Reddy points out: "Debt relief is a complex thing. It is
essential to protect the farmer and retrieve the situation. Yet, it also has to be nuanced so these little
`lenders' are not destroyed."

"What do I do?" asks Mallesam. He and Salaiah were from the same community and bore the same
surname: Korvi. He loaned out every single paisa of the Rs. 27,000 his family had slaved for years
to save. This, to Salaiah and other small farmers here. With Salaiah dead, Mallesam is in deep
trouble. So is Bommakanti Bhiksham.

"Salaiah borrowed Rs. 5,000 from me," says Bhiksham. "His daughter-in-law needed urgent medical
help. And who can predict a medical emergency? I myself spent Rs. 45,000 getting my mother
treated for cancer." Salaiah took the cash "for a month" but took his own life within the year.
Bhiksham might never see his money.

So how did these very poor people get any money in the first place? Why did they choose to lend it?
Who did they lend to and why? What mechanisms do they have to recover the tiny sums they loan
out?

"My family and I have cut sugar cane in Krishna district for 30 years," says Bhiksham. "Each season,
I scrape together a little bit, maybe Rs. 3,000. I have no land, no cattle, no poultry. Not one solitary
chicken. Any cash I've made comes from sweating on the cane plantations as a migrant worker for
months at a time."

Mallesam's story is similar. His whole family migrates to Krishna district in season. They cut "around
1.5 tonnes of cane a day. We try saving every bit of the roughly Rs. 150 a day we earn there. When
we return, we pay off our own debts and are left with a little money."

Why loan it out, we asked the several little lenders who had agreed to a meeting with us here. "What
options do we or our debtors have?" asks Lingaiah. "Most of us in this village are from the same
backward caste (Muddhiraju). No bigger lender will touch us. Nor will any bank. We have no land,
no assets. So we have to do such lending and borrowing within ourselves."

"I saved Rs. 30,000, sir," says Mallesam. "Some 3,000 I needed for my own family for the year. I also
needed Rs. 40,000 within 12 months to get my daughter married. So I loaned the remaining Rs.
27,000 to four persons including Salaiah. How else could I raise cash for the wedding?" Mallesam is
losing more money as he has not gone out to cut cane this year. "Only because of the Salaiah debt. It
will finish me."

"What investment can people make on Rs. 20,000?" asks Parsanaboyanna. "That's too little to open a
small shop. You can't keep that money lying in your hut. No business starts on that sum. No bank will
back those without land or assets. Nor can you buy a single acre with it. And who would put that
money in agriculture, the way things are? Even the sahucars are not buying land here. They invest in
plots in the district headquarters." "So we lend," says Mallesam. And at rates lower than those of the
village moneylender. While the sahucar's rates go upwards of 36 per cent, theirs range from 18-24 per
cent a year. And often a bit of the interest is dropped by negotiation. In many cases, both lender and
loanee are from the same social group.

Mallesam's daughter's wedding is now on hold. Salaiah owed him Rs. 21,000 - a huge sum by the
standards of these lenders. Otherwise, their loans mostly range between Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 5,000.
Crucially, the money these landless workers give out is everything they have. As a percentage of total
credit, their share would be miniscule. But their exposure to risk is not. If a single venture misfires,
they are destroyed. And there are quite a few of them now in villages, plus.

Theirs is not the classic money lender-peasant equation. There was no coercion in Mallesam's
dealings with Salaiah. Only desperation. The sahucar might have been a role model, but these
workers do not have any of his mechanisms of pressure. Their little cash has been lent out mostly
within the same community. Only, perhaps, to those a step above in the class ladder. Salaiah owned
two acres and a buffalo. Typically, several of them gave him small loans ranging from Rs. 2,000-
5,000.

"Their lending has come up in a vacuum of credit," says ex-MLA Reddy. "The banks have done
nothing. There is no other source for many. They are not to be equated with the sahucar or other
creditors." He tells this `meeting of lenders' that they too should and will be protected by any new
laws. And patiently explains that the `moratorium' on debt does not write off their money.

Mallesam and Bhiksham are nowhere as traumatised as Yadamma, Salaiah's widow. But they too, are
very vulnerable. The larger crisis, of which the suicides are one outcome, grips them firmly. The
state, as Reddy says, will have to separate them from other lenders. "Otherwise," as one of them
grumbles as the meeting breaks up, "some of us might join Salaiah."

Little panchayat, percentage raj

In Andhra Pradesh, the Naidu government's Janmabhoomi model of development gutted the
panchayats and curbed local democracy. Hence, the panchayats have proved totally ineffective during
the agrarian crisis

July 2004, MAHBUBNAGAR & NALGONDA (Andhra Pradesh): Poley Yadaiah is not worth a
statistic. The indebted farmer committed suicide in April this year. But officialdom has not noticed.
Everyone else has, though, in his village of Neradacheruvu in Mahbubnagar district. Well, almost
everyone. The panchayat seems to have taken no action on behalf of his family. And they may get no
help.

Andhra Pradesh has a new government. But it also has its old bureaucracy. One that acts just as it did
for years. With striking lack of concern on the farmers' suicides. So the proper count of their number
and nature is proving chaotic. Many affected households have been recorded wrongly or not at all.
But if that was to be expected of the state machinery, whatever happened to the panchayats?

"Janmabhoomi happened," says young K. Jangaiah. He is sarpanch of Shabuddlapur in Nalgonda

district. "Janmabhoomi" was the flagship project of the Naidu government. One seen as a whole new
"model of development." It aimed, among many other things, "to involve people in the
implementation of development programmes."

In theory, at least. "In practice," says Chandra Mohan Reddy in Mahbubnagar district, "a huge
parallel structure emerged. One that simply bypassed people and crippled panchayati raj in this state."
Mr. Reddy was sarpanch of Midgil in this district for about 13 years. "The gram sabha, gram
panchayat, none of these had any meaning. The show was run by bureaucrats." Andhra Pradesh could
well be the biggest violator of the 73rd Amendment of the Indian Constitution. If the panchayats have
failed in the ongoing crisis, there is good reason for it. They have had no real power for years now.

"The parallel setup led to a sharp centralisation of power," says Mr. Reddy. "New committees came
up at the village level that were not elected by the people as a whole. Only by small groups with
vested interests. And who could be managed from above."

Committees sprouted in great numbers. Each village had them. These included an education or vidya
committee. And, of course, one for watersheds. Also, a ryuthu mitra (farmers' friends) group. "Forest
committees sprang up where no forests existed," says Mr. Jangaiah. Then there were also the "Water
Users Associations." And Library Committees. Even one for Continuing Education. The
Anganwadis were run by "mothers" committees.
"Not a single one of these was answerable to the panchayat," says Mr. Jangaiah. "They were run by
small cabals, each with a chairman who could control them. But the funds went to them. Not to the
elected panchayats who lost all decision-making powers."

In name, these too, were "elected." But by a tiny base. Yet the large funds they got ensured that
village elites took over quickly. "My gram panchayat had a budget of just Rs.13,000," says Mr.
Jangaiah. The funds poured into the committees by the Government and its foreign donors ran to
millions of rupees in many cases. This profusion of bodies drew a positive nod from the World Bank
and other backers. This was in Bank jargon, "facilitating stakeholder consultations." Once it bombed,
some quietly distanced themselves from the programme.

Battles for control could be intense. Like in Chaudanpally in Nalgonda. Here, "elections" to the
"mothers committee" were postponed four times as rival groups clashed. The total electorate for this
poll was all of 55.

In theory, legitimacy flowed from gram sabha to gram panchayat. And from there to the mandal and
zilla parishad. Not in Andhra, say the sarpanchas. In all villages, people speak of how that process
was gutted. Here, a "nodal officer" at the mandal level wielded much power. A bureaucrat, he was
appointed by and answered to the Collector. Who, in turn, reported to the Chief Minister.
Constitutionally, elected bodies were simply shoved aside. The panchayats were starved of funds. The
"committees" of the parallel structure were flush with them.

"The gram sabha meeting was controlled by the nodal officer," says Mr. Jangaiah. "Not by us. They
decided and told us when the gram sabha would be held. And what its agenda would be. We were
never consulted. The nodal officer ran the show. The sarpanch sat as a nominal chairman. A mere
figurehead. "Their will prevailed over public opinion."

The impact of the parallel structure was devastating. "Local democracy died," says Chandramohan
Reddy in Midgil. "This system helped the flowering of contractor raj. A percentage raj. In which each
vested interest got its cut. Right up to the MLA and MP. Democratic pressure from below could be
ignored. The post of chairman of the vidya committee could be as hotly contested - with a micro-
electorate - as that of the sarpanch! Why? Because of the money involved."

Many of Andhra's new contractors blossomed in this soil. More so in villages where education
committees received big sums for buildings. Quite a few of those who contested the polls this year
had a village vidya committee background. They had the funds to do so. Most, clearly, were with the
ruling Telugu Desam Party.

"When there is no panchayat," says Mr. Reddy, "there can

be no effective collection of rents and rates. No proper "These committees are not
accountable to them. With the
keeping of records. No correct monitoring of work. Here,
panchayat, they can defeat the
the panchayats could not pay their own salaries. They had
sarpanch in the next poll. Those
no sanitary workers as they could not pay even daily
wages." rights were taken away from them."
And it all happened in the name of
"good governance."
"So when we have a crisis, they can do very little. The
sarpanch was a link with the outside world. That was
broken. The gram sabha and gram panchayat were simply stifled. Janmabhoomi was a bureaucrat-
driven show. It went through the village like mobile durbar, dishing out favours and patronage."
"People need panchayats," says Suravaram Krishna, in Shabuddlapur. "These committees are not
accountable to them. With the panchayat, they can defeat the sarpanch in the next poll. Those rights
were taken away from them." And it all happened in the name of "good governance."

The loss of local democracy still has a profound impact on rural Andhra. Neither sarpanch nor ward
members have been active in the farm crisis. They have not even been involved in counting the
suicides though they are better suited to do so than those now in charge. The demoralisation of the
panchayats is all but complete. The state, as Mr. Reddy puts it, needs "panchayati raj." Not a
"percentage raj."

Chandrababu: Image and reality

On most indicators, Chandrababu Naidu ran the worst performing state in the south of India for nearly
10 years. Yet the more damage he did, the more his media standing grew

July 2004: WELL, IT might be easier now to persuade the media that Andhra Pradesh is slightly
bigger than Hyderabad. Two months after the polls, the media barely mention Chandrababu Naidu.
The most written about Indian politician has vanished from their vision. Post-poll analyses have
debated whether the national mandate was against Hindutva or for the reforms. They've been mostly
silent on Mr. Naidu. This is more out of embarrassment than introspection. After all, he was the
poster boy of the neo-liberal economic reforms.

Still, a look at the myth of Mr. Naidu is key to grasping a lot of things. Including the gigantic crisis
crippling Andhra Pradesh today. On most indicators, he ran the worst performing state in the south of
India for nearly 10 years. Yet the more damage he did, the more his media standing grew. The gap
between his image and his record is stunning.

No other figure in Indian politics got the kind of press that Mr. Naidu did. The `miracle man.' The
`GeneratioNext CM,' and, of course, `The CEO of Andhra Pradesh.' A larger than life image held up
by huge spending on self-publicity helped this along. Ad-gurus from Mumbai flew in to foster it. Our
media lapped it up. And starry-eyed journalists from The New York Times, The Financial Times and
heaps of other places, weighed in with their bit.

Take 2002 for instance. Top international journals were scripting the Naidu-namah. Hyderabad was
full of their hacks. One of them all but asked the Third World to pray for leaders like Mr. Naidu.
That his regime had just chalked up growth of - 17. 06 per cent in agriculture seemed hardly to
matter. The image was the thing. When the media dealt with Mr. Naidu, facts were irrelevant. As the
founder of Private Eye once said: "Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story." That was the
editor of a satirical journal speaking half in jest. Our own editors applied that dictum with real zest
and no trace of humour.

Had another Chief Minister taken on an Alyque Padamsee to give him an image makeover, we
would never have heard the end of it. The media saw nothing wrong in Mr. Naidu doing this. Wasn't
he, after all, the ultimate brand?

It's telling that what passed for critical press scrutiny first appeared after the exit polls suggested he
was headed for defeat. Even then, there were those asserting the coast would stand by him in the
second round of voting. How could it be otherwise? Hadn't he done such great work?

Mr. Naidu began with much goodwill. (Earned by the public's acceptance of him as N.T. Rama Rao's
true successor.) His energy, his attitude towards technology (if not his grasp of it) seemed refreshing
at the time. All of this went down well. As did his impatience with bureaucracy. But in the next few
years, it became clear that the policies driven by that enthusiasm were disastrous for millions of poor
people in his state. However, the more he disconnected from the poor, the more the corporate world
loved him. He was now the champion of `the reforms.' The darling of international donors.

Endorsements from the World Bank, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and assorted other billionaires further
puffed his image - that of a selfless CEO slaving through sleepless nights to lead his dumb masses to
enlightenment. All the evidence to the contrary seemed not to shake this. A few thousand farmers
taking their own lives did fray the image for some. But mostly, as is now painfully clear, the media
failed the challenge of that issue. Again, a couple of such stories did make the front pages outside the
state - after the exit polls.

Even the stories that did appear were shallow. Most reduced the suicides to solely an outcome of
drought. A lazy way of dodging the many factors behind them. On the whole, a sloppy sycophancy
affected media across the board.

Keith Bradsher, for instance, is an award-winning investigative journalist. You'd think he would show
some scepticism. But no. There was no place for that in the Naidu-namah. You came to this shrine to
worship. Take this howler from Mr. Bradsher on Mr. Naidu in The New York Times (Dec. 27, 2002):
"The party's hold on power seems secure in Andhra Pradesh, partly because Mr. Naidu and his allies
speak Telugu, a language spoken only in this state and by a few people in two adjacent states."

Really? What language do Mr. Naidu's rivals speak? Esperanto? (Never mind that the party's hold on
power being secure seems, 18 months later, like famous last words.) The year that report ran was one
that saw a rush of farmers' suicides in the state. Mr. Bradsher's piece approves of Mr. Naidu's having
"come close to balancing the state budget." It does not say a word about his gigantic borrowings.
From the World Bank and other sources, and the effect that it is likely to have on many budgets to
come. Mr. Bradsher also wrote that Andhra Pradesh was on its way to being "an international model
for certain public policies."

A hard-headed publication like The Financial Times fell in line. (May 2, 2003.) It had no qualms
about suggesting: "In a country where lower caste women are locked out of decision-making, the
government of Andhra Pradesh is sponsoring a social revolution." This was happening in "thousands
of villages" in the state. This, of Andhra Pradesh, where the panchayats were shut out and destroyed
by Mr. Naidu's schemes. The FT correspondent even found a village where women "who had for
generations stayed indoors without voice or influence, now dominate the village square."

The Wall Street Journal saw him as "a model for fellow state leaders." Time magazine declared him
`South Asian of The Year' as early as 1999. Newsweek responded by crediting Mr. Naidu with a
Ph.D. he does not have.

In the Indian media, the breathless awe and wonder was over the top. Yelling "IT' and "software"
often enough became a substitute for actual performance in those vital fields. Andhra Pradesh did not
lead the nation. But media audiences thought it did. The state was not even in the top three. And was
slipping in the ranks.

This is also a state whose literacy levels are the worst in the south and lag behind the national
average. A glance at the (Tata) Statistical Outline of India would show this: Even Cyberabad's
literacy is behind that of Patna, Ranchi, Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur and Jaipur. And that's the rating of
Mr. Naidu's showpiece.
It's a state where millions of children are outside school. A state that has the largest number of child
labourers in the country. And one where close to 90 per cent of rural workers are either illiterate or
educated only up to the primary level.

Employment growth saw a drastic decline in the Naidu era. In rural Andhra Pradesh, it was 2.40 per
cent per annum in the decade before him. It fell to 0.29 per cent during 1994-2000. This was a worse
decline than that seen in the rest of India. The rate of growth of real wages in rural areas fell sharply
in the 1990s.

What the media fondly called "one of the fastest-growing states" was really stumbling. The growth of
GDP was just around 5 per cent for 1994-2001. Lowest among the southern states. Lower than the
national average. Lower than what the same state had posted during 1981-91. Economists C.
Mahendra Dev and C. Ravi show that "in the 1980s, A.P. was one of the top performing states in
terms of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) growth. Only three states, Rajasthan, Haryana and
Maharashtra, showed higher growth than A.P. in the 1980s." However, this rank sank from number
four to eight in the next decade. "Seven states showed higher growth than A.P. in the 1990s." The
state was overtaken by Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and West Bengal.

This was the one state in the south that showed no improvement in its Infant Mortality Rate (IMR)
between the first and second National Family Health Surveys. (Those came out in the early and late
1990s.) Indeed, its IMR of 65 is slightly worse than Bihar (62) on this count.

Small farmers did badly everywhere in the country in the 1990s. But it was in Andhra Pradesh that
they committed suicide in thousands. The years of hostile policy still take a toll. (The suicides
continue in the weeks after Mr. Naidu's exit. And there is a Kafkaesque touch to his standing up in the
state Assembly demanding a decent deal for the farmers.)

Through it all, Naidu-worship in the media only grew. With not an iota of scepticism. The media bios
of Naidu called him the son of a "poor agriculturist." Or of a "small farmer." Or of a "modest farmer."
How the modest farmer and his spouse came to be worth Rs. 21 crores after nine years in power is a
mystery no one wants to solve. That's the figure you'll find in his poll-time declaration of assets. But
no questions. The king could do no wrong.

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Superstition, the occult, God, government and technology have all been pressed into service in
Anantapur's desperate search for water.

July 2004: ANANTAPUR (ANDHRA PRADESH), JULY 17. Coconut in outstretched hand, Poojari
Anjaneyulu walks out across the fields of Muddalapuram. He waits for the coconut to spin, tilt and
fall. It does. This, he assures us, is the spot marked `X.' "Here you will find water. Sink a borewell at
this exact spot and you'll see."

Just a village away, Rayulu Dhomathimmana slouches across another field. The big forked twig he
holds with both hands will guide him to water in Rayalappadhoddi. "When the twig jerks upwards,"
he explains, "that's the location." Rayulu modestly claims a "90 per cent success" rate for his method.

In a different mandal, Chandrashekhar Reddy grapples with the question that has baffled philosophers
down the ages. Is there life after death? Reddy thinks he knows. "Water is life," he says. And so he
has sunk four borewells in a graveyard. He has another 32 in his fields. And he has linked his spread
out sources of water across his village of Jambuladhine with an 8-km long pipeline.
 Superstition, the occult, God, government and technology have all been pressed into service in
Anantapur's desperate search for water. Their combined strike rate has not been impressive. Poojari
Anjaneyulu, though, claims otherwise.

The gentle, pleasant-mannered man says his method does not fail. He gained his skills from God.
"The only time it can let us down is when people force me to do this at the wrong hour," he says.
(God charges Rs. 300 a borewell point.) And takes us across the fields, coconut swaying in his palm.

There will always be sceptics, though. Like one disgruntled peasant who tried this method in vain.
"The only water we found was in the coconut," he said gloomily. Meanwhile, Rayulu's twig has
jerked upwards. He has certainly found water. On one side of him is a pond and on the other, a
functioning borewell. Rayulu says he does not believe in God. The law is another matter. "This
display of skills won't lead to my landing in court for fraud, will it?" he seeks our assurance. We
give it to him. His success rate, after all, can't be much worse than the government's water surveyors.

The record of the groundwater department's geologists, if they can be called that, is dismal. In a few
cases, wantonly so. It makes more sense to charge tidy sums working privately outside your office as
water diviner. And if you come with the tag `expert,' a steady clientele is assured. Most of the points
located by the experts in six districts we went to have failed. Even with borewells going down to 400
feet.

So Poojari and Rayulu are just two members of a growing army of water diviners. All in the trade
have eccentric methods of their own. They exist across the State and some of their more zany
techniques have been listed by a young reporter with this newspaper in Nalgonda, S. Ramu. One
includes a requirement that the diviner belongs to the `O' Positive blood group. Another seeks water
below locations where snakes make their homes. Anantapur has its fair share of water eccentrics.

Beneath the surface frivolity, though, is a frightening struggle for survival in a district which has seen
four successive crop failures. Reddy's graveyard borewells, too, are yielding less than he had hoped
for. In all, this Village Officer (VO) has spent over a million rupees in his search for water. His debts
mount by the month. "Last week, I phoned on the government helpline," he says. "I cannot carry on
like this. We must have some water." The helpline was set up by the State's new Government to deal
with those in distress amid continuing farmers' suicides. In a State hit worse than any other by
farmers' suicides, Anantapur district has seen the maximum number. Here, in the past seven years,
there have been over 500 in the `official' count. And many times that number in other estimates.
Reddy's call on the helpline should serve as a clear warning signal. He is in a vulnerable group, right
in the danger zone. Dreaming of water, drowning in debt. The horticulture in which he has so heavily
invested is in ruins. So are his many borewells.

The very rich are well placed to exploit this kind of crisis. Private water markets have swiftly
emerged. Desperate farmers can buy a "wetting" for their fields at a cost of Rs. 7,000 or more an
acre. This might mean paying a neighbour who has managed to corral access to whatever water there
is. You can also buy that resource by the tanker load for a wetting. In this setting, commerce long
ago overrode community. "Can you imagine what all this does to our costs per acre?" asks Reddy.

Even the water diviners perform their wonders in tandem with the ubiquitous borewell rigs prowling
the highways. The one opens up avenues for the other. Drinking water too, is a huge problem.
Hindupur town's 1.5-lakh residents shell out an estimated Rs. 8 crores a year for drinking water. One
local water lord has acquired large properties right around the Municipal Office.
The rains, finally, appear to have begun. Four days of showers will see the sowing go ahead. Which
means a possible return of hope and a let-up in the suicides. The problem, though, is far from over. A
good crop would be hugely welcome, but will bring to surface other simmering problems.

"Oddly, a good crop might spark new suicides," points out Malla Reddy, Director of the Ecology
Centre of the Rural Development Trust, Anantapur. "A farmer might at best make Rs. 1 lakh on it.
But he has got Rs. 5 lakhs to Rs. 6 lakhs worth of debts to clear after years of crop failure. The crisis
had delayed many marriages. Those will now have to be performed. Then there are the awful new
input costs to be faced. How will he meet all these commitments? The pressure from the creditors will
be enormous over the next few months. And the debt moratorium won't last forever."

When it comes to farmers' problems here, it never rains but it pours.

Seeds of suicide - I

The seed, pesticide and fertilizer dealers are the new moneylenders of the AP countryside. The power
this group wields is a vital factor in the ongoing crisis and continuing suicides of farmers.

July 2004: Guntur & Nalgonda (A.P.): It's a well-known brand of seed ... And the reverse of its
packet states "Germination rate 65 per cent." What does it mean, we ask the residents of Rentapalla in
Guntur district. "It means one-third of the seeds will not work," scoffs one farmer. "When we pay, we
pay for 100 per cent," he laughs. "Not for 65 per cent."

In short, if this village pays for 1,000 bags of seed, they are only getting 650.

"Would you," asks another farmer, "go to a pharmacy and buy a medicine of which one-third should
not be expected to work?" Then why buy these seeds? "What choice do we have?" Most companies
and dealers follow the same practice.

"This is a post-1998 system," says Malla Reddy, general secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Ryuthu
Sangham (APRS). "When the multinationals entered the field, controls and regulation were dropped.
Before that, seeds were certified by State authorities. Germination was up to 90 per cent. It was the
MNCs who started this practice."

In Rentapalla, farmers give us the bills and receipts issued to them by seed and pesticide dealers.
Even apart from the very high prices, these are unique in two respects. One, they explicitly add on an
interest rate of 2 per cent a month (24 per cent) on the goods sold. Two, they extract a signed
undertaking from the farmer absolving the dealer of any responsibility for failed or spurious seeds.

Both clauses are clearly printed on the bills and receipts. They are part of the `legal' transaction. Take
for instance the bill issued by Vijayadurga Agencies at Sathenapally in Guntur district. It carries (in
Telugu) a clear disclaimer. This includes the caution that these seeds should be sown "after
ascertaining that they sprout well." The onus of testing them is on the farmer.

The note also asserts: "Seeds billed herein belong to the respective companies. They are sold only on
being certified as fit after carrying out all technical scrutiny." Why then should the farmer be
responsible for testing them? But the note goes further. Too many things depend on nature, it says.
"Therefore no guarantee can be given."

The farmer then signs below the last line which says, "I purchase the seeds agreeing to the above
points."
Stockists like Vijayalakshmi Pesticides add their own clauses for the farmer to sign on. "I am aware
that these pesticides are poisonous and I purchased the items billed herein for the purpose of
agricultural operations."

Dealers are well aware of what other purposes the "purugu mandhu" (literally insect medicines) have
been used for. The overwhelming majority of farmers who have committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh
have done so by consuming pesticide. Hence the clause freeing the dealer of any responsibility. A
further line tagged on says: "Agreed to pay interest at two per cent a month on this bill amount."

Meet the new moneylenders of the countryside. The seed, pesticide and fertilizer dealers. "This man
is a new sahucar," says Malla Reddy of the APRS. "He is at once a merchant, a moneylender, a
scientist, an agro-technologist and an expert. He can also be the man who buys the crop of the farmers
he sells products to. At low prices, of course."

The power this group wields is a vital factor in the ongoing crisis and continuing suicides of farmers.
With soaring input costs and the collapse of formal credit, their writ binds the dependant farmers.
This group gains in many ways, of which three stand out.

First, the seeds and pesticides dealer inflates prices on the plea that he is extending credit to the
farmer. "You end up paying Rs. 230 for Rs. 200 worth of pesticide," says P. Bhiksham at G.
Edavalli village of Nalgonda district. "But you sign on a bill which still says Rs. 200."

Second, the two per cent interest a month is tagged on to the bill amount. "There have been repeated
crop failures," says farmer Kobbanna Venkatrao at Sathenapally, Guntur. "So repayments get
delayed. That's when you learn what 24 per cent interest means. Their seeds have often been
responsible for our crop failure. But there is no punishment for that. We suffer the crop failure, but
pay them penalty rates of interest."

Third, they might have to sell their crops to the same man who sells them seeds and pesticides — at
a rate fixed by him. That rate can be "well below the minimum support price," says K.
Veeranjaneyulu, a farmer in Rentapalla. "More so, if the farmer is small and cannot bargain. Last
season, the market rate for chilli was Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 2,200 a quintal. Some small farmers sold to
their dealers at Rs. 1,500 a quintal."

"The way it all works," says Vinod Rao, also a farmer in Rentapalla, "is this. For every Rs. 5,000 we
spend, the seed fellow gets Rs. 1,000 of it. Often more." This equation imposes a deadweight on the
farmer's input costs.

The unfairness of it rankles. "All gains are the dealer's, all losses are ours," says one peasant here. The
APRS has tried hard to tackle the situation.

"There have been lots of crop failures due to fake seeds," says APRS district secretary Narasimha
Rao. "Our experience is that it is very difficult to bring the big MNCs to book for bad or failed seeds.
They never respond. So we try to compel the dealer here to compensate the peasant where a blatant
wrong has been done. But the farmer is very vulnerable to his pressure. So it is not easy."

The clamour is growing for amending the Seed and Pesticides Acts at the Centre to bring some
regulation to this field. The new Andhra Pradesh Government is also readying its own Seed Act at the
State level. The changes won't come a day too soon for P. Bhiksham. "The old Sahucar was bad," he
says. "But at least he was lenient at crop time. He was part of the village and needed the crop to
succeed. With these people, they are more ruthless. You can die but they have to get their money. I
tell you, the old sahucar was better."
Seeds of suicide - II

Seeds, fertilizer and pesticide dealers are at the centre of a growing controversy in Andhra Pradesh.
They are the new moneylenders to a peasantry strapped for credit.

July 2004: Guntur & Nalgonda (A.P.): "The farmers ask us what seeds to use and we advise them,"
says Nageswara Rao in the district headquarters of Nalgonda. He works in one of the biggest seed and
fertilizer stores in town, owned by a relative of his. "We have no scientific qualification," admits the
polite Rao. "We only guide them by experience. We ourselves consult the manufacturers."

Seeds, fertilizer and pesticide dealers are at the centre of a growing controversy in Andhra Pradesh.
They are the new moneylenders to a peasantry strapped for credit. "The banks have given no loans in
the past seven years," says Malla Reddy, general secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Ryuthu Sangham
(APRS). "So many farmers are forced to depend on sources like these for credit. The same man
advises them on what to buy and then sets the rates for the purchase."

With the seed dealers tacking on hefty interest rates to their credit sales, the problem gets sharper.
Nageswara Rao admits to a charge of two per cent a month on bills, but says there is no choice. Times
are bad. "Besides, we are quite lenient as we wish to help the farmer. Sometimes, they agree to pay in
60 days but may not do so for 90 to 120 days."

Farmers in Nalgonda's villages are sceptical of this altruism. "Each month's delay adds to the
interest," points out P. Bhiksham in G. Edavalli village.

Yet, the farmer often goes by the dealer's advice on what products to buy. "The dealer has emerged an
`expert', because the others have gone," says Malla Reddy. The APRS leader points to "over 2,800
vacancies in the Department of Agriculture. The last Government only appointed 7,000 unqualified
people on contract. They had no background in agriculture."

Many of the farmers' suicides in the State have been largely debt driven. Which makes the seed
dealer's role more of a problem. Some of those who took their lives did so because of both, huge
debts and crop failures due to spurious seeds and pesticides. But there is little punishment for those
selling fake seeds.

"Just Rs. 500," says the new Agriculture Minister, Raghuveera Reddy. He hopes to bring some order
to a system now out of control. "We have recovered spurious seeds worth Rs. 7 crore in raids in only
the past month," he told us. But the offenders are people for whom the Rs. 500 fine is a joke. So the
Government intends to bring in a new Seed Act at the State level.

Andhra Pradesh's record of curbing such fraud in the past has been dismal. "Till date, no case filed by
the State against a seed or pesticide dealer has ever been won by the Government," says Yalamanchili
Shivaji. He is a former Rajya Sabha MP and a well-known farmers' leader here. "In contrast," he
claims, "almost no such case filed by the Tamil Government was lost." Dr. Shivaji also points out that
Andhra Pradesh has fewer agriculture and extension officers than any southern State. "The Naidu
Government was bent on privatising extension work," says Malla Reddy.

The matter gets more complex given the clout the seed dealers have gained. And the alarming rise in
the cost of inputs they control. Per acre costs have exploded since 1996.

As farmers in G. Edavalli explain: The cost of paddy seeds an acre almost tripled from Rs. 120 in
1996 to around Rs. 350 now. That of urea nearly doubled from around 120 then to nearly Rs. 230
now. Pesticide, ammonia phosphate, zinc - all these have more than doubled in cost." A farmer might
buy most of these inputs from the same dealer.

Other expenses, too, have risen. Tractors cost a lot more than manual work did. "In 1996," say
farmers in G. Edavalli, "we could raise an acre of paddy within Rs. 3,500. Today that is Rs. 7,500 or
more." Add higher power tariffs and water costs and people are now paying well over double what
they did in 1996. Those who left food crops to experiment with cash crops in this period pay still
more.

The 24 per cent interest that seed dealers tag on makes the burden that much worse. And with seed
companies hawking a "germination rate" of only 65 per cent, farmers get even less value for money.

This is Telangana. Input costs are higher in coastal region where, too, suicides have been on. The
use of high cost items such as fertilizers and pesticides is greatest in Andhra Pradesh. The All-India
average for fertilizer consumption per hectare was 88 kg in 2001. In Andhra Pradesh it was almost
180 kg. It is even greater in the coastal region. "Over use of fertilizer is a huge problem," says Malla
Reddy of the APRS.

"At the same time," he says "tenant farmers faced massive increases in the cost of leasing land."
Such tenants make up nearly 60 per cent of all farmers in many parts of the State. More so in the
coastal region. From the late 1990s, they were asked by the landlords to pay (as lease cost) between
21 and 25 bags of paddy an acre each year. This, when their output was barely 30 bags an acre. So
the tenant farmer is left with five bags of paddy and another three of black gram that he sows after
paddy. And that is in a good year!"

By the late 1990s, the farmer was wilting. In 1996, "he was making Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 6,000 an acre
on an input cost of Rs. 3,500. Now he is making Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 2,000 an acre on cost of close to
Rs. 8,000. Between then and now, productivity has only risen from 25 to under 30 bags an acre. This
huge use of fertilizer has not helped much."

"But at the moment when input costs were so high and rewards so poor," says the Nalgonda ex-MLA,
Narasimha Reddy, "the banks stopped giving the farmer any credit. And output prices were crashing
due to rigged and volatile markets. There was also zero investment in agriculture. This crisis was
man-made." That was how the suicides began. "Add drought and crop failure to that," says Reddy,
"and the suicides only got worse."

Jobs drought preceded farm crisis

Long before the drought bit deep, Anantapur was already in trouble. The close links between workers,
farming and industry were broken by the new policies of the 1990s.

August 2004: ANANTAPUR (ANDHRA PRADESH), JULY 29. When Hyder Wali was thrown out
of his job in the 1990s, he went out looking for an autorickshaw to drive. Sadly, thousands of others
in his situation had the same idea at the same time.

The number of autos in Anantapur town shot up from 2,500 in the late 1980s to over 10,000 by the
end of the next decade. "For jobless people here, there were few other options," says Mr. Wali. Soon,
"there were too many autos. Earnings fell from Rs. 80 a day after costs, to half that or less."

It was not just the auto trade that collapsed. As thousands of workers lost their jobs and purchasing
power in the mid-`90s, the farm crisis here grew. Countless small farmers saw their already troubled
markets shrink further. The forced closures of large numbers of factories in this period hit the farmer
long before the present drought did. Anantapur is the worst-affected district in the ongoing farm
crisis.

The Andhra Pradesh Lightings where Mr. Wali worked for years was a joint venture. "This unit had
problems but could have been turned around. We won State awards for best products and quality
more than once," says Mr. Wali. "But the private partner did not care. And the Government would not
listen to us." So the 750 workers dependent on the company lost their jobs.

Closures and lockouts

The process began in the late 1980s with the closure of the Guntakal Spinning Mills. "That was one
of the biggest in Asia," says V. Rambhupal, CITU district president. "Some 3,000 jobs were lost.
Then came the rapid closures and lockouts of the 1990s. Hundreds of workers were thrown out when
the Government-owned Nizam Sugar Factory Limited was sold and shut down. Since the NSFL
used local produce, it also hit peasants badly." These were not drought-stricken farmers, but cane
growers with a crop to sell.

"Likewise," says Mr. Rambhupal, "closing the mulberry research centre at Penugonda hurt
sericulture in Anantapur." The 1990s saw a wave of closures of both Government and private units
in the district. Allwyn, the Bharat Gold Mining Ltd., and A.P. Oilfed were just a few amongst those
that folded. The Pattabhi Forge and Anantapur Cotton Mills also went down with many others. "It
was the Government's policy to close lots of its own units. Private owners did the same for their own
reasons," says Mr. Rambhupal.

Rise in child labour

The shut downs went on through the 1990s. Many other units either folded or saw major
retrenchment. A huge rise in child labour accompanied the process. And a big drop in wages further
hit purchasing power. Where workers (as in A.P. Lightings) wanted the chance to run their own units,
"we were told it was impossible. No credit would be given," says Mr. Wali.

Meanwhile, close to 70 per cent of oil mills dealing with groundnut also shut down. And while
employment growth in rural Andhra Pradesh fell to 0.29 per cent during this period ? lower than in
the rest of the country ? Anantapur fared even worse.

Some former employees of the NSFL run tiny teashops and `beedi bunks' close to their old factory.
People like B. Rajagopal who earned Rs. 4,500 a month in the late 1990s is lucky if he makes half of
that now with his `beedi bunk.' Many tried migrating for jobs. "Five or six of our fellow workers even
died," says Mr. Rajagopal. "Some of them were quite young. The stress was too much."

"The Government made us sell them these grounds at Rs. 2,000 an acre before the plant came up in
1979," says Ugra Narashimappa. He is one of 29 small farmers who lost all their holdings to the
NSFL for a pittance. "Now we are landless. They promised us jobs that never came. Instead, this land
is being sold for Rs. 50,000 an acre."

Real estate was booming and there was money to be made on the unit's 160 acres. The NSFL was
sold to a company that shut it down here and shifted its equipment to Karnataka. This, ex-workers
point out, leaves the land up for sale. "They should give it back to us," insist the now landless and
jobless farmers. But they know it won't happen.
Land of `milk and silk'

The Hindupur region, known as the land of `milk and silk,' sank on both fronts. "The children of milk
producers drink less of it today," says Krishna Reddy, a farmer here. Their families have to sell every
litre they can and that at very low prices. The dairies that used to buy the milk take much less now.
Some are closed." Silk is in the doldrums. "Output prices have sunk while input costs have soared,"
says Visweswara Reddy, district general secretary of the A.P. Ryuthu Sangham (APRS). "The
dumping of Chinese silk led to a crash in prices that crushed our producers. And you can see the
WTO's impact in this taluka where 60 per cent of ryots depend on sericulture. The Government
reduced import duties on silk from 100 to 30 per cent. Bigwigs in the silk trade in Gujarat also
lobbied to get that done. Our growers were hit and thus reduced acreage for mulberry."

"Up to 25 tonnes of cocoons came here each day in the 1990s," says Mujib Khan at the Hindupur
market. "Today, you won't see 20 quintals." All this, points out Mr. Visweswara Reddy, "has
fractured both jobs and farming."

Silk imports from China saw cocoon rates fall from Rs. 250 a kg in 1992 to Rs. 70 and less within a
few years. In 2002, the APRS led over 10,000 angry farmers in a major protest. Their struggle forced
the Government to take some action against dumping. But largescale smuggling and imports
continue. Silk, which cost Rs. 2,200 a kg 12 years ago, sells for about a third of that now.

Long before the drought bit deep, Anantapur was already in trouble. The close links between workers,
farming and industry were broken by the new policies of the 1990s. Thousands of workers and
farmers were being displaced at the same time, with no new options. As jobs became scarce and
farmers faced new costs and lost old markets, and as credit vanished, Anantapur slipped further into
crisis. "A crisis driven by policy," says Mr. Rambhupal of the CITU. But now laid entirely at the door
of drought.

How the better half dies - I

As farming floundered, many families came to the towns. The men sought work as auto drivers or
daily wage labour. Often without success. In this struggle against poverty, the stress on their wives
was enormous.

August 2004: ANANTAPUR (ANDHRA PRADESH), JULY 31. When Pedda Narsamma hanged
herself in Pandi Parthi village, her eight-member household was shattered. For decades, it was
Narsamma, 50, who kept both farm and family going. Two years later, the Government has taken
note of this suicide. And an inquiry process seems to be on. But her family is unsure of any
compensation.

Pedda Narsamma was a Dalit. And a woman. And women are not accepted as "farmers." Which
means this may not finally go down as a "farmer's suicide."

"Our mother ran everything," says her son, Narasimhalu. "My father is mentally unsound and has not
worked in a long time. She did most of the work at home, brought up the children and even looked
after her grand children. She also planned and did much of the work on our five acres. And often
worked on the fields of others to make ends meet."

By 2002, the ends would not meet. And Narsamma planned her own end. "It was too much for her
that the crops kept failing," says Narasimhalu.
Just farmers' wives

That thousands of farmers have committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh in the past seven years is now
known. Far less known is that women farmers, too, have taken their lives in no small number.

It is only in recent months that ? in a few cases ? their suicides are being counted at all. "In both
social and official perception," says a senior Government officer, "the farmer is a landed male with a
patta. Women do not fit in that category. Their property rights do not exist in practice. And men do
not accept them as farmers. They are seen, at best, as farmers' wives."

Though close to a fifth of all rural households in India are female-headed, few women hold titles to
land. Even in land-owning households, they do most of the work on the farm, but are not seen as
farmers. In one estimate, women account for 90 per cent of all those engaged in transplantation.

They also make up 76 per cent of those sowing seeds and 82 per cent of people transporting crops
from field to home. They are a third of the work force that prepares the land for cultivation. And
between 70 and 90 per cent of those involved in dairying.

In districts like Anantapur and Mahbubnagar, the numbers of women-headed households are even
higher. Lakhs of people migrate from these regions each year in search of work. With men usually
going first.

Working against odds

In recent times landed farmers have joined the same landless labourers they used to employ, in
large-scale distress migrations out of the State. This leaves still more women running farms, families
and finances alone and against huge odds.

Those odds proved too much for Kovurru Ramalamma in Digumari village. "The only thing I ever
saw her do was work," says Sudhamani, her daughter. "My father never did. The two acres of land
we had leased kept her busy every moment that she was not running the home. She worried about
my marriage and that of my sister."

By 2000, the family's debts touched Rs. 1.5 lakhs as crops failed. Over Rs. 30,000 went in medical
costs. A broken Ramalamma, 46, consumed pesticides and took her life. After her death, her family
gave up the leased land. They have none of their own. That makes compensation claims sticky. How
do they prove they were farmers when it happened?

In Khadarpetta village, N. Bhagyalakshmi, 28, couldn't cope any longer. "She asked me," says her
husband Jayaram Reddy, "`When will we pay off all these debts?'" They owed Rs. 1.6 lakhs. This
June, "when it was clear there would be a fourth bad year, she took her own life." There have also
been suicides among women farmers whose husbands have migrated. Swaroopa Rani, vice-president
of the All-India Democratic Women's Association in the State, explains why.

Many responsibilities

"To begin with, they were doing the bulk of the work. Now they have to face the banks, the
moneylenders. They have to bring up the children and send them to school. Raising and spending
money for the needs of the household becomes their job. And, on top of it all, they have to run the
farm. Sometimes, the pressure becomes too much."
And sometimes, one suicide swiftly follows another. As in Choutapalli village in Krishna district.
"Madduri Anasuya killed herself three days after her husband Mohan Rao took his own life," points
out AIDWA's Swaroopa Rani

How many women's suicides have there been in these years of farmer distress? "We may never know,
" says Dr. Rama Devi. Now based in Hyderabad, she was teaching at the Government Medical
College, Anantapur, in 2001 when she noticed the number of women's suicides being brought in or
reported. "They too, were certainly victims of the agrarian crisis," she says. Moved by the intense
misery she was witness to, Dr. Rama Devi brought out a book on the subject in Telugu titled
"Cheyutha" (Helping Hand). In it, she tried listing the deaths.

"In a single year from August 2001," says Dr. Rama, "there were 311 women's suicides in just
Anantapur district alone. And these were only the recorded ones. There must have been a lot more
that went unreported. Close to 80 per cent of these 311 were from villages. And most of the women
were from a farming background.

"The links with the farm disaster were clear and many. For instance, the worse the farm crisis got, the
more the dowry problems grew. This was a factor in quite a few suicides. The crisis also had another
serious fallout for families. Many weddings were delayed for lack of money. And I came across cases
where the girl committed suicide because she felt she was a burden on her family."

Hit in other ways too

"The women were also hit in other ways. As farming floundered, many families came to the towns.
The men sought work as auto drivers or daily wage labour. Often without success. In this struggle
against poverty, the stress on their wives was enormous. Drunkenness and beatings were on the rise.
Some of these women, too, took their own lives. Whichever way you look at it, the collapse of
farming in Anantapur was closely linked to the suicides of hundreds of women in the district."

How the better half dies - II

Suicides amongst their own numbers are not the only way women farmers are hit by the ongoing
crisis. Suicides by their husbands leave many in a predatory world.

August 2004: Mahbubnagar, Medak, Nalgonda and Anantapur (ANDHRA PRADESH), AUG. 1.
The creditors arrived the moment we did. They did not describe themselves that way, but hovered
around Bhagawantamma. Even trying to answer some of the questions we asked her. Maybe we were
Government officials giving her some money. If so, they would take it from her the moment we left.
Her husband, Tanki Balappa, committed suicide just days ago. At least a couple of the men present
had lent him money. They are also amongst the bigger landowners here in Rakonda village,
Mahbubnagar.

Balappa's crops had failed ? on the one-and-a-half acres he owned and on the three he had taken on
lease. Bhagawantamma is not clear on how much he had borrowed, as he never consulted her. It
could be around Rs. 85,000 or upwards of Rs. 1 lakh. Now she has to look after two sons and a
daughter while running the farm. And cope with the creditors. Including some who might have no
proof that her husband owed them anything.

Suicides amongst their own numbers are not the only way women farmers are hit by the ongoing
crisis. Suicides by their husbands leave many in a predatory world. There is a high risk of losing the
family's land. And of facing extreme pressure, including sexual harassment, from creditors and
others.

Creditors swoop in

Claims by moneylenders, real and fake, swiftly follow the husbands' suicide. This was evident in all
six districts where we surveyed such households. In many cases, the widows had little or no idea of
the extent of their husbands' debts. "That's men's business," as one villager told me sternly.

Right now, it is the woman's business whether she likes it or not, as Yadamma of G. Edavalli village,
in Nalgonda district, is finding out. The widow of Korvi Salaiah has just begun to gauge the scale of
her husband's borrowings. Each day brings a fresh demand. "He never told me anything about what
he was doing," she said. There are many who will be telling her about it soon. And forcefully.

The field is also open for fraud in societies that go largely by trust and the spoken word. More so,
when many widows feel responsible for their husbands' dues, even if never consulted by them. For
Kamalamma, whose husband Pamul Reddy took his life this year in Mushampalli, Nalgonda, "the
issue is not a legal one. It is my moral duty to clear my husband's debts."

Imambi in Rayalappadhodi, Anantapur, is one woman who does dispute a creditor's claims. It has not
stopped him from grabbing five acres of her land, though. Imambi's husband, Razaksaab, committed
suicide in March 2003. Local journalists say that the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, met and
helped her when on a visit to Anantapur. But Imambi's 15 minutes of fame did not help get back the
land.

There are other dangers too. Children becoming bonded labourers is one of them. All three sons of
Lakshmamma in Munnanuru village, Mahbubnagar, are bonded. "What choice do we have? Just look
at our condition," she says. Her husband, Pedda Bhimaiah, a farmer with just one acre, took his life in
despair eight months ago.

The fortunes of already indebted families sink faster after the suicide. And sometimes, that causes a
second one. In Mirdhoddhi, Medak district, Gunnala Narayana took his life last August after yet
another crop failure. This June, less than a year later, his son Kumar did the same, unable to face his
creditors. Kumar's wife, mother and sister are in dire straits.

Assets diminish

Within months of the suicide, many widows and families are left with no assets whatsoever. And no
prospect of acquiring any. Among those left behind by the suicide of Dhomala Srinivas in Suranpalli
in Medak are his ailing mother, Lakshmi, his handicapped sister, Satyalakshmi and his father,
Narasaiah, who suffers from paralysis. The family had sold all cattle and some land to keep afloat.
Their debts and health expenditures mount in tandem.

Drought makes the unbearable impossible. More so, when male members of the household migrate in
search of work. A rural woman could spend up to eight hours a day on just three chores: fetching
water, firewood and fodder. That is, a third of her life. This is apart from cooking, washing and
looking after the children. When drought strikes, she could be walking twice the `normal' distance in
search of water. The hunt for fodder becomes more urgent as the condition of livestock begins to
deteriorate. The absence of any support at home makes things worse.
In Jambuladhine, Anantapur, Lakshmi Devi has lost both husband and sanity. P. Nagireddy was a
farmer and a marriage broker hit on both fronts. Crop failure ruined many like him. The crisis also put
off countless weddings and thus ruined his marriage broker business as well. The delay in his own
daughter's wedding crushed Nagireddy, who committed suicide in April last year. Sick with worry
about her debts and her daughters, Lakshmi Devi went out of her mind.

Education, a casualty

The farm crisis has also wrecked the education of many girls. In Kurugunta in Anantapur, the bright
younger daughter of G. Hanumantha Reddy has had to quit school. Her family cannot afford it. This
district has seen some young girls committing suicide after being pulled out of school.

The world the `suicide widows' face is a daunting one. To run the farm, face the creditors, bring up
the children and earn a living is not easy. Nor is having to pay off debts they did nothing to incur.
Yet, some of them try. Like Parvati who, having studied till the 10th class, is one of the most
educated young women in Chinna Mushtiuru, Anantapur.

Parvati counselled her husband, Duggala Mallappa, against despair. She pointed out to him that the
whole village was in the same state of debt. And asked him not to give in to the pressures of
moneylenders. He did. And Parvati tries today to run the farm while bringing up three young
daughters aged 6, 4 and 10 months. The odds are stacked against her. But there is no trace of self-pity
in her words. Just a calm determination to see that her girls get some education, like her. "Somehow,"
as she says, "we have to pull on."

The after-death industry

For many in Andhra Pradesh's agrarian crisis, even death is not the end of the trouble. Instead, it is the
beginning of a new burden for the families of the survivors.

August 2004: MAHBUBNAGAR, MEDAK & ANANTAPUR (A Kathulappa wants to talk to us

about his son, Chinna Saianna, but cannot. Tears fill the old man's eyes each time he tries. So he turns
to his grandson Narasimhulu to have him tell us the story. It is not much different from that of
hundreds of other farmers who have committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh. With one twist in the tale.

This family's chance of getting any compensation is bleak. No post-mortem examination was done
last December when Saianna took his own life in Jengarala in Mahbubnagar district. Which means
they cannot now establish suicide as the cause of death. It was not done because they could not afford
it. And there are many such households that did not get post-mortems done. Some, for sentimental
reasons. Others, because it costs too much.

In most places, `post-mortem' (Latin for `after death') is taken to mean the autopsy or examination of
a body after demise. That is, to help determine the cause of death. In much of rural Andhra, it means a
heap of other things. It is a thriving after-death industry.

Paying for it

It means, for instance, "you have to pay the police, the doctor, the orderly, the man who drives the
body to the hospital," says G. Shekhar in Jengarala. Seeing us struggle with this, he laughs:
"Surprised? When even getting the simplest signature from an official costs Rs.50, did you think this
would come free?"
In theory, yes. There is no charge for a post-mortem. But people do end up paying. Most of the
households hit by suicides that we surveyed across six districts had forked out money for this. Many
had spent around Rs.5,000. Several had shelled out much more. Some had ended up losing as much as
Rs.10,000 on the process.

"It is illegal. It is also heartless to torment people already in grief and so deep in debt," says Dr. M.
Geyanand. A medical practitioner in Anantapur, he points out that: "One in the family has just killed
himself because of debt. Then comes this pressure to incur more of it." Many of those who paid
speak freely of the sums spent on the different actors. But are cagey when it comes to saying what
they paid the police. Typically, the man driving the jeep with the body to the post-mortem venue got
Rs.2,000. The police took between that and Rs.3,000. The `orderly' or attender got Rs.1,000. And
the doctor's charge varied from nothing to Rs.2,000.

"A cost of Rs.6,000 is guaranteed," says Shekhar in Jengarala. Even where it is less, it is still a
burden for families drowning in debt.

"The thing is meant to be entirely free," says a disgusted Dr. Desam Sreenivasa Reddy in
Kalyandurg, Anantapur.

"In any case, the role of the doctor is next to nil. The attender does most of the work. He cuts open
the body. He dictates what he has found and the doctor merely takes notes. Few will do that attender's
job. In one case, a man who had been transferred on promotion was held back because there was no
one else to do this work."

Post-mortem problems

However, it is not just the farmers' suicides that see post-mortem problems. As Dr. Reddy says:
"When it's a medico-legal case, the pressures become intense. And the role of some of the forensic
people is terrible. What happens if you call a murder a murder and it upsets somebody really
powerful? Those involved can and will be bullied to fix the result. There have been controversies over
a couple of exhumations, too. Their final verdict is in doubt."

"At some point down the line, people begin to wonder: why fight and get into trouble? Why not just
take the money? This logic of `why not make some money' has now extended to the suicides as well."
All that, however, say Dr. Reddy and Dr. Geyanand, in no way justifies this extortion. Nor the
harassment of those unable to resist.

Both doctors are with the Jana Vignyana Vedika, a body that aims to promote popular science and the
scientific temper. The JVV, of which Dr. Geyanand is State president, has been active in tracking
many aspects of the ongoing agrarian crisis.

The after-death business is widespread. The family of Duggala Mallappa in Anantapur spent close to
Rs.10,000 after his death. In the case of Gobaribai, whose husband Kamali Nayak committed suicide
in Vajrakarur, it cost Rs.6,000. "We raised it through a chanda [contribution] from all our friends,"
says this Adivasi family. It was over Rs.3,000 for the extremely poor Dalit family of Pandhi Posaiah
who took his life in Chinnarevali in Mahbubnagar. All Posaiah's sons are bonded labourers. They
took the money on loan.

Adding to the debt

In Akapur, Nizamabad, the family of Ponnala Hanumantha Reddy borrowed Rs.5,000 for this. They
are already Rs.5 lakh in debt.
There were some families that escaped without paying anything. Like those of Dasari Mahendru in
Anantapur and Sangolla Narasimhulu in Medak who spent nothing. And where the usual actors were
more sensitive. But these were not many. In the case of Mahendru, neighbours joked that "even the
police found nothing to squeeze here."

But it is the families that did not seek a post-mortem who today face more trouble. How do they now
prove it was a suicide? "This is a huge problem," says Dr. Reddy.

"How will they get their compensation if they cannot prove it?" More so if the death occurred a while
ago.

The family of Prathap Reddy in Chelmada who killed himself in May 2003 in Medak now wishes
they had sought one. "They simply did not have the money at the time," says a neighbour. It is also
what Kathulappa is trying to tell us in Jengarala. His tears are now on his cheeks.

For many in the crisis here, death does not come as the end. Just as the beginning of a new burden for
their families.

Andhra farmers lose crores in insurance

The ongoing agrarian crisis has had a telling impact, causing the lapse of insurance policies of
farmers.

September 2004 - Hyderabad & Anantapur: In just 36 months from April 2001, more than half a
million insurance policies in rural Andhra Pradesh lapsed as people were unable to pay their
premiums. Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) data obtained by The Hindu confirm this. Even if the
average annual premium was as low as Rs.2,000, it would mean policyholders lost over Rs.100 crores
in this brief period. The real figure could be much higher. Most were farmers bankrupted in the
ongoing agrarian crisis. Some of the years seeing the largest number of lapsed policies also saw the
highest numbers of suicides by farmers.

Besides, these figures only cover policies that lapsed after the first year. Many others paid a second
annual instalment before going bankrupt. Those sums could be even larger.

Agrarian crisis

Since 1991, farmers hit by the crisis in this State have lost hundreds of crores of rupees in lapsed
policies. In Anantapur district alone, large numbers of farmers and agricultural workers have suffered
such losses. As the agrarian crisis swept the district, tens of thousands facing bankruptcy could no
longer pay the premiums on their LIC `Endowment' policies. Many paid between Rs.1,000 and
Rs.2,000 for the first two years and then went broke.

For the policies to stay alive, they ought to have paid the premiums for at least three successive
years. Now, the minimum value of any new insurance that they take out has climbed from Rs.20,000
to Rs.50,000 — an increase of 150 per cent. So new policies are beyond the reach of most farmers,
hit by repeated crop failure.

The damage has been on from 1991. In just the Cuddapah division alone, over 4.3 lakh policies have
lapsed since that year. The "corresponding premium value" of these is over Rs.61 crores. The years
seeing the highest "dropouts" were 2000-01 to 2002-03. In those three years, the number of lapsed
policies was 66,683, 75,390, and 71,029 respectively.
In the same three years, in Anantapur, which falls in this division, there were 696, 699, and 640
officially recorded suicides. Mostly, bankrupt farmers taking their lives in despair.

Suicides & dropouts

The actual suicide numbers are believed to be higher. There is then a clear link between the
deepening rural distress and the "dropouts."

The LIC can hardly be blamed for this. That distress flowed from larger economic processes and
policies over which it had no control. But the question now is what the corporation can do to help its
battered clients in this situation. Some officials say that if the all-Andhra Pradesh figures went back to
1991, the money lost by rural policyholders unable to keep up with payments might cross Rs.1,000
crores.

In Anantapur district alone, the money lost this way runs to crores of rupees. In just the Kadiri branch
of Anantapur, the figure forfeited could be over Rs.10 crores. And this is not even one of the top three
branches in the district. The affected farmers are simply unable to pay. Thus, policies meant to help
people have turned against them in a period of crisis.

Renew lapsed farmers' insurance policies

Calls for the renewal of hundreds of thousands of lapsed insurance policies have begun

September 2004 - Hyderabad & Anantapur: With lapsed insurance policies costing farmers in
Andhra Pradesh crores of rupees, calls for their renewal have begun. Over half a million policies have
lapsed in just 36 months from April 2001. The State's bankrupt farmers simply cannot keep up with
payments. This period was also marked by hundreds of farmers' suicides.

The Andhra Agriculture Minister, N. Raghuveera Reddy, is keen to see the revival of the policies. Mr.
Reddy, who inherited a desperate rural crisis from his predecessors, says the State will do all in its
power to help the process forward. "These are farmers who have suffered for the last many years," he
told The Hindu . "We appeal to the LIC and the Centre to join hands with us to bring these policies
back to life. We ourselves will do everything we can."

"These are people who have lost their ability to renew in a situation of great distress," says the All-
India Insurance Employees Association (AIIEA) president, N.M. Sundaram. "The rules should not be
used to punish them." There are other problems too. "The incentive for agents to seek renewals
declines with their falling commissions each year," says a senior government official.

For instance, on a premium of Rs. 2,000, the agent gets his best deal — Rs. 700 (35 per cent) — in
the first year. In the second, it is only Rs. 150. By the fourth, he is getting just Rs. 100. "Hence," says
the official, "he has no incentive to chase farmers to keep up with payments." In fairness to the agents
though, even if they had persisted, the farmers were clearly in no position to pay.

Either way, it is in the LIC's interest to revive the policies. For one thing, its clients need it. For
another, the LIC makes money on these policies only after the second year. The first two years the
money goes mostly for commissions, administrative and processing expenses.

New policies

Meanwhile, things are worse for those who would like to take out new policies. The minimum policy
value they have to go in for now is Rs. 50,000 against Rs. 20,000 earlier on. "This happened after the
UPA Government came in," says an LIC staffer in Anantapur. The measure places insurance cover
beyond the reach of poorer sections.

The NDA Government, too, made it worse for the rural poor. "Earlier," says one LIC Officer, "we
had the Landless Agricultural Labour Group Insurance (LALGI). This gave free cover and Rs. 2,000
for any family of this class that lost its breadwinner. This was scrapped by the NDA."

A fax to the LIC Chairman on these issues drew an official response. A reply from the LIC's
Executive Director, Central Office (PR & CC) names "... other schemes (that) have been launched" in
lieu of this one. And asserts that these too "are subsidised schemes for which a social security fund
was created."

Pressure

It is not clear how any of this offsets the loss of LALGI. And the LIC is silent on why it was
scrapped.

The ending of the scheme was strongly opposed by the AIIEA. "Generally," says Mr. Sundaram, "the
LIC has come under pressure of a very unfair competition. Private insurance providers would never
touch the poor sections that the LIC covers.

Gender bias

The Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the UPA Government says the regulator will ensure
that private providers, too, fulfil their social obligations. But nothing has happened so far. With those
providers free to concentrate on the profit-making top end of the spectrum, the LIC finds itself at a
disadvantage. Yet, scrapping such schemes is wrong."

Some schemes also have a curious gender bias. For instance, the Jana Raksha policy. "This is one
scheme," says the Ananatapur LIC staffer, "that still allows policy holders a lower minimum value.
Rs. 30,000 as against Rs. 50,000. However, it is only for those below the age of 40. What's more,
illiterate women and widows are excluded. However, oddly, illiterate men are not."

The official LIC response is that: "There is a certain amount of moral hazard in insuring illiterate
women, considering that the position of such women is not very enviable." Indeed, the LIC argues
that these exclusions are made "for the safety of such vulnerable people." And that the "LIC too has
done so taking relevant aspects into consideration." Curiously, there is no moral hazard associated
with insuring illiterate men and widowers.

"This is absolutely archaic thinking based on outdated practices," says Mr. Sundaram. "Some aspects
are not clear, but this whole approach is quite wrong. It smacks of a gender bias."

The LIC says it has "increased the minimum sum assured marginally" for "many of its plans." That is,
"from Rs. 30,000 to Rs.50,000." The Corporation says it did so bearing in mind the nature of India's
insurance market, the low level of insurance penetration here and "keeping certain other parameters
like inflation etc. in consideration."

Special campaigns

Can LIC act to protect farmers in dire straits? The Corporation's official response suggests it can.
"LIC floats special campaigns for revival apart from the regular revivals which are facilitated all
through the year." It also points out that "normally between November and January, special rebates
are given on the late fee/interest portion." It lists some relaxations, including "waiving of medical
reports etc., on certain policies subject to certain conditions."

It also speaks of "New Janaraksha," a plan it believes favours farmers. Here, "if premia are paid for
first two years, then the policy does not lapse even if further premia are not paid for the next three
years and full risk on the life of the policyholder is covered," says the LIC. Also, the minimum sum
assured in this policy "has been retained at Rs. 30,000 only."

Which is encouraging. Except that any revival scheme needs the Government and LIC to act first.
The bankrupt farmers are in no state to move on this individually.

Also, the `special rebates' presently have a meagre limit of Rs. 250. Only a waiver of all dues will
enable people to revive their policies. Since there are quite a few grounds on which the Andhra
Government, the LIC and the AIIEA do agree, swift action on this front could revive policies worth
crores and crores of rupees. A major benefit to farmers in big trouble.

"There can and should be special, even new, revival schemes for policyholders wanting to reactivate
their insurance," says Mr. Sundaram. "It should be possible here, as LIC will be dealing not with
individuals but a whole group of people. The LIC can waive certain requirements, such as interest
for example, if that stalls renewal. The All-India Insurance Employees Association will articulate
and press this demand with the LIC and the Government of India."

Look to helpline, land in jail

Those turning to the Government 'helpline' in Mahbubnagar, Andhra Pradesh, learn the hard way
what happens when the little farmer of the countryside runs into the large apparatus of the state.

18 March 2006 - When Boya Madhiletti approached the Andhra Pradesh Government's 'helpline', the
bankrupt farmer never thought it would land him in hospital and even jail. Madhiletti, 29, went by the
advice of well-meaning neighbours. "There is an official helpline for farmers in distress," they told
him. "So even if you are deep in debt, do nothing rash. Contact the helpline and they will do
something."

So he did. Mr. Madhiletti's brush with the helpline - which saw a revenue inspector harass him for a
bribe - convinced him that suicide was the only way out. The indebted farmer tried killing himself
right at the Collectorate in Mahbubnagar. He failed and wound up paying thousands of rupees in
hospital costs. And the man who had gone to the helpline for aid, languished in jail on the charge of
attempted suicide until his hard-up village took out a collection and raised bail for him.

The day he decided to kill himself, Mr. Madhiletti walked into the Red Cross Centre at Mahbubnagar
town - to donate blood. "I thought if I am going to end my life, let someone benefit from it," he told
us at his home in Rajouli village. "The Red Cross people said 'we can't give you money for your
blood.' That made me angry since I had not asked for any. I told them I was not doing it for payment.
So they took my offer." He shows us the certificate dated August 11, 2005, confirming his blood
donation.

"All I wanted from the Government was help with a bank loan. My family has 12 acres, after all, and
surely we should get a loan against that land? But we could not." He is the eldest son in a family of
12.

"I tried for months to meet the officials and tell them of my problems," says Mr. Madhiletti. Rising
costs and crop failure in successive seasons had left him Rs.3 lakh in debt. This Mahbubnagar farmer
grows sunflower, cotton, and maize. He also supplies seed to a private corporation. "The company
gives us some advance money, towards input costs, through a middleman," says a neighbour. "Our
risks are high, but the losses are never shared by the company or the middlemen." For Mr. Madhiletti,
those losses just got too much. He had also spent close to Rs.3 lakh on two borewells and a pipeline.

"I approached the Chief Minister with a petition," he says. "He said he was handing over my plea to
the District Collector and I should follow up there. I did, but it seemed impossible to meet anybody."
Meanwhile, his debts were mounting and so was pressure from the middlemen. At one point, he
says, he even saw the Collector. But "he did not speak. And I had no chance to explain." Nor was
accessing other officers any easier.

After some weeks of this, when he was really depressed, the helpline idea came up. That was set up
in 2004 by the newly elected Congress Government. Andhra Pradesh had witnessed thousands of
distress suicides by indebted farmers since 1998. The idea was to counsel, advise, and assist farmers,
and to stop them from taking the extreme step.

"Finally I got through to the MRO [Mandal Revenue Office]," says Mr. Madhiletti. "I was told a
Revenue Inspector would enquire into my case. What is there to enquire, I asked. I am just seeking a
bank loan and you can see my documents of land ownership right here."

"Next, the revenue inspector called me and asked me for a bribe. He said: 'if you want a report in
your favour without any fuss, pay me Rs.2,000.' As simple as that." Mr. Madhiletti did not pay the
bribe. "While I was out of town for a day, the RI went ahead and made the visit."

"Firstly," says Mr. Madhiletti, "my family did not want that sort of public exposure of our troubles."
More importantly, "that visit of the officer scared off all potential creditors. Those who might have
loaned me something now would not." The bribe demand and all that followed it drove the farmer
over the edge. "I tried meeting the Collector again, but failed. I also went to the Red Cross and gave
blood."

Mr. Madhiletti returned to the Collectorate and waited hours but was still unable to meet anyone. That
was when he consumed the pesticide he had bought the same day. After an attender at the office
found him lying in agony, he was bundled into a car and rushed to the Nizam Institute of Medical
Sciences (NIMS) in Hyderabad some 100 km away. All this was done in a matter of hours by officials
who had had no time to meet him in months. "One officer went all the way to Hyderabad with him,"
says a neighbour.

"He spent nearly two weeks at NIMS," says his father Easwaranna. "The costs came to over
Rs.10,000." Mr. Madhiletti came home on August 23. The distraught farmer had not yet recovered
from his ordeal when the police showed up at his door and booked him for attempted suicide. "I spent
one night at the station and was produced the next morning in court," he says. He then went to jail for
about 15 days. He might have stayed in longer since he had no money for bail. "But we got together a
collection and helped him out," say his neighbours.

So Mr. Madhiletti emerged from jail thanks to the few thousand rupees put up by his friends. He's
been summoned to court twice since then. "But each time, the case was adjourned without a hearing.
The last date was January 7 this year." He again failed to meet the Collector. But after news of the
event spread, officials ensured he got a bank loan of Rs.20,000 at eight per cent interest.

The villagers, though, have drawn a bleak lesson from this saga of a little farmer and the mighty
apparatus of state. "From their point of view," says a local journalist, "none of this would have
happened if he had paid that bribe of Rs.2,000. He would have had no problem." But Mr. Madhiletti
has little time for reflection. He has to fulfil his contract with an unsparing seed company.

The policy has no clothes

by Devinder Sharma

July 2004 - Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S.Rajasekhar Reddy is in a quandary. Since he took
over as the chief minister, more than 300 farmers in the state have committed suicides. This is the
official death toll from the suicides register until June 25. Unofficially, the casualties are estimated to
be much higher.

The spurt in farmers suicides is the outcome of the utter neglect and apathy of the erstwhile
Chandrababu Naidu government in Andhra, voted out after nine years in power. The situation in
several other states, including the frontline agriculture states of Punjab and Haryana, and even in the
left-ruled West Bengal and Kerala is no better. Thousands of farmers have ended their lives in the
past few years. What has meanwhile baffled the new government is that the spate of suicides shows
no signs of ending even after it announced a series of routine packages - free electricity and more
credit -- aimed at relieving farmers' misery.

The package also includes an ex-gratia payment of Rs.1 lakh each to the next of the kin of the
deceased, and Rs 50,000 for a one-time settlement of the loans of indebted farmers. The erstwhile
government too had started making ex-gratia payments of Rs.1 lakh to the affected families after
suicides were initially reported in 1997-98. After providing this assistance to some 250 farmer
families, the payments were stopped on the plea that such an ex-gratia would prompt more farmers to
take their lives. The Congress, then in the opposition, had stepped in by collecting donations for
providing assistance to the grieving families.

Although the newly-elected government of Andhra Pradesh (followed closely by Tamilnadu) has
moved quickly by announcing free power to farmers, what is more depressing is that the governments
are clueless of the reasons that forces farmers to commit suicides. Nor is there any effort from the so-
called distinguished agricultural scientists, economists, and social scientists to come up with
proposals to put an end to this shameful blot on the country's image. The reason is obvious. No one
has the political courage to point a finger at the real villain - the industrial farming model that shifts
the focus on cash crops and thereby plays havoc with sustainable livelihoods.

Chandrababu Naidu was swept away by a tidal wave of the angry farmers. The small and marginal
farmers, in tandem with the landless labourers, who constitute nearly 80 per cent of Andhra's 80
million people, gave their verdict: the industry-sponsored economic initiatives are anti-poor. In
Karnataka too, where the farmers' suicide rate is equally high, the over-emphasis on technology only
alienated a large percentage of the farming population from economic growth and development.
Both states had relied heavily on the British consultancy firm, McKinsey India Ltd., to draw up their
blueprints for economic reforms. McKinsey's services are also being utilised by West Bengal for re-
designing its economic model of growth.

Blindly aping the World Bank model of agriculture, Karnataka and Andhra had pumped in huge
finances to push an industry-driven agriculture that has not only exacerbated the crisis leading to an
environmental catastrophe but also destroyed millions of rural livelihoods. As a result, both the states
had turned into capitals of shame for farmers' distress, visible more through the increasing rate of
suicides in the rural areas. Making cheap credit available to these marginal farming communities, an
intention announced by the Finance Minister, will not be helpful. What these poor need immediately
is income support.

In reality, Andhra as well as Karnataka were only making it smoother for the industry to move into
the rural areas. AP's Vision 2020 document talked of reducing the number of farmers in the state to
40 per cent of the population, and did not have any significant programme to adequately rehabilitate
an equally large number of people. The objective was to promote the commercial interests of the
agribusiness companies (read foreign financial institutes and international bankers) and the IT
hardware units. All benefits would have accrued to these companies in the name of farmers. In fact,
these two sectors, along with biotechnology, were being heavily subsidised in the name of efficiency
and infrastructure, whereas the poor farmers were being divested of the their only source of income -
their meagre land holdings.

Andhra in reality was fast turning into a BIMARU state (an euphemism for backward states).
Thousands of farmers were migrating every season looking for menial jobs in the urban centres.
Mofussil newspapers in the heartland of the cyberstate were full of advertisements inviting people to
mortgage their gold and silver belongings. Livestock deaths and the plight of dalits and other landless
and marginalised no longer adorned the headlines. Farmers were asked not to produce more rice, as
the state had no place to stock it. Farmers' suicides had become so common that Mr Naidu actually
sent team of psychiatrists to convince them against taking their own lives.

Believe it or not, daily wage workers in AP can still be hired at a price that their counterparts in Bihar
would scoff at. And yet, an ignorant media despised the maverick political leader Laloo Prasad Yadav
for taking his state - Bihar - to economic backwardness whereas Mr Naidu was showered by all kinds
of accolades. Such was the extent and level of poverty that AP also topped the country in the
percentage of women entering prostitution and trafficking. Mr Naidu ignored the writing on the wall
and went about holding web conferences with his bureaucracy and the national media painted him as
the poster boy for economic reforms.

The Naidu model has failed. This is also the failure of McKinsey's model for economic
development. To talk of 'Naidu Plus', as some economists have said, indicates the level of arrogance
among a school of economic thought that refuses to see anything except what would benefit
industry.

No wonder, newspapers have already quoted the secretary general of the Federation of Indian
Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Mr Amit Mitra as saying "economic initiatives in the
IT and services sector should be extended to the rural areas and to such industries as food
processing and rural industry". Unfortunately, the industry refuses to accept that it was because of
its own over-indulgence that Mr Naidu paid a heavy price. In addition, the Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII) and the newly emerging biotechnology industry were the beneficiaries of the state's
largesse in the name of improving agricultural productivity and enhancing rural incomes. The new
government has focused on agriculture but refuses to look for the real causes behind farmers
distress. All its efforts are directed towards convincing the markets that the Sensex will not be
allowed to slip any further.

The tragedy is that while the farmers have delivered their

verdict, the economists and policy makers are not willing
to accept it. The nation is not only clueless but does not
even want to know how to resurrect agriculture and
farming. This is where the politico-economy equations
have gone wrong, this is where Indian democracy has
reached superficial heights. The CII and FICCI have already
No one has the political courage to
point a finger at the real villain - the
industrial farming model that shifts
the focus on cash crops and thereby
plays havoc with sustainable
livelihoods.
ensured that their breed of economic thinkers and supporters are in each political party. The tragedy
therefore is that the policy differences between the ruling party and the opposition have blurred. Both
groups follow the same economic prescriptions that have no connection with ground realities. The
Congress-led coalition too will fall into the trap of pushing for more economic 'reforms', and provide
the same direction for agriculture that Mr Naidu falsely banked upon.

The ground realities are far removed from the rhetoric and the statistics that have bred immunity
against compassion. We are all part of a global food system, which perpetuates poverty and
deprivation. The food industry makes tall claims of churning out nutritious diets, and millions are
dying of obesity and related problems. The claims of improved technology for agriculture ignore the
stark realities - increasing indebtedness, growing poverty, resulting in human suffering and hunger.
Our 'solutions' are really the causes for the problems in the first place; and behaving like an ostrich is
not going to eclipse hunger and death from the politico-economic radar screens.

Policy makers, agricultural scientists, academicians and even the civil society groups must first accept
the fundamental flaw that forces farmers to their deaths - the misplaced idea that industrial farming
can be successful in a nation where the majority of the population makes its livelihood off the land
under conditions of extreme inequity. Economic gimmicks like announcing free electricity and
enhancing bank credit are like the proverbial Emperor's clothes.
THE AGRARIAN CRISIS IN VIDHARBHA – MAHARASTRA
p.sainath
India Shining meets the Great Depression
In the villages, we demolish their lives, and in the city their homes. The smug indifference of
the elite is matched by the governments they do not vote in, but control. P Sainath contrasts
the tongue-lolling coverage of the Beautiful People with the studied indifference to the plight
of millions.

02 April 2006 - Farm suicides in Vidarbha crossed 400 this week. The Sensex crossed the
11,000 mark. And Lakme Fashion Week issued over 500 media passes to journalists. All
three are firsts. All happened the same week. And each captures in a brilliant if bizarre way a
sense of where India's Brave New World is headed. A powerful measure of a massive
disconnect. Of the gap between the haves and the have-mores on the one hand, and the
dispossessed and desperate, on the other.

Of the three events, the suicide toll in Vidarbha found no mention in many newspapers and
television channels. Even though these have occurred since just June 2 last year. Even though
the most conservative figure (of Sakaal newspaper) places the deaths at above 372. (The
count since 2000-01 would run to thousands.) Sure, there were rare exceptions in the media.
But they were just that - rare. It is hard to describe what those fighting this incredible human
tragedy on the ground feel about it. More so when faced with the silence of a national media
given to moralising on almost everything else.

In the 13 days during which the suicide index hit 400, 40 farmers took their own lives. The
Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti points out that the suicides are now more than three a day - and
mounting. These deaths are not the result of natural disaster, but of policies rammed through
with heartless cynicism. They are driven by several factors that include debt linked to a credit
crunch, soaring input costs, crashing prices, and a complete loss of hope. That loss of faith
and the rise in the numbers of deaths has been sharpest since last October. That's when a
government that came to power promising a cotton price of Rs.2,700 a quintal ensured it fell
to Rs.1,700. A thousand rupees less.

When 322 of 413 suicides have occurred since just November 1, you'd think that is
newsworthy. When the highest number, 77, take place in March alone, you'd believe the
same. You'd be wrong, though. The Great Depression of the Indian countryside does not
make news.

But the Sensex and Fashion Week do. "There is nothing wrong," an irate reader wrote to me,
"in covering the Sensex or the Fashion Week." True. But there is something horribly wrong
with our sense of proportion while doing so. Every pulse beat and flutter on the Sensex
merits front-page treatment. Even if less than two per cent of Indian households have any
kind of investments in the stock exchange here. This week's rise does not just mark the
highest ever. It makes the lead story on the front page. That's because the "Sensex beats Dow
in numbers game." The strap below that headline in a leading daily reads: "Dalal Street's
11,183 eclipses Wall Street." It's moved to 11,300 since then.

On television, even non-business channels carry that ticker at the right hand corner. Keeping
viewers alert to the main chance even as they draw in the number of deaths in the latest bomb
blasts. At one point, the mourning for President K.R. Narayanan was juxtaposed to the joys
of the Nifty and the Sensex. The irony does get noticed but it persists.

The great news for Fashion Week lovers is that this year will see two of them. There's a split
in the ranks of the Beautiful People. Which means we will now have 500 or more journalists
covering two such events separately. This in a nation where the industry's own study put the
Indian designer market at 0.2 per cent of the total apparel market. Where journalists at such
shows each year outnumber buyers - often by three to one.

Contrast that with the negligible number of reporters sent out to cover Vidarbha in the depths
of its great misery. At the LFW, journalists jostle for 'exclusives' while TV crews shove one
another around for the best 'camera space.' In Vidarbha itself, the best reporters there push
only the limits of their own sanity. Faced with dailies that kill most of their stories, or with
channels that scorn such reports, they still persist. Trying desperately to draw the nation's
attention to what is happening. To touch its collective conscience. So intense has been their
tryst with misery, they drag themselves to cover the next household against the instinct to
switch off. Every one of them knows the farm suicides are just the tip of the iceberg. A
symptom of a much wider distress.

The papers that dislike such stories do find space for the poor, though. As in this
advertisement, which strikes a new low in contempt for them. Two very poor women,
probably landless workers, are chatting: "That's one helluva designer tan," says the first to the
other. "Yeah," replies the other. "My skin just takes to the Monte Carlo sun." The copy that
follows then mocks them. "You'll agree," it says, "chances that the ladies above rub shoulders
with the glitterati of the French Riviera are, well, a little remote." It throws in a disclaimer, of
course. "We don't mean to be disrespectful ... " But "this is a mere reminder to marketers that
a focus on customers with stronger potential does help." That is an ad for the 'Brand Equity,'
supplement of a leading newspaper group.

Nearly 5,000 shanties were torn down in Mumbai in the same eventful week. But it drew
little attention. Their dwellers won't make it to the French Riviera either. Those in media
focus, though, might. Mumbai's planned Peddar Road flyover, seen by some of the metro's
mega rich as hurting their interests, grabbed yards of newsprint and endless broadcast time.
There was barely a word seen or heard from those whose homes were razed to the ground.
Meanwhile, more and more people flee the countryside for urban India. Candidates for future
demolitions. In the village, we demolish their lives, in the city their homes.

The smug indifference of the elite is matched by the governments they do not vote in, but
control. When the National Commission for Farmers went to Vidarbha last October, it
brought out a serious report and vital recommendations. Many of these have become
demands of the farmers and their organisations. At its Nashik meeting in January, the All-
India Kisan Sabha (a body with 20 million members) called for immediate implementation of
the NCF report.

Instead, both the Centre and the State Government have sent more and more 'commissions' to
the region. To 'study' what was well known and already documented. It's a kind of distress
tourism now. It just adds the sins of 'commissions' to those of omission.
Favouring corporates

The damage is not only in Vidarbha but across the land. Why is the Indian state doing this to
its farmers? Isn't farming, after all, the biggest private sector in India? Because being private
isn't enough. Ruthlessly, each policy, every budget moves us further towards a corporate
takeover of agriculture. Large companies were amongst the top gainers from distress sales of
cotton in Vidarbha this season. The small private owners called farmers must be sacrificed at
the altar of big corporate profit. The clearest admission of this came in the McKinsey-
authored Vision 2020 of Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh. It set out the removal of
millions of people from the land as one of its objectives. Successive governments at the
Centre and in many States seem to have latched on to that vision with much zeal. In some
ways, the present United Progressive Alliance takes up where Mr. Naidu left off.

Where are those being thrown off the land to go? To the cities and towns with their shutdown
mills. With closed factories and very little employment. The great Indian miracle is based on
near jobless growth. We are witnessing the biggest human displacement in our history and
not even acknowledging it. The desperation for any work at all is clear in the rush for it at
just the start of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme. Within a week of its
launch, it saw 2.7 million applicants in just 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh. And close to a
million in 12 districts of Maharashtra. Note that the Rs.60 wage is below the minimum of
several States. Know, too, that many in the lines of applicants are landed farmers. Some of
them with six acres or more. In the Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh, a farmer who
owned eight acres of paddy fields was a person of some status 10 years ago. Today, he or
she, with a family of five, would be below the poverty line. (If that's the case with
landowners, imagine the state of landless labourers.)

If the State Government's role in Vidarbha is sick, that of the Centre is appalling. Making sad
noises is about as far as it will go. As the NCF report shows, much can be done to save
hundreds of more lives that will surely otherwise be lost. But it avoids that path.

Its vision of farming serves corporates, not communities. And the media elite? Why not a
Vidarbha week? To report the lives and deaths of those whose cotton creates the textiles and
fabrics that they do cover. If just a fourth of the journalists sent to the Fashion Week were
assigned to cover Vidarbha, they'd all have many more stories to tell.

Maharashtra's coming water wars

A new law could put irrigation beyond the reach of most farmers in Vidharbha. Huge hikes
in water charges, penalties against farmers with more than two children, and prison terms and
large fines for non-payment, all signal the transfer of agriculture to a few rich farmers,
observes P Sainath.

08 May 2005 "So far, farmers without irrigation have been committing suicide," says Vijay
Jawandia. "Now irrigated farmers, too, will join them in taking their lives." Jawandia, a kisan
leader of Maharashtra's Vidharbha region, says the recently passed Maharashtra Water
Resources Regulatory Bill is "simply not workable." The Bill signals huge hikes in water
charges and irrigation costs. The Regulatory Authority it sets up will have three full-time
members. Not one of them is required to be a farmer.
Elected panchayats are sidelined on water issues. Farmers with more than two children will
pay one and a half times the high new rates. And in some regions, costly drip and sprinkler
irrigation will become mandatory. Breaking these laws invites six months in prison and a fine
of ten times the annual water charges.

Shock and anger

Farmers greeted news of the bill with shock and anger across Vidharbha. This is one of the
least irrigated and most backward regions of Maharashtra. One that has seen hundreds of
farmers' suicides in the past few years. In Parbhani, Marathwada, the State camp of the All-
India Kisan Sabha called for the Bill's repeal. It also declared May 5 as a day of statewide
protest to press this demand.

No farmer we spoke to in four districts across Vidharbha knew of the Bill. Much less that it
had been passed by the legislature. Even Agriculture Department officials seemed baffled by
it. "We cannot pay the present charges," says Vijay Kophe of Borgaon village in Amravati
district. "How will we pay these new ones? Our water, their taxes?" Kophe owns a little over
two acres and has three children.

"How many can afford drip or sprinkler irrigation," asks an amazed Gajanand Kumble,
another farmer with an even smaller holding. "Where do they think the money will come
from?" It will simply "give industry a giant captive market," scoffs Vijay Jawandia in
Wardha.

"What link is there between irrigation and children," asks Bhojraj Raut, sarpanch of Bathkuli
village in Amravati. Labourer Gulabrao Nesram even finds it funny. "What about those with
two children but no land? Will they be rewarded?"

Agricultural crisis

Like most villages in Vidharbha, this one too, is in the grip of an agricultural crisis and deep
in debt. "The village failed to pay electricity bills of about Rs. 1 lakh," says the sarpanch. "So
the power was cut off, the pumps are down and we cannot get even drinking water."

"Why not fine the government," asks teacher R.M. Bhagywanth. "They have not paid cotton
growers here dues of Rs.2,300 crores. How will people pay any bills without that? This law
will push up suicides one hundred times."

B.T. Deshmukh, an independent member of the legislative council from Amravati, defends
the law. He was on the Joint Committee of both houses to which the prickly Bill was
referred. After making several changes - and bringing in the two-child norm - the committee
approved it. "It has built-in safeguards and protection for poorer regions," he insists.

"New irrigation projects must first come in such places. The Governor's directives on these
aspects must be observed." And, he points out, "we put in the `principle of equity' into the
law."
"Those who can pay must do so. There are farmers in some regions who can pay." But he
concedes that the rates charged will be the same across the State. Which means many who
cannot now afford irrigation, will likely never be able to. Mr. Deshmukh's district has less
than four per cent irrigation.

In Talegaon village, Ramesh Ingole used to pay Rs.400 as water charges for his two acres.
"Then it went up to Rs.590. For the most recent crop we don't even know how much or how
we will pay. If this new law is imposed, we are finished."

The Bill says that charges "shall reflect the full recovery of the cost of the irrigation
management, administration, operation and maintenance of the water resources project."
Besides, the Government also seeks "partial recovery of capital investment." (The latter
clause appeared in the version of the Bill passed by the Council.)

What would this mean in practice? "If this is the framework, irrigation could cost as much
as Rs.8,000 per acre, or more," says Prof. H.N. Desarda, a leading economist based in
Aurangabad. Prof. Desarda, a former State planning board member, is also an expert on
water issues. "There is no crop in Maharashtra," he points out, "which can sustain such
levels of payment."

Bill favours rich?

"It means non-irrigated farmers will remain that way for life. Or be forced to quit farming in
lakhs," says Anil Tiwari. He is President of the Pandarkauda Municipal Council in
Yavatmal. A district with less than eight per cent irrigation. "This simply hands over
agriculture to the rich."

The poor are not ready to quit, though. "People won't allow this law to function," says
Hidayat Khan, a gram panchayat member in Talegaon. In Borgaon, Vijay Kophe is defiant.
"Let them send their tax collector. He will be one person. We will be 1500 to resist him."

Water: How the deal was done

Why were more than a dozen bills introduced late on the last day of the session, giving
legislators no time to even read them? Why was there no debate? Questions are now being
asked about how the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority Bill was passed,
reports P Sainath.

08 May 2005 The canal that runs through Maregaon lies dry as stone. "It's been that way for
two years," says sarpanch Premdas Chavan. "The Irrigation Department cut it off. They say
this is to punish those who have not paid water charges. But the whole village suffers."

And so this village of 635 people, mainly Adivasis, in Yavatmal district finds itself trapped.
"People cannot even sell land to meet their needs," says Chavan. "The government blocks
them at the land records office. So until their dues are settled, they cannot sell."

The dues can be odd, too. "We had our own well," says Rambhau Sadashiv Mahajan. He is
one of the slightly better off landowners here. The canal runs through his land. "They insisted
I pay their charges," says Mahajan. "I told them I am using my well, not your canal. But they
said: `If it runs by your land, you have to pay. Never mind which water you are using'."

"Then," says Chavan, "we got demands from both irrigation and revenue people. Meanwhile,
charges that had started at Rs.65 a hectare rose rapidly till they came to the Rs.500 stage.
Now think what damage this new law will that do."

The Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority Bill was passed by the State
Assembly on April 16. Most farmers across the State remain unaware of the bill or its
meaning. Those learning about it are stunned and angered. "Everybody is already in debt,"
says ex-sarpanch Sumitra Ingole in Talegaon, Amravati. "Who has the money?"

Back in Maregaon, Chavan points out: "This village lost canal water because people were too
poor to pay the old charges. The rates plus fines crossed Rs.1 lakh for us and it got
impossible." Rambhau Mahajan had to pay the equivalent of one acre of land - Rs.25,000 - in
order to be able to sell four acres to survive.

Hike in water charges

The Bill signals massive hikes in water charges. The new rates will reflect "full recovery of
the cost of irrigation management, administration, operation and maintenance." Farmers
could be forced to adopt drip or sprinkler irrigation in some regions. Those with more than
two children have to pay one and a half times the new rates. But how did this bill get through
the legislature?

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) legislator, Narasaiah Adam, had blasted
the Bill when it was introduced in the Nagpur session of the Assembly last year. Following
his salvo, the Bill was referred to a joint committee of both Houses. "But no CPI or CPI-M
MLA or MLC was included in it," he points out. (However, the PWP's Ganpatrao
Deshmukh was on the committee.) The joint committee did more than approve the Bill.
While it added phrases such as `equity,' it also brought in the two-child norm. And even
made some clauses more stringent.

In Mumbai this year, the revised Bill was rushed through by voice vote on April 16, the last
day of the session. "They brought in perhaps 16 bills on the last day," says Adam. "And this
one came in around 6 p.m." It was chaotic. "This did not allow the bills to be read, let alone
debated."

It was much the same in the Legislative Council, says the Shiva Sena MLC, Neelam Gorhe.
"Many bills came up late on the last day. These included the water bill and even one
denying workers in essential services the right to strike. So our leader said let us extend the
session and work another two or three days. Instead, the government just rammed the laws
through by voice vote."

Debt crisis
Back in Vidharbha, the debt crisis faced by the farmers is obvious. There is very little sign of
celebration though it is Ram Navami the day we visit Yavatmal. No one has money to spend.

"It is not right in any way," says Nitin Khadse, upa sarpanch of Jalka village. "Poor families
always have more children. More hands to work and earn. Why punish them? And with these
costs those who have no irrigation will never get it. We will not accept this law."

"The Bill not being seriously debated in the Assembly was shameful," says economist H.N.
Desarda. The former State Planning Board member demands "a much wider public debate on
the issue. There is no trace in this bill of what Maharashtra's agriculture so badly needs.
Drought-proofing and protective irrigation, for instance. There is a crying need for a
sustained state role in water resources development as a whole. Instead they force an extreme
market model of an anti-poor nature."

Narasaiah Adam vows a battle in the next session. "This Bill must be recalled for proper
debate and action. We will compel them to bring it back to the House."

In Maregaon, sarpanch Chavan gives us a brief tour of the dead canal. "For this we were hit
by both irrigation and revenue departments. Both claim taxes on it and we are told to pay."
For them, it's Lagaan without the cricket match. But other forms of resistance could be in the
offing. "We are already bankrupt ... We cannot pay. Let them try to make us."

The bank and the big bang

The World Bank continues to push its agenda on water privatisation even though its much-
heralded examples from recent years turned out to be such dismal failures. The result will
destroy countless small farmers and hand over agriculture to the rich and corporations, says P
Sainath.

08 May 2005 - It has been happening for some time. Maharashtra is not the first State. It
won't be the last. The drive towards privatisation of water in this country was planned by the
World Bank in the 1990s. The just-passed Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory
Authority Bill reeks of Bank edicts already out in 1998. In that year, the "The Irrigation
Sector" report of the Bank (teamed up with the Indian Government) laid down the line.

It listed things that "need to be urgently put into practice." Among them: "drastically
increasing and rationalising the current water rates." The rest of its "urgent needs" were the
standard Bank rules for the capture of a country's farming by corporations. In pushing brutal
hikes, the Bank was frank. Its report opposed gradual hikes. "The more recent experience is
that `a big bang' approach may be better." Laughably, it cites Andhra Pradesh and Mexico as
among the success stories of that approach.

The Latin American experience

Latin America is strewn with the corpses of economies and governments that went for the
`big bang' approach. Water, especially, has been a giant factor in the rage of peoples there
against regimes. This year, The New York Times ran a front-page piece on the collapse of
privatised water services across Latin America. Being the Times, it coyly sidestepped any
criticism of corporations. Or even of the basic concepts themselves. But it did measure the
Big Bang. In Andhra Pradesh, the voters threw in a bang of their own last May. You'd think
we'd learn something from all this.

Yet the new Maharashtra bill does not stray from the righteous path. It too, regurgitates the
same jargon and ideas imposed by the Bank and its pet politicians and paid-for bureaucrats
on the people of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.

Never mind that both States saw giant disasters in that sector. Orissa's sham (Bank-made)
`pani panchayats' shattered poor farmers in Angul district. They also handed over irrigation
to a small bunch of rich landlords. (see Little pani, less panchayats) In Andhra Pradesh,
Chandrababu Naidu's regime passed an order that aimed for much of what the Maharashtra
bill now does.

`Water users'

In Andhra Pradesh, too, a farce of `Water Users Associations' was set up to the applause of
the Bank. Indeed, "The Irrigation Sector" report lavishly praises the Andhra Pradesh
`example.' The term `water users' itself is intriguing. Are the rest of us non-users? Some kind
of dry land bacilli? The cheers for Mr. Naidu's good example came even as his Government
sold cleaned and treated water to soft drinks companies at 25 paise a litre in Hyderabad. That,
at a time, when most colonies of the city were getting water for half an hour once every two
days.

Meanwhile the `users' groups proved user-friendly. They sidelined elected panchayats. The
rich have always found democracy tiresome. So favoured were these groups that James
Wolfensohn came all the way to Andhra Pradesh for them. To inaugurate a confederation of
water users associations in 2000. He was to do this at the Koil Sagar Dam in Mahbubnagar.
Alas, large mobs of angry `non-users' furious at the loss of their water, blocked the highway.

The `users,' far fewer in number, were given a run for their money and their limbs. Mr.
Wolfensohn could not reach the site.

But if Muhammad can't go to the mountain, the mountain must go to Muhammad. The
Naidu Government, famed for its efficiency in these matters, shifted the dam. In name,
anyway. It took down the dam's plaque and flew it to a safe venue. Away from the ugly
baying of non-users. There it had a sham of an inaugural in hiding. All this happened under
the `liberal' Wolfensohn. As against the `hardliner' Paul Wolfowitz coming in now. It
doesn't really matter, though, which Wolf is at the door, canis lupis or canis rufus. The
family Canidae are predatory by nature.

How did the Bank view the mess in Andhra Pradesh? As the "remarkable strength of
government commitment in Andhra Pradesh to irrigation sector reform."

Identical jargon

Maharashtra seems set to outdo that level of commitment. This bill parrots all the pet
phrases of the Bank. It dittos the ideas, rules and structures that the Bank's own vision lays
out. In parts, the jargon is near identical. But it breaks some new ground. `Entitlement' in this
bill is not defined as the right or claim of a citizen or community. Here it means `any
authorisation by any river basin agency to use the water for the purposes of this act.' In short,
the entitlements of authority, not of society, are what drive the bill. The bill also equates
private companies with citizens. The section on State Water Planning is clear on this. "The
expression `person' shall include individual, group of individuals, all local authorities,
association, societies, companies etc.," In short, petty officials and giant corporates will have
the same rights as citizens and farmers.

Huge costs involved

It warns that in some regions, "Water shall not be made available from the canal ... " Not
"unless the cultivator adopts drip irrigation or sprinkler irrigation ..." Or whatever the
authority orders. This could add Rs. 15-20,000 per acre to the farmers' costs for just
installation. Running costs would be a further burden. This is a rip-off. Well-known private
companies close to the ruling outfit will strike gold. The State might even buy this equipment
from them in the name of subsidies to the farmer. Even if the farmer cannot cope with
running costs.

The new Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority "shall consist of a chairperson
and two other members." The chair will be of Chief Secretary rank. Of the other two, one
"shall be an expert from the field of water resources engineering." The other, likewise, "in the
field of water resources economy." There's another open door for the private sector - right on
the top floor.

This body will ensure that "water charges shall reflect the full recovery of the cost of
irrigation management, administration, operation and maintenance of water resources
project." Also hidden in the deal is a clause that sailed through when the bill was first passed
by the Legislative Council. That talks of partial "recovery of capital investment."

These levels of cost recovery are aimed at clearing the way for private investors. The
Maharashtra bill, as economist and former State Planning Board member H.M. Desarda
points out, could make costs unbearable. Perhaps as much as Rs. 8,000 an acre. That would
simply evict lakhs of small holders from farming.

Some of those who back the bill, like MLC B.T. Deshmukh, point out that it gives priority to
backward regions. That new projects must come first to hard-hit Vidharbha and Marathwada.
True, the terms of the bill do imply this. And so? It's like if the Bombay Gymkhana were to
give first preference in membership to those living in the slums of Dharavi. Sure, they'd get
priority. Could they afford an `nth' of the charges?

Two-child norm

The uproar on the bill centred around the obnoxious two-child norm. But that is just the tip of
the iceberg. On April 28, M.P. Veerendrakumar drew the Lok Sabha's attention to The Hindu
's reports on the subject during a discussion on the Finance Bill. "Marginalised farmers and
those who take agriculture as a livelihood will be driven out. The field will be entirely open
for big tycoons and MNCs... " "Whenever agriculture issues are raised in the House," he
argued "the reply is that it is a State subject." But he points out, "the moment some
bureaucrat goes to some country, he signs an international agreement." With whose authority,
he demanded to know. He believes a constitutional amendment is needed to root out the
secrecy, intrigue and plain old corruption that are tied with such legislation.

The distribution of water already stands privatised in parts of several towns across the
country. But applied to farming, will it work? Can such massive rates be recovered?
Absolutely not. No one can pay. So why bother, then?

Because it will destroy countless small farmers. It will establish, yet again, water as a private
good not as a human right. (What impact the costs will have on food prices has not even been
looked at.)

It will hand over agriculture to the rich and corporations. It will worsen the terrible situation
of poor farmers in the State amongst whom there have been hundreds of suicides. And it will
doubtless be touted as a national and global 'model.' Watch out for that big bang.

Whose suicide is it, anyway?

In Yavatmal district alone, there's been an eight-fold increase in farmers' suicides in just four
years. Yet, thanks to a flawed counting process, even that is a huge under-estimate. P Sainath
continues

25 June 2005 - "Now we can't even commit suicide in peace," laughs Digambar Agose's
neighbour in Malwagad village. "Not without reading those forms the officials have created
to see we get it right." Another pipes up: "There are some 40 clauses on their inquiry list. All
these must apply." In short, if you must kill yourself, make sure you adhere to the pro forma.

Malwagad's graveyard humour aside, the implications are scary. Vidharbha has seen more
debt-driven farmers' suicides than any other region in Maharashtra. This, despite the counting
process being suspect and often simply wrong. "Our methods," admits one senior official,
"work from the point of view of assessing compensation. That's all. Not to learn why the
suicides happen." Which means under-counting is built into the process. Governments do not
like paying out compensation.

Flawed figures

So a lot of suicides are not recorded as being debt-driven. Yet, even the flawed numbers are
startling. In Yavatmal district alone, farmers' suicides went up from 17 in 2001 to 132 last
year. An almost eight-fold increase in four years. Most occur between July and November.
But there have already been 29 till May this year. This means there have been more suicides
in the off-season this year than in all of 2001.

What numbers would a more honest process show? Sadly, even sensitive officers - and
Yavatmal has a few - are trapped by the format. So while the ongoing agrarian crisis has
spurred several hundreds of suicides across Vidharbha in a short span of time, we will never
know their full extent. The counting process stands too corrupted.
Adivasi farmer Digambar Agose (debt: Rs. 70,000) killed himself this January in Yavatmal.
His family got no compensation. Agose's suicide "did not meet the norms" set up by the
Government to determine which is a "farmer's suicide" and which is not. The norms are
baffling. Most local officials cannot say what they are. And the final judgment is often
subjective.

It is the same in Buldhana district. "We had 84 farmers' suicides here in the last year," says
journalist Narendra Lanjewar. "Just 14 of these have been compensated." That is one in six.
Also, only those 14 will be counted as "farmers' suicides."

A survey by The Hindu of 10 suicide-hit households in three districts found major

discrepancies. Families with more than twice the landholding of Agose - and fewer members
- received compensation. The Agose household, sunk in misery, did not. In some cases, caste
played a role. In others, elections. Polls were around the corner when some farmers died but
were over when others did. Those affected before voting day were more likely to get help.

But other factors worked, too. At the top, says Yavatmal Collector Harshdeep Kamble, "we
want to know: was the victim a farmer? Are there loans against his name? Did the banks
issue him notices? What is the general condition of the family?"

Valid concerns. But the problems are many. The Government only takes note of bank and
cooperative loans, though the vast majority get their credit from moneylenders. So very large
numbers get excluded in the counting. The Government knows this. "First the banks give the
farmers no loans," says an official. "And then their suicides are not counted because they
have no bank loans. It was lack of bank credit that sent them to moneylenders in the first
place."

`Who is a farmer?'

Next: who is a `farmer?' In every case, the suicide was that of the main breadwinner. But the
land may not have been in his or her name. "My son ran the farm," says Sriram Jharekar in
Isoli village, Buldhana, "I am 80 years old. However, the land is still in my name." So when
his son Ganesh took his own life this January, there was no question of compensation.
Ganesh, by the "norms," was not a farmer. He did not own land. Never mind that he was the
only working farmer in the household. His infirm parents can do no work. But are
"farmers." That is why when Prabhakar Katale took his life in Wardha, his aged father
Shamrao settled his land on his remaining sons at once. Likewise, suicides by women
farmers won't be counted. There is no land in their names.

The official inquiry checklist has some 43 indicators. Of these a few are routine. Name, age,
sex, caste, address and the like. But there are over 35 others that also have to be gone
through. When a suicide takes place, the local Talati reports it to the Tehsildar and assists
him inquire into it. The latter reports to the sub-divisional magistrate. The SDM in turn
reports to the Collector. In practice, subjectivity rules.
"They can decide this man died of `ill-health' or was a drunkard, or anything," says D.B.
Naik in Bham village, Yavatmal. "Anything but debt." Naik, a kisan sabha leader here,
mocks the process: "They want a signed statement from the victim that debt and [the]
Government drove him to suicide."

A local official might also rule out aid to a family not "below the poverty line." The BPL
process itself is bizarre. Digambar Agose's family lives in utter poverty. But it has no BPL
card. As we leave the Agose home in Malwagad, we meet the new "Man of the House."
Madhav Agose is 12 years old and in the eyes of his village "responsible for the entire
household." Madhav works from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day tending livestock. For Rs. 20 a
day. Digambar's debts have to be paid. "And they got nothing as compensation," say the
neighbours, "not even free seed in his father's name."

In the Pandher Kavada office of the Vidharbha Jan Andolan Samiti, another name is about to
enter the "Register of Deaths." Abhay Shamrao Chavan, June 16, 2005. Independent groups,
rejecting government figures, are tracking the tragedy. They know there will be many more.
Ritesh Parchake, a leading journalist here who has reported the suicides for years, looks on
sadly. "This is the season," he says wearily. "It's only just begun."

No rain, but 'snow' and waterparks

Water-starved Vidharbha has a growing number of water parks and amusement centres. The
iron laws of rural life don't apply in the entertainment complexes built right next to the poor.
In a region that scarcely receives adequate water to meet people's drinking needs, there is
plenty of water for the playgrounds of the rich, finds P Sainath.

28 June 2005 - Even when it's 47 degrees in the rest of the region, it's cool here. A little
away from us is a patch that clocks in at minus 13 degrees. This is "India's first Snowdome" -
in burning Vidharbha. Keeping its ice rink firm costs Rs.4,000 a day in electricity charges
alone.

Welcome to the Fun & Food Village Water & Amusement Park in Bazargaon gram
panchayat of Nagpur (Rural) district. A portrait of Mahatma Gandhi greets visitors in the
office of the huge complex. And you're assured daily disco, ice skating, ice sliding and "a
well stocked bar with cocktails." The 40-acre park itself offers 18 kinds of water slides and
games. Also services for events ranging from conferences to kitty parties.

The village of Bazargaon (population 3,000) itself faces a huge water crisis. "Having to make
many daily trips for water, women walk up to 15 km in a day to fetch it," says sarpanch
Yamunabai Uikey. "This whole village has just one sarkari well. Sometimes, we have got
water once in four or five days. Sometimes, once in ten days."

Bazargaon falls in a region declared as scarcity-hit in 2004. It had never faced that fate
before. The village also had its share of six-hour - and worse - power cuts till about May.
These hit every aspect of daily life, including health, and devastated children appearing for
exams. The summer heat, touching 47, made things worse.

All these iron laws of rural life do not apply within Fun & Food Village. This private oasis
has more water than Bazargaon can dream of. And never a moment's break in power supply.
"We pay on average," says Jasjeet Singh, General Manager of the Park, "about Rs.4 lakhs a
month in electricity bills."

The Park's monthly power bill alone almost equals the yearly revenue of Yamunabhai's gram
panchayat. Ironically, the village's power crisis eased slightly because of the Park. Both share
the same sub-station. The park's peak period begins with May. And so things have been a
little better since then. The Park's contribution to the gram panchayat's revenue is Rs.50,000 a
year. About half what Fun & Food Village collects at the gate in a day from its 700 daily
visitors. Barely a dozen of the Park's 110 workers are locals from Bazargaon.

Water-starved Vidharbha has a growing number of such water parks and amusement centres.
In Shegaon, Buldhana, a religious trust runs a giant "Meditation Centre and Entertainment
Park." Efforts to maintain a 30-acre `artificial lake' within it ran dry this summer. But not
before untold amounts of water were wasted in the attempt. Here the entry tickets are called
"donations." In Yavatmal, a private company runs a public lake as a tourist joint. Amravati
has two or more such spots (dry just now). And there are others in and around Nagpur.

This, in a region where villages have sometimes got water once in 15 days. And where an
ongoing farm crisis has seen the largest numbers of farmers' suicides in Maharashtra. "No
major project for either drinking water or irrigation has been completed in Vidharbha in
decades," says Nagpur-based journalist Jaideep Hardikar. He has covered the region for
years.

Mr. Singh insists the Fun & Food Village conserves water. "We use sophisticated filter
plants to reuse the same water." But evaporation levels are very high in this heat. And water
is not just used for sports. All the parks use massive amounts of it for maintaining their
gardens, on sanitation and for their clientele.

"It is a huge waste of water and money," says Vinayak Gaikwad in Buldhana. He is a farmer
and a Kisan Sabha leader in the district. That in the process, public resources are so often
used to boost private profit, angers Mr. Gaikwad. "They should instead be meeting people's
basic water needs."

Back in Bazargaon, sarpanch Yamunabai Uikey isn't impressed either. Not by the Fun &
Food Village. Nor by other industries that have taken a lot but given very little. "What is
there in all this for us," she wants to know. To get a standard government water project for
her village, the panchayat has to bear 10 per cent of its cost. That's around Rs.4.5 lakh.
"How can we afford the Rs.45,000? What is our condition?" So it's simply been handed
over to a contractor. This could see the project built. But it will mean more costs in the long
run and less control for a village of so many poor and landless people.

In the Park, Gandhi's portrait still smiles out of the office as we leave. Seemingly at the
`Snowdome' across the parking lot. An odd fate for the man who said: "Live simply, that
others might simply live."

Russian roulette in Vidharbha

Should farmers sow early? Or wait to be sure that the first rains aren't just temporary? Should
they borrow early, or wait until they are absolutely ready to sow, even if it means higher risks
later? P Sainath finds that in Vidharbha, farming itself is a great gamble, with many victims.

28 June 2005 - It is a kind of rural Russian roulette. Only there is more than one bullet aimed
at the player. Vidharbha's farmers are involved in a deadly gamble that concerns the
monsoon but goes far beyond it. No one is sowing till the last minute. Those who have
purchased seed are holding back. Many are yet to buy their inputs for the season. Some have
not even decided what they will sow. As Vijay Jawandia, a farmers' leader in Wardha, puts it:
"Most do not know till the day before whether they are cotton growers or soybean farmers."

The immediate gamble is on the rains. "Last year's pre-monsoon showers caused a lot of
confusion," says Yavatmal Collector Harshdeep Kamble. "So they are being extra cautious
this time. I am really worried about how the rains will work out."

Many farmers in 2004 sowed not once but three times in this region. Like Namdeo Bonde in
Kothuda village. "He sowed three times, you might even say four," says his brother
Pandurang. But the showers only misled him. "He got a little bit with the third sowing. But
the costs were killing. By his third try, input dealers were charging 50 per cent to 80 per cent
more. And then his crop failed." Sunk in debt, Bonde took his life last November.

"No one has sown a seed so far in this village of Durga-Vaidya," says Vinayak Gaikwad, a
farmer in Buldhana. Gaikwad, a kisan sabha leader, says: "Even when the rains come, people
might wait a bit longer to make sure." That is Gamble 2.

"Equally," says D.B. Naik farm activist in Bham in Yavatmal "if you buy and sow after the
first showers and the rains stop, you're finished." That is what drove Laxman Wankhede of
Ejani village to suicide last October.

Gamble 3: "Acting late gives you some flexibility," says Gaikwad. "You can decide at the
last moment what you will sow. If the rains are bad, you choose what needs less water."
With three failed sowings himself last year, he should know. "Also, by waiting you can
switch from `late' to `early' varieties of seed." `Late' varieties yield more but take much
longer, up to six months. `Early' types yield less but are out in under five months. When the
rains are late, farmers switch to the `early' type.

Loan burden

Gamble 4: "Buying inputs too early means your loan burden is higher," says Suresh
Deshmukh in Talegaon village, Yavatmal. "What if the rains come in July? A farmer buying
inputs in May pays interest for two extra months."

This is a big problem where perhaps 90 per cent of crop loans are from moneylenders. Their
interest rates vary from 60 per cent to 120 per cent per annum. Deshmukh's brother Ramesh
ended his life last year, crushed by his debt burden. This `flexibility', as many point out, can
be a forced one. "I have no money to buy the inputs," says Ranjana, widow of Ramesh
Deshmukh. "Who will offer us loans now?" Given her husband's fate, lenders see the family
as a high-risk client. "Also," says Suresh, "dealers first attend to cash-paying clients. Those
needing credit come much later."

Gamble 5: Those who have bought seeds are betting heavily on BT cotton. K.R. Zanzad,
quality control inspector at the Agricultural Office, Yavatmal, says: "Last year, 7,000 bags of
BT cotton varieties sold in this district. This year - so far - one lakh."

At around Rs.1,600-Rs.1,800 a bag of 450 grams, BT cotton costs three times or more what
non-BT cotton does. This raises cost per acre massively.

In Andhra Pradesh next door, BT cotton results have been disastrous. And approval has been
cancelled for some varieties. Yet Vidharbha could see 70 per cent or more of farmers opting
for BT in despair-driven hope. The risks are enormous.

Gamble 6: Buying inputs late could jack up prices as everyone scrambles for seeds and
fertilizer at the last moment. Unless, of course, the monsoon fails and there is no demand.
Just now, it seems prices will go up. There will also be a last minute rush for labour as all
seek it at the same time. Many small farmers work on the fields of others as well.

But with a late start, all will be tied down to their own plots. That means a rise in cost of
labour - and not getting it when you need it.

Moreover, the last minute rush for crop loans will push up already high interest rates. So
while holding back saves a month of interest, last minute credit comes at higher rates. The
banks play no role at all in this.

Gamble 7: Striking late deals could well force the farmer to sell his crop to the input dealer at
way below the minimum support price (MSP).

Last year, suicide victim Ramesh Deshmukh sold his cotton at Rs.1,600 a quintal. The MSP
for his type was Rs. 2,300.

Gamble 8: "If it rains well today, the farmer just has to buy seeds," says Sanjay Bhagat in
Mahagaon tehsil, Yavatmal. Bhagat, a veteran journalist, is also a director on the Agricultural
Produce Market Committee (APMC) here. "Those pushing an artificial shortage can then sell
at any price." This means many could end up buying spurious seeds. A fast emerging
problem in the region. Fake seeds have been linked to several farm suicides across the
country.

Gamble 9: Late sowing could also expose the crop to higher risks of disease and pest attack.
That again feeds into higher costs.

The great gamble

"The great gamble is farming itself," says Vijay Jawandia. "This is what policy has done to
the farmer. Be it on credit or support price." Some are cracking under the tension. Like young
Abhay Shamrao Chavan in Mulawa village, Yavatmal.
"The rains were just the last straw," says his brother Vasantrao. "He was in real despair about
credit. Yet if it had rained on June 12, he would have been here to tell you about it himself."

Suicides: The price of power?

Despite a strongly held belief to the contrary, Maharashtra's farmers have never demanded
free power. And the suicides in Vidharbha were certainly not linked to this issue. P Sainath
finds that the region is really paying the price of political power.

28 June 2005 - "Pumpset?" asks Suresh Deshmukh in Talegaon, Wardha. "My brother had
one he last used in 1991. It went dead then. There's no water anyway to pump. We still get
the minimum charge bill, though. The arrears are over Rs. 10,000." That is for a pumpset that
has not worked one hour in 14 years. When his brother committed suicide last year, his chief
concern was debt, not power.

Government's "sop"

In just two months after the then Maharashtra Chief Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde,
announced "free power" for the State's farmers in 2004, there were some 80 farmers' suicides
in the Vidharbha region. And that is from a very flawed accounting of the tragedy. The
deaths did not stop though the free power theme stayed on the Congress-Nationalist Congress
Party election manifesto in October.

Most of the farmers taking their lives never owned a pumpset and "free power" had no
meaning for them. Perhaps less than 10 per cent of Vidharbha's farmers own pumpsets at all.
And some of these were run on diesel, not electricity. However, rising prices placed diesel,
too, out of reach for many.

In the worst-hit district of Yavatmal, the largest number ever of farm suicides took place in
the 10-month period after "free power" came in. This year, Yavatmal saw 29 farm suicides
by May - before the agricultural season began. So power was not the trigger. And the deaths
have gone on since then too. If anything, there have been fewer after free power was stopped
by Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh in May. Which suggests there is no great link between
the suicides and free power.

"Free power has never been a demand of farmers in this State," points out Ashok Dhawale,
general secretary of the Maharashtra Kisan Sabha. "Not of the Kisan Sabha, nor of any other
farmers' bodies. However, both Sena-BJP and Congress-NCP governments have pushed this
as a major issue. In doing so, they are just hiding their own failures. They never addressed
the far more basic needs and concerns of the farmers. Credit, water, stable power, lower input
costs and fair prices."

Mr. Shinde announced his "sop" on August 4, 2004. The same day, four farmers took their
lives in Yavatmal, Akola, Akot and Amravati. "Even as he was speaking, people were killing
themselves," says Jaideep Hardikar, a Nagpur-based journalist. Mr. Hardikar has covered the
suicides for years. Mr. Shinde was acting quickly to counter Bal Thackeray's promise of free
power to farmers if the Shiv Sena won the polls.
Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh stopped "free power" for farmers on May 10. He said
the Shinde Government had given it "in view of drought and suicides by farmers" but things
had changed now. However, water problems have increased in the last year. And suicides
occurred in better irrigated parts of this region, too. Or in parts which got good rainfall.
Yavatmal, for instance, got over 900 mm in 2003. Yet it saw dozens of suicides that year.

Of the 10 households surveyed by The Hindu last week, four had seen suicides before
August 2004. That is, before the "free power" period. Another four suffered them after the
coming of free power. The last two occurred after its withdrawal. Of the 10 victims, nine
had not owned a pumpset anytime in the past three years. Three had owned 3 HP sets
between four and 10 years ago. Six households - like that of Prabhakar Khatale - had never
seen one. "It's pointless," says Vasantrao Chavan, in Mulawa village, Yavatmal. His nephew
Abhay Shamrao was the only one of the 10 suicide victims who owned a working pumpset
within the past three years. "There is no water. What will you pump?"

"The cotton federation's delays in paying our dues are a worse headache than power," says
Rameshwar Chardi. A farmer in Waifad village, Wardha, he points to the deadly cycle this
sets off. "They don't pay the dues, we can't feed our families. Without the money, we cannot
repay our loans. Without that, we won't get new loans. This means we're crippled in the next
season."

Besides, when farmers take their produce to the federation, it deducts bank dues from their
payments. In short, says Vijay Jawandia a farmer's leader in Wardha, "a body set up to aid
farmers serves as a loan recovery arm of the banks. Why should it?"

As Suresh Deshmukh points out: "Because of this, many don't take cotton to the federation.
So we have no choice but to sell to private traders."

Which means far lower prices. His brother had sold cotton at Rs.1,600 a quintal to traders.
That, when the minimum support price was Rs. 2,300. This sets off the whole debt cycle
again. Even now, the federation owes lakhs of farmers two instalments of dues. If paid, they
could buy inputs for the new season without turning to moneylenders.

Other reasons driving the crisis are the same as those in Andhra Pradesh or Kerala. Input
prices are rising and output prices crashing. Debt is soaring. "Not only is the cost of
production going up," says Vijay Jawandia, "so is the cost of living. Health, transport, all
other items. Globalisation and liberalisation have had a deadly impact. Earlier when
production failed, prices rose. Now, even when the crop fails, prices go down."

Collapse of rural credit

Rural credit has collapsed. "Interest rates are higher in this sector than any other. Even now,
if you buy a 3 HP motor, you end up paying 18 per cent interest. Contrast that with housing
loans or car loans." And, just when he needs it the most "the State has turned its back on the
farmer."

Yet free power became the talking point of the elections. Issues far more deadly have been
sidelined. For instance, the Congress-NCP manifesto spoke of an assured price for cotton of
Rs.2,700 a quintal. But this year's price is unlikely to exceed Rs.1,980. This means most
farmers face losses before they have sown the first seed. Nor has any assurance on irrigation
been fulfilled. The elections are over. But Vidharbha pays the price of power. Power of the
political kind.

As you sow, so shall you weep

With the rains finally here, spurious seeds and other fake inputs introduce a deadly new
element in the survival struggle of the Vidharbha farmer. Fake seeds from Andhra Pradesh
have come in on a large scale. P Sainath continues his series on Vidharbha's crisis.

30 June 2005 - There were 14 shops selling seed and other inputs in Mahagaon panchayat
samiti of Yavatmal district in Maharashtra just five years ago. "Today," says Sanjay Bhagat,
"there are over 50. And that's to cater to just 7,000 people." Bhagat is a Director of the local
Agriculture Produce Market Committee. He is also a long-time journalist of the region.
"Right now, the pressure on people to buy is awful. You can sell them anything."

The coming of the rains set off a desperate scramble for inputs over the weekend. "In
Yavatmal district as a whole," says B.M. Orke, "there are about 1,200 krishi kendras. You
might say the total has doubled over a ten-year period." Orke is the district superintending
agricultural officer.

To monitor this vast, chaotic network of shops, there is just one full-time quality control
inspector. "You can sell seed anywhere," says K.R. Zanzad. "Seed has no boundaries." Quite
true. Many brands have sprouted legs and raced across the Andhra Pradesh border. After a
crackdown on them in that State, shady sellers have shifted large stocks of fake inputs into
Vidharbha.

Some of the very brands reported by this newspaper as ripping people off in Andhra Pradesh
have found their way here. Our reports (The seeds of suicide: July 20 and 21, 2004) showed
packets of seed with the words "Germination Rate - 65 per cent" printed on them. The same
packets can be found here with a change. The words 65 per cent have been blacked out.
Beside them is a new figure - 75 per cent. The contents may not have changed, but the
numbers on the packet have. Some packets give no rate at all.

"We have noticed that," says Zanzad. "We have demanded lab reports and statements to see
how this was done. If we find something wrong, we will file cases against them." However,
by the time that happens, the purchase of inputs would long be over.

Problem of fake seed

Farmers face problems with both real and fake seed dealers. The bogus ones flood the
market. The others charge absurd rates. Some BT varieties come with a 70 per cent royalty
tagged on to them. And all prices have shot up in the past decade. Sometimes, the high price
of seed pushes farmers towards less costly brands which might be fakes.

"The headache with spurious seed is that you figure it out only a month or two after sowing,"
says Sanjay Bhagat. The racket has reached worrying proportions. "We have lodged FIRs in
some cases," says District Collector Harshdeep Kamble. "We find now that they are not
stocking these in the shops." Bhagat confirms that in Mahagaon. "The action is now away
from the shop." Though that's where the dealers trawl for clients. Large sellers feed the
smaller shops. "The sub-dealers have no idea where the big ones get their stocks from," says
Bhagat. The number of brands, names and claims is bewildering. Since both real and fake
stuff are on offer, chaos rules. For those deep in debt and wrecked by crop loss, fake inputs
are a nightmare. "Nothing is regulated anymore There is no control in the seed market,"
farmers in Waifad, Wardha told us at a meeting. In an era when input prices have soared,
fake items introduce a risk that can be fatal.

Namdeo Patil Bonde in Yavatmal suffered three crop failures before he took his own life
last November. "The input costs crushed him," says his brother Pandurang. And don't go by
the bills. "As prices go up, the bills go out. The bill for the BT seeds says Rs. 1,800. What
he paid was Rs. 2,200." He scoffs at all germination rate claims. "In my experience, most do
not exceed 50-60 per cent."

The profusion of shops does not make inputs cheaper. "The government pays less for
cotton," says Manoj Chandurvarkar in Waifad. "But, seed prices keep going up. As do those
of all other items." In 1991, he points out, "seed for an acre cost me Rs. 70-75. Now it costs
Rs. 1,000. If we use BT seeds, that cost is Rs. 3,200 or more." Farmers also scoff at the
government raids. "They're doing that more for Monsanto than for us. Where are the raids
on the non-BT fakes?" The four raids in Yavatmal have all been on dealers in illegal BT
cotton.

Meanwhile, sellers have made a killing. It makes sense to open an inputs store here. The
rule now is that a person with a diploma in agriculture can open one. "Earlier, anybody
could," says B.M. Orke. "A law was brought in to ensure only graduates in that field could.
But that has been challenged in court." "Earlier," he says, "90 per cent of the farmers used
domestic seeds. That had no cost at all. Now the demand for commercial seed has shot up."
Yet, it isn't just seed costs that are up. "Pesticides have seen the largest hikes," say the
farmers in Waifad. "We once spent as little as Rs.90 an acre. Now it ranges from Rs. 1,000
to Rs.3,000." Fertilizer prices have risen three-fold in the past 10 years. The few who have
pumpsets paid a lot more for power. From Rs. 900 a year for a 3-HP set, that rose to Rs.
4,500. Transport and labour costs are up. Loans carry much higher interest rates.

Lakhs of farmers face heavy losses. For those shifting from food to cash crops over the past
decade, the new costs are crippling. For Shankar Wankhede it all proved too much last week.
He took his own life in Mahagaon tehsil on June 20. Fake seeds today add a deadly new
element to the process. In Vidharbha, the old Biblical saying stands re-written. Now, for
farmers here, it is: as you sow, so shall you weep.

The farmer and his festival lights

The Ganesh festival is the most important event in Maharashtra. This season, farm distress
has hit the utsav badly in Vidharbha. Very few have money to spend. Meanwhile, farmers'
suicides there are going up. There has been one almost every 36 hours this year. P Sainath
continues his series on the region's crisis.

18 September 2005 - Akola & Yavatmal (Maharashtra): When seven-year old Ravi woke up
to find his father hanging from the roof, it was, for Sanglud, more than the death of a farmer.
Santosh Baltilak's suicide meant the end of the Ganesh festival in this Akola village. Sanglud
had up to seven Ganesh mandals each year till 2004. This year, there are none. In a state
where the Ganesh Utsav is simply the most important occasion, this is astonishing. Yet, the
trend is visible across Vidharbha region. Not only have the number of mandals decreased
sharply, collections for the event have plummeted.

The farm crisis has hit the Ganesh Utsav badly this year. Here, the once massive festival is a
very low key affair. For many, this is heart-breaking. The Utsav is not just a religious affair.
It is Vidharbha's central social event. "But who has the money?" asks Ranjit Kale, a farmer in
Sanglud.

As agrarian distress deepens, the number of farmers' suicides in Vidharbha is mounting.

There have been over 60 since June 2 this year despite decent rains. Yavatmal district alone
has seen as many as 22 suicides since June. Across the region, farm suicides moved past the
200 mark in less than nine months in 2005. That's more than one every 36 hours.

Even these numbers do not capture the extent of such deaths. The counting process stands too
corrupted. Yet, even a partial list for a single district is alarming. Officially, there have been
280 farm suicides in Yavatmal since 2001. Of which only 57 were found worthy of
compensation. The other families got nothing. Yavatmal may not be the worst. If its numbers
look bad, that is in part because the district has been somewhat more truthful. It has recorded
the deaths a little more honestly.

Meanwhile, soaring input costs, a severe credit crunch, falling cotton prices and the adverse
impact of policy measures take an ever mounting toll.

The collapse in purchasing power of farmers finds reflection in the subdued Ganesh Utsav.
Villages like Sanglud are also mourning the loss of well-loved residents like Santosh. His
father Sahebrao who owns four acres and had four sons would rotate his land. Each year,
one son would gain control of the four acres. The others worked as labourers till their turn
came.

This year it was Santosh's turn. The first sowing was destroyed by delayed rains. The
second by inputs of suspect quality. "He sold everything," says Ranjit Kale. Even his wife's
jewellery. "From that he raised Rs. 7,000 and went for a third sowing. This time, oilseeds."
That too, failed. "Most farmers are in the same state," says Kale. "Hence you see such a dull
Utsav."

"We've spent less than Rs. 2,000 for the whole event this year," says Sanjay Thakre in
Dahihanda village of the same district. "In past years, the lighting alone would cost over Rs.
12,000. This year we're using old materials. Old cloth for the decorations. And no lighting. I
was president of the Ganesh mandal here five years ago. I can see the difference."

This year, Sanjay is out of it. His brother Ganesh Thakre hanged himself in June. Ganesh,
one of five brothers, had been running the family's farm and looking after their parents. He
was the only one still in agriculture. Mounting expenses on inputs was one part of his
problem. A household plagued by ill health was hit by the rising costs of medical care. Deep
in debt, and with many of his gambles failing, Ganesh, named for the very deity that the
Utsav is held for, killed himself in despair.

In Pisgaon village in Yavatmal, Maruti Rasse ran his eight-acre farm against the odds. "He
had two sisters and had to get them married," says his uncle Chandrabhan Rasse. For two
years in a row, Maruti leased out all eight acres. With a novel twist. To sweeten the deal for
the lessee, he threw himself in as the main labourer on those eight acres. "This way, he got
his sisters married," says his uncle. Each wedding cost Rs. 1 lakh.

But even with the land back in his control, things didn't work. He now took on five acres
more on lease to raise his output. But Rasse was in trouble. The Cotton Federation, meant to
help farmers, pays them a minimum support price. "But it pays late and in instalments over
months," says Chandrabhan. And, as farmers here point out, "we can't eat in instalments." So
Rasse, and lakhs like him, sold their cotton to private traders. At well below the support price
of Rs. 2500. This meant a loss of thousands of rupees and further piled on the pressure. On
June 26, Rasse ended his life by swallowing pesticide.

For many, even a better crop this season may not help. "Cotton is the lifeblood of 30 lakh
mainly poor farmers in this state," says Vijay Jawandia, kisan leader and activist. "Yet it has
an import duty of just ten per cent. Till three years ago, it was only five per cent. So the
United States and other countries have dumped over 100 lakh bales of cotton on us between
1996 and 2002. The USA alone has subsidised its production by some four billion dollars.
Our farmers produce cotton at far lower cost and have increased output. But they are
smashed by these imports. Besides, unlike other products, cotton gets no export subsidy."

"Can you see much of Ganpati here?" asks Sanjay Thakre in Dahihanda. "In Mumbai and
Nagpur, maybe. Not in this place. Among marginal farmers, many people are now eating
once a day. No more."

In the temple town of Kalamb, famous as a centre of Ganesh worship, trade and tourism have
taken a beating. "Business is terribly down," says Chattrabhuj Karia, a shop owner here. "The
farmers are in deep trouble and that shows in our earnings too."

In Sanglud, they mark the memory of Santosh Baltilak. "He was devoted to Ganpati," says
Ranjit Kale. "Had he been alive, he'd be running around for the Utsav now."

Of chit funds and loan lotteries

Many farmers deep in debt are trying to find a way out through playing bhishi (chit funds).
Denied bank loans and desperate for credit to run their farms and for other needs, they take
huge risks. The results are usually tragic. P Sainath continues his series on Vidharbha's crisis.

18 September 2005 - Ganesh Bhimrao Thakre played bhishi and lost. He was juggling
multiple debts at the time. His seven-member household had cut back sharply on its diet. "It's
the same with so many farmers," says his wife Rekha. "We're at the point where if we take
our household wheat to the mill, we leave it there till we can pay the miller the tiny amount it
takes to grind the flour."
It also meant that Ganesh had no chance of raising the money to get his daughter Sushma, 23,
married. The three and a half acres he looked after for his family in Dahihanda village of
Akola district yielded little. The agrarian crisis gripping Vidharbha ensured that. Official data
suggest that by 2003 around 55 per cent of farm households in Maharashtra were in debt.
Perhaps double the number of a decade ago. Things are a lot worse in Vidharbha, where less
than 10 per cent of loans are from banks. The rest are from the sahucars or moneylenders. Or
from input dealers who are the "new sahucars." These kinds of loans have swelled in the last
two or three years.

"The interest rate here is Rs.5 per Rs.100 per month," says Gajanand Pandurang, a Home
Guard. That's 60 per cent. "And that is if you have something to mortgage. Otherwise it is
120 per cent yearly." No one in his village of Dahihanda knows how much Ganesh borrowed
from private lenders. But they do know he played bhishi.

Bhishi (which translates roughly as chit fund) is an activity countless farmers get into. Often
at disastrous cost. The system operates under different names in many parts of the country. It
is very visible for instance in neighbouring Telangana. How does it work? Each of 10 or
more players contributes a recurring sum to a common pool. Say Rs.1,000 a month. This
means a collection of Rs.10,000 a month or Rs.1 lakh in 10 months. Each player hopes to hit
the monthly jackpot.

Why get into it? There are several push factors. Here, many land in debt even after a
successful crop. "Firstly, after years of failure, people cannot repay their bank loans in full,"
points out Gajanand Pandurang, a Home Guard in Dahihanda. "If the crop succeeds and you
take it to the Cotton Federation, they cut your bank dues. [Which they should not since they
are a body to help farmers, not an arm of the banks.] Once that happens you cannot buy your
basic needs. So we go instead, as Ganesh did, to the sahucars."

This meant selling the crop at way below the minimum support price to be had at the Cotton
Federation. Ganesh sold cotton at Rs.1,500 a quintal when the support price was Rs.2,500.
"Nor will banks give you any new loans," points out Pandurang. In that crunch, the bhishi is
seen as a possible source of money.

One form of bhishi is to hold a `lottery' each month for the Rs.10,000 collected. Each
member drops a numbered chit into a box and the holder of the chit drawn from it takes the
booty.

The more common practice here is the `auction.' Two or three of the members get desperate
to have some money. They `bid' for the Rs.10,000. But the bidding is in reverse - the money
goes to the one who bids the lowest. So the man bidding Rs.6,000 is saying he is willing to
lose Rs.4,000. That sum he loses is divided amongst the remaining players. Yet he will have
to still pay his Rs.1,000 a month to the pool for the term of its existence. Usually 10 months
if there are 10 players.

Ganesh Thakre was desperate. He had already borrowed money to meet growing health
expenses. Rekha's eye operation had cost Rs.12,000. Sushma's bout of typhoid had set them
back by Rs.10,000. He had also lost Rs.25,000 on son Sunil's education when the boy had to
drop out of college.

It appears very likely that Thakre ended up borrowing money to play bhishi. In the rather
impossible hope that hitting the jackpot would solve his problems. Bhishi is not meant to
work for poor farmers in debt.

The better off ones who don't need to borrow from the pool profit from this system. In
theory, anyway. They keep up with their payments and get back their full amount when the
bhishi is closed. And they get some amount each month from the sums forfeited by bidders.

The debt trap

In practice, small farmers slide down a debt trap. They cannot keep up with the monthly
payments. So they might lose their principal and continue to owe money. Or they make
disastrously low bids (sometimes as low Rs.4,000. Which means they straightaway lose
Rs.6,000 or 60 per cent of the amount they are borrowing. Thirdly, they can be forced to
make low bids by insincere players who do not need to borrow the sum. They only make bids
to force the desperate one to go lower (which increases the profits of the others).

Lastly the fund manager is very often a crook. Thakre was a member of four bhishis at the
same time and was gypped in all of them. "He lost Rs.40,000 in these bhishis," says his
nephew Sanjay. It also seems likely that he ploughed into bhishi some of the money he took
from the sahucars.

Ganesh Thakre lost his money. Surely one factor in his suicide this June. His two young sons
run a tiny vegetable stall that could fold at any time.

Sushma remains unmarried. And wife Rekha hasn't a clue as to what she can do next. "The
officials did come after his suicide," she says. They promised government help. None has
arrived. Not a paisa in compensation for the family though the suicide is admitted as having
been debt-driven.

For farmers here, waiting for government help is a lot like playing bhishi. Only worse.

Mortgages are out, land grab is in

Farmers weighed down by debt are now falling prey to land grab by an array of predators
that includes talatis and school teachers. A "proper" deed of sale is the preferred method. P
Sainath continues his series on Vidharbha's crisis.

29 September 2005 - When Gulabrao Gawande found a village talati who had acquired 14
plots of farmland in a single day, he knew something was wrong. The talati is one of the
lowest links in the chain of the state. How a petty official like him could "buy" over 40 acres
of land worth millions of rupees in 24 hours was a mystery.

"He had simply stolen it from farmers in debt," Gawande, a former Minister, told us in Akola
district. "Now when you borrow money, you sign a deed saying you have 'sold' your land to
your creditor. This deed is authenticated at the district deputy registrar's (DDR) office. The
off-the-record deal is that when you repay your loan, your creditor tears up the document. In
fact, he does not. And you find you have been robbed of your land."

New deal

Mortgaging your land to tide over the credit crunch is passé. Land grab is the new deal for
farmers struggling in debt. And deeds of sale are the preferred route to land grab. This
process involves a whole range of predators, not just the usual suspects. Sure, the traditional
sahucars are there in strength. But so are talatis, panchayat employees, and even school
teachers (including one winner of a national award). Debt-driven despair has seen many
Vidharbha farmers trapped in such deals.

"Somewhere, there is this naïve belief that the creditor will tear up the sheet," says Gawande.
"And people like the talati are well suited for this game as he is a fellow with access to the
land records." But there's worse. "At least two murders have occurred in this Barshitakli
tehsil alone when people have tried getting back their land."

Like Santosh Sontake who lost both his land and his father as a result of this racket. His
father Gopal "mortgaged" three and a half acres in this fashion in Janunagaon village. "He
borrowed Rs.20,000," says Santosh. That from a school teacher who was also a big
landowner. "The land is worth about Rs. 5 lakhs. He bluffed my father into signing that deed
and even into staying with him for a while. When I made my father see what was going on,
the trouble began."

Gopal Sontake was murdered by hired killers. "And I was arrested," laughs Santosh. "The
effort was to frame me for killing my own father." However, the case collapsed when one of
the hired killers was caught. "He confessed he had taken Rs. 50,000 for the job." But the
sahucar is still free. And Santosh still needs to get that deed of sale scrapped. "I was paying
him two and a half times what my father borrowed. He refused it. Why would he accept Rs.
50,000 when the land he's stolen is worth Rs. 5 lakhs?"

"In just two or three tehsils, we have verified over 900 acres stolen in this fashion by some
20 sahucars," says Gawande. He insists it is only the tip of the iceberg. As the MLA from
this region - from the Shiv Sena - he has been flooded with petitions from over 200 farmers
who have been duped the same way. Even as he spoke to us, more farmers streamed in to
complain. "I have lost three and a half acres," says Kailash Wankhede of Savargaon Jire
village in Washim district. "My sahucar has done this to seven others like me."

"This kind of land loss is also a factor behind some of the farmers' suicides," says Gawande.
Like Ram Krishan Tharore who took his life in Paravbhavani village. Tharore even left a
note naming the sahucar who had done this to him. But the latter, a panchayat samiti
member, is out on bail. The villagers believe he paid the police a Rs.2 lakh bribe to wiggle
out.

Farm suicides in the troubled Vidharbha region have been mounting. In less than nine
months this year, their number has crossed 200. Most of them debt-driven. Farmers have
been hit by both skyrocketing input costs and the collapse of formal credit. Those who have
seen successive crop failures are the worst off. In no state to repay their bank dues, they
cannot get even the most modest crop loans. The Cotton Federation offers them little hope
despite a promised support price. "If we go the Federation," say the farmers, "they cut our
bank dues. And they pay us in instalments over a long time. How do we feed our children? In
instalments?"

Caught between a rock and a hard place, the farmers turn in despair to private money lenders.
This means selling their crop at way below the market rate. With hungry families they are
unable to feed, their debt burden sharpens. It also makes them easy prey for a number of
exploitative scams. Including this form of land grab.

"My brother was murdered," says Meera Jadhav of Janunagoan in Akola. Her father Motiram
had borrowed money from the same sahucar as Gopal Sontake. "He signed away two acres,
believing the sahucar was a man of his word. Then when he died, my brother took over." The
farming crisis was deep and "he parted with the rest of our land the same way. There was no
other means of raising money. Now all our five acres were gone." Soon after he began trying
to get his land back, her brother was murdered.

Strong-arm action by Gawande and his supporters saw the return of the land to her control.
Now the situation is odd. "The land is in my possession, but the deed is in the sahucar's
hands," she says. "This whole game feeds off farmers' distress," says Gawande. "Their
pathetic state is an invitation to such racketeering." He counts 138 acres that have been
returned to their owners after his intervention.

He has also raised the issue in the Maharashtra Assembly and says the Chief Minister did
respond. "Now there will be a committee in every district to whom such cases will go. This
includes the Collector, the SP and the deputy registrar. If their enquiry finds there was land
grab, the land transfer will be reversed." That won't be easy as those in charge of land records
at the ground level are themselves into the game in a big way. But it is a start. Just one that
comes too late for Gopal Sontake and Motiram Jadhav.

The riots and wrongs of caste

The Bhagwan Datta mandir in Belkhed, Akola, was built by Dalits when they were still
Hindus. It was ostensibly the focus of the fiery violence there earlier this month. The real
reasons? Caste, the decline of organised Dalit politics, the crisis in agriculture, and wage
conflicts - all played a role, writes P Sainath.

29 September 2005 - It's too small to be much of a temple. But at some 5 x 4 x 5 ft the
Bhagwan Datta mandir was big enough to figure in the caste violence that rocked Belkhed
village earlier this month. One in which over 20 houses in this Akola village's Dalit basti
were torched, destroying 15 and badly damaging the rest.

"They ransacked my house, then set it on fire," says a still traumatised Lilavati Bhatkar.
`They' refers to Belkhed's dominant community, the Malis. Raibai Gavai cries as she shows
us the rubble that was her house. Not only were the houses razed, property was looted or
destroyed too. For some, that meant everything they owned.
The Dalits here are impoverished agricultural labourers. Some of these tiny, ruined dwellings
housed 12 or more people. The over 150 families in the basti have homes bunched together,
often joined by common walls. The flames must have spread quickly.

"It was the Pola (worshipping of cattle) festival day," says Liladhar Bhatkar. We passed
several oxen that week, painted purple-pink for the occasion. "The Malis brought their cattle
to this mandir in a procession. They have never done that before. Some of them, badly drunk,
abused us. Then they stormed these houses in a big mob."

"They burned their own homes," a huge group of people speaking to us in the Mali basti
insists. Dinesh Deokar is a member of the Bhagwan Datta trust, which he claims owns the
mandir in the Dalit basti. "We've been there before but this had never happened. They stoned
and attacked us. They even tried to damage the Ambedkar statue in front of the mandir and
blame it on us."

A temple in a Buddhist basti? Caste Hindus amongst its trustees? A mandir on Dalit turf that
caste Hindus would visit? An Ambedkar statue next to it? Attacks on Dalits in Akola - a
Dalit stronghold? It's as complex as it gets. Belkhed is where a past of deep oppression meets
a present full of risk and contradictions.

Belkhed itself has no history of open caste violence. Yet, its balance is a fragile one. The
Malis are landowners. The Dalits, landless workers. Wages are dismally low. Male Dalit
workers get Rs.30 and the women just Rs.20 a day. With agriculture crashing across the
region, the Mali farmers, too, are in decline. That process and its class tensions, too, get
reflected in caste animosity towards the workers.

The mandir was built by the Dalits when they were still Hindus. That is, before 1956, when
they followed Dr. Ambedkar into Buddhism. It, however, stayed on their soil. And this did
not matter much. Caste Hindus mostly avoided their basti. Only Hindu Dalits who had not
converted would go there. And that was that.

The decades after 1956 saw the rise of a new politics in Vidharbha. More so in Akola. "This
region saw a strong political assertion amongst Dalits," says Madhu Jadhav a veteran
journalist in Akola. "Their organised strength posed a challenge to the land-owning Patils of
different castes." The Dalits of Belkhed, amongst others, shook off the chains of a past of
unspeakable misery. They were still very poor. But the worst excesses of landlord cruelty
could now be fought off. Untouchability did not vanish. But it was pushed back. There were
even a few inter-caste marriages. And some land struggles. These were a confident people.

Akola emerged a strong Dalit political centre. Republican Party of India candidates for this
Lok Sabha seat crossed the 40 per cent voting mark in the late 1960s. Some Assembly seats
here have often been held by the RPI and even by Prakash Ambedkar after he broke away to
form the Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha. Dalits over these decades had found their dignity and
a firm voice.

So much so that even non-Dalit parties often ran Dalit candidates in elections. The zilla
parishad chairman has been, more than once, a Dalit from the BJP or Shiv Sena. Dalit-led
parties too, put up Mali candidates. In short, a pragmatic sharing of political space. This
underlay Prakash Ambedkar's move for a grouping across caste lines that included the Malis.
It came to be called the "Akola Pattern" and even worked for a while. However, while caste
tensions were played down, they were far from eliminated.

The past decade saw setbacks. Like much of the country, the region saw an aggressive right-
wing Hindu assertion. And a decline of organised Dalit politics as the RPI and others
splintered in factional wars. The Akola pattern frayed. Prakash Ambedkar's defeat in the last
Lok Sabha poll also mirrored these realities. In this milieu, the remnants of an ugly past have
re-surfaced. Add to this the crisis in agriculture and sharpening wage conflicts. There could
be other Belkheds as landowners try shifting their problems on to the backs of already poor
workers.

House rebuilding has begun. But Belkhed's Dalits remain vulnerable. "We can't sleep safely
at night," says Chandrakala Ingle in the basti. "What's worse, they are boycotting our labour.
This trouble over the mandir is hurtful."

Other angles

The fuss over the mandir has other angles, though. The tiny structure sits on 534 square feet
of land. And more space adjoins it. All of this is within the Dalit basti and is right on the
vital road leading in and out of Belkhed. At least one better-off Mali landlord views that as
prime real estate. "Basically three or four people on either side had a dispute over this land,"
says Superintendent of Police S.D. Waghmere. "They managed to convert that into a wider
conflict." The police also arrested 44 persons who are now out on bail.

In the Mali basti they complain of police brutality. They show us the doors police broke
down to drag out suspects late at night. And women in shock from that raid. "Some 200
people have fled the village," they say. However, when police first entered the basti, they
were attacked by the Malis. It was after this that the police cracked down. And policemen,
too are in the Akola hospital, lying alongside the injured Dalits and Malis.

Some suffered from just being caught in the crossfire. Among the arrested was the village's
main shepherd whose tribal family assures us they have no stake at all in the conflict. "See
the result," says Suman, wife of Mahadeo Sishir. "The livestock of the village lay untended
for days."

At the end of the day, there is no doubt about who the victims were. The Dalit houses
burned down by the Malis write their own evidence. The claim that they did it themselves is
a fiction reeking of caste prejudice.

Police action, not Dalit violence, brought damage to the Mali basti. No Dalit in Belkhed
attacked anyone's house or property.

The labour boycott hits the Dalits hardest of all, leaving them hungry for days. Yet, with
agriculture crumbling, the Malis, too, are in trouble. Using outside labour raises costs. Wage
tensions can only grow. As the old Akola pattern erodes, other political forces fish in
troubled waters. No one knows how chapter two in Belkhed will read. But the poor of the
village pray for a happy ending.

Chor Bt aur Bt chor

Fake and costly inputs have placed lakhs of farmers in grave danger. Further, despair has led
many to embrace costly Bt cotton as some kind of magic bullet. Meanwhile, Bt cotton has
not only been attacked by other pests, it's been struck by the bollworm itself. For many, the
results could be deadly, writes P Sainath.

29 September 2005 - What does it take to be a seller of seeds in Maharashtra? A diploma in

agriculture? Or one in engineering? What skills do you require?

"Only one," smiles K.K. Milmile. "You need to know how to count the money that comes
in." Milmile is one of the biggest input dealers in Yavatmal district. And he worries about the
fake inputs plaguing the farm community in this cotton territory. Quite a few suicides are
linked to the damage these have done. The ongoing season could see many farms in
Maharashtra's Vidharbha region sunk by this problem alone.

"Maybe 90,000 packets of legal Bt cotton have sold in Yavatmal this season," says Milmile.
But here's the catch. "About 2.5 lakh packets of 'illegal' Bt seed have also been sold. What
damage will these do? It's scary."

No less scary, though, is the 'legal' Bt cotton seed itself. In Andhra Pradesh approval for three
varieties of Bt cotton seeds has been withdrawn following disasters there. Here, bloated
claims of performance have sold many packets but ground realities are grim. "Here," says
Suresh Bolenwar in Hiwrabarsa, gifting us a bollworm from a plant in his field right in front
of us. "This is 'legal' Bt for you. It needs spraying for pests other than the bollworm - and
now for the bollworm itself." Major newspapers in Vidharbha have begun reporting more
bollworm attacks on Bt cotton in the region.

Bolenwar says some farmers have done better with 'illegal' Bt cotton . In Wardha, kisan
leader and farm activist Vijay Jawandia scoffs at the term 'illegal.' He calls it "non-royalty
Bt." "All it means is that Monsanto and other companies won't get Rs.1,250 in royalty on
each packet. That is how much they extort from the farmer. Both types of Bt are equally
risky, anyway," he laughs.

He has a point. If `legal' Bt cotton could shatter Bolenwar's large holding, 'fake' Bt cotton (or
'chor Bt' as people here call it) killed small farmer Ramkishan Thakre. The packet of seed
that he used bears the brand name "SUNNY" on it. It bears no manufacturer's name or
address. "BesT Cotton seeds" says the packet, emphasising the 'B' and 'T' in 'Best' - to pass it
off as Bt.

This is the "non-royalty Bt" mainly from Gujarat. It sells at Rs.850 a packet (against
Rs.1,600-plus for 'legal' Bt cotton and Rs.450 a packet for hybrid cotton seed). It is sold by
"direct marketing" in the villages. Often through local creditors enjoying leverage with the
farmers.
Equal numbers are at risk from 'legal' Bt cotton. Many are buying into false claims of yields
between 12-18 quintals per acre. "There is no evidence they will get even seven quintals per
acre," says Jawandia. "Very often Bt's own literature shows us how false the advertisements
for it are."

Besides, sowing Bt cotton could cost a farmer Rs. 3,000 to Rs. 4,000 more per acre than
hybrid cotton would. The seeds are three times costlier. It means far higher spending on
irrigation and fertilizer. And, as Bolenwar shows, it still needs spraying. The fiasco in
Andhra Pradesh supports his finding. And also trashes Bt's major claim - which is less
spending on pesticide. So the 'profit' it brings to the small farmer is highly suspect.

Another major worry is that very few Bt fields show the "buffer zone" that is supposed to
surround Bt cotton. That is, a border of non-Bt crop. That buffer is meant to ensure the pest
takes longer to develop a resistance to Bt cotton.

Its absence could devastate both Bt cotton and next door non-Bt crops, say farmers here.
They fear this could see the rise of a "super pest."

Explosive issue

But Bt cotton or not, the larger issue of spurious inputs is explosive. Fake stuff exists in
fertilizer and pesticide as it does in seed. And the scale of it is massive. So-called legal
producers have been behind some of the fake inputs.

Yavatmal has some 1,200 krishi kendras today. That is double the number a decade ago. It
has just one quality control inspector for the whole district. Most shop owners have no
qualifications for their role. But as Collector Harshdeep Kamble points out, quite
reasonably, a diploma-holding input dealer could be as bad as the others. "If his intent is
wrong, there will be damage," he says.

At that level, this is true. The fact, though, is that the scuttling of larger regulatory structures
in agriculture has brought immense harm.

"Private seed companies," points out Jawandia, have been given "a free hand in the name of
research cotton. There are no regulations, no scrutiny. Agricultural universities put out no
more than 3-4 varieties in 10 years. Then how do these companies bring twenty varieties to
the market in ten years? Because that's where they are doing their testing. On the lives of the
farmers. Using them as guinea pigs in experiments that could destroy millions."

With the banks turning down lakhs of farmers seeking crop loans, many turn to their inputs
dealer as the new moneylender. Ramkishan Thakre had bought his bogus seed from his
creditor. "I'm ashamed to say that our trade has got so linked with sahucari," says Milmille in
Yavatmal. This creditor-debtor equation lets the new sahucar do more than extort money
from his clients. He can also sell them those inputs he wants them to use.

Today, lakhs of farmers use large quantities of inputs of very suspect quality - both legal and
illegal. Despair has seen tens of thousands embrace Bt cotton as a magic bullet. Many of
these own non-irrigated lands with little acreage to experiment on. So for a lot of them, it is a
disaster waiting to happen.

The sale of non-Bt cotton seeds has fallen sharply, says Sunil Pawde, a dealer in
Panderkauda. From about 15 lakh packets last year to five lakh this year. This means that
both legal and non-royalty Bt cotton account for about a third of all sales. If the giant drama
now underway ends in tragedy, the phrase "Chor Bt" could well be replaced by "Bt chor."

Vidharbha awaits a deadly harvest

In the three days the National Commission on Farmers team toured Vidharbha, there were six
suicides. In Panderkauda, the body of the latest farmer to take his life entered that town's
hospital the same day the team arrived there for a meeting on farmer distress. P Sainath
continues his series on Vidharbha's crisis.

31 October 2005 - Vidharbha sits on a volcano. An agrarian one. Official data given to the
National Commission on Farmers (NCF) shows that Yavatmal district alone has seen well
over 300 farmers' suicides since 2001. The figures indicate suicides in the district have
doubled almost every year in that period. Not that Yavatmal is the worst. It has just been
relatively more honest in counting this terrible loss of lives.

Yet, like everywhere else, these data exclude large numbers of such deaths by using a highly
flawed definition of `farmer.' For instance, if the main cultivator of a household kills himself,
but the land is in his aged father's name, this is not counted as "a farmer's suicide."

Meanwhile, unless the government announces a hike in the prices being offered for cotton,
the period from November to January could see a huge rise in even these dismal numbers.
And Yavatmal is just one of several districts in the region gripped by crisis.

Typically, the Cotton Federation here adds around Rs.500 as advance bonus to the minimum
support prices (MSP) offered by the Centre. Thus if the MSP for major varieties was roughly
Rs.1700, the price offered to the farmer was Rs.2250. This year, there will be no advance
bonus. It has been withdrawn. Which means - and most farmers do not know this yet - that
Rs.1700 is all they will get. A straight Rs.550 drop. This works out to below the cost of
production and would cripple lakhs already mired in debt.

Rs.1700 a quintal is a price farmers were last stuck with in 1994 - eleven years ago. A period
in which the cost of every single input has shot up many times over.

"We have hundreds taking their lives at the price of Rs.2250," says farmers' leader Vijay
Jawandia. "How many suicides there will be at Rs. 1700?" A team of the NCF, led by Dr. M.
S. Swaminathan, toured this region for three days. It has issued an appeal for a higher price
for cotton. And for linking MSP "with the wholesale price index (WPI). As is done in the
case of salaries and allowances of government employees."

Catch-22 situation

The NCF's appeal is vital and urgent. For Vidharbha is in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-
you-don't trap. A bumper harvest could further depress prices. More so since millions of
bales of cotton already lie in stock. With the United States alone subsidising its 25,000 cotton
producers to the tune of $ 3.9 billion a year, world prices are already at a low.

On the other hand, a failed crop would wipe out farmers who have borne their highest input
costs ever. Bt cotton area has increased 30 per cent. Which implies even greater input costs.
And some of them have sown two, even three times in the same season after being hit by
crop failure. With Diwali around the corner and prices tumbling, distress sales will begin
soon. Maybe at prices as low as Rs.1,400 a quintal.

In the three days the NCF team toured Vidharbha, there were six suicides. In Panderkauda,
the body of the latest farmer to take his life entered that town's hospital the same day the
team arrived there for a meeting on farmer distress.

The NCF team was deeply moved by its experience and called for urgently needed
measures. For instance, the Commission has bluntly stated: "Without a huge infusion of
credit, there is no hope."

Some of team's village visits were a revelation. Asked by the State Minister for agriculture,
who accompanied the team, why they did not try selling milk, farmers scoffed: "Milk is
selling at Rs.9 a litre while Bisleri goes for Rs.12 a litre. Is that any price? And there's a
huge fodder shortage here, anyway." That shortage has followed the decline in Vidharbha of
jowar - a source of fodder in this un-irrigated land.

One suicide-hit household the team visited, that of Maruti Rasse in Pisgaon, got
compensation 72 hours before their arrival. The tragedy had occurred months ago. But
official help showed up the minute the household appeared on the team's itinerary.

"I asked my friend, a banker, for a loan," one farmer told the NCF at a public meeting in
Waifad village of Wardha district. "My friend said, sure, but not as a farmer. That way you
get nothing. Start some enterprise like a shop selling seeds and I'll give you a loan. I did and
I got a loan of Rs.2 lakhs. The shop failed. I am not cut out for business. Now I was in
worse trouble. I told my friend I could not repay. He said that was no problem. Pay
Rs.25,000 and we'll cover up the rest of it in some other losses. I did what he said and it
worked."

"That is the difference between seeking a loan as a farmer and asking for it as someone from
commerce or industry." The team also listened to farmers who had mortgaged several acres
of land to pay their health bills. The collapse of the public health system had placed them at
the mercy of predatory private hospitals.

Some of the government-organised visits for the team were strongly criticised by leading
sections of the Marathi press like Sakaal. A few meetings were not announced at all, or had
their venues changed at the last moment. So many who wanted to attend them could not do
so. Yet, even these events proved embarrassing. One of them was wound up with alacrity
after farmers challenged some tutored speakers as agents and brokers of the Bt seed
companies.
The NCF has called for a "Centre-State Contributory Price Stabilisation Fund." For linking
MSP to the WPI. For a huge infusion of credit. For the Cotton Federation to pay farmers at
one time and not in instalments (Many are yet to get their dues for last year's produce.) They
have also called for a hike in import duties on cotton and for checking the dumping of
subsidised cotton on the Indian market to prevent distress sales. It has importantly suggested
that the price of cotton should reflect "what the international price would be if these price-
distorting subsidies [of the U.S. / EU] were not there."

Without swift action on these measures, the November-January period could bring Vidharbha
its most deadly harvest yet.

Shamrao Khatale breaks his appointment

The National Commission on Farmers team, the public at large, and even sections of the
media have signalled the crisis, its causes and its appalling human toll. Failure to intervene in
Vidharbha now has no excuses at all. P Sainath continues his series on Vidharbha's crisis.

31 October 2005 - Shamrao Khatale died just a day before the National Commission on
Farmers team arrived at his house in Ashti. A cavalcade of cars cruised into this Wardha
village to meet his wife - but she has lost her sanity. Just like one of her sons did last year.
Another son, Prabhakar, committed suicide in 2004. Shamrao's wife is yet to grasp that her
husband is dead. She has withdrawn into a private world where none of this has happened.
Those who can speak are her daughter Ganga, unmarried at 31 because of the family's
bankruptcy during the farm crisis. And yet another son who has returned jobless from
Amravati.

Shamrao and his wife, both quite ill, stopped taking medicines for a year. "Who can afford
doctors?" Shamrao had asked me in June. "Not us. It's all too costly. And how do we buy
medicines?" (See: Health as someone else's wealth, The Hindu, July 1, 2005.) Not different
from 21 per cent of all Indians who have stopped seeking medical aid because they cannot
afford it. And Prabhakar who took his own life was not much different from hundreds of
farmers who have done the same in crisis-ridden Vidharbha.

But Shamrao's house was special. Quite a few political leaders of some fame had visited in
the past year. Among them, Narayan Rane, Pramod Mahajan, Uddhav Thackeray, Gopinath
Munde, and Nitin Gadkari. As one of the neighbours asked: "If all these netas could not save
this one man, imagine the fate of the thousands of Vidharbha farmers visited by nobody."
Oddly, Shamrao's family could be said to have received better treatment than the others.

No compensation paid

Under the fraudulent rules by which a suicide is deemed to be a "farmer's suicide," no

compensation was due to him for Prabhakar's death in 2004. The family's six acres were in
Shamrao's name. Which lets the Government say Prabhakar was not a farmer - where's the
land in his name? However, Sonia Gandhi's trip to Vidharbha at that time ensured the family
got Rs.1 lakh. Of this, Rs.30,000 came in cash and vanished in debt payments. The rest went
into a fixed deposit that gave them less than Rs.450 a month in interest. On this, four persons
lived till Shamrao's death last week. Every paisa went for food. Medicines were out of the
question.

The news of his death did not put the NCF team members off their visit. They went anyway.
For this was a household capturing many facets of the farmers' crisis under one roof. Soaring
debt. Farming wrecked by high input costs and low output prices. No access to bank loans.
Dependence on money-lenders. An unmarried daughter. Hit by rising prices on all fronts,
including health. In short, destroyed by the predatory commercialisation of the countryside.

Even as the team drove into Ashti, locals pointed out that there had been three farmers'
deaths in the same lane. The Sakaal correspondent here says the total for the block is eight.
The surviving son of one of these, Amol Digambar, met NCF chairman M.S. Swaminathan,
who led the team to Vidharbha for a three-day fact-finding visit.

The only visit to a suicide-hit household that the Government set up for the team came the
next day. The dead farmer had seven acres. And his widow is back in her father's place.
Which is where the team met her. Between them, members of her father's family own
hundreds of acres. So, of countless affected families in Vidharbha, this was probably chosen
because the house seemed in such fine shape. (Yet, as her uncle, a large landowner, told me,
"even for us this is a period of big risk.")

Bandargaon in Yavatmal gave the team a taste of how poor Adivasi farmers in Vidharbha
live. That the first few houses at the village's entrance had been hastily painted that morning
for the team's visit made the contrasts starker. The painted houses seemed alien in a
miserable village cloaked in near total darkness. Few here have used electricity in a long
time. The main source of illumination for the meeting was the bracket light of a video
camera with the journalists present. Being the only glow in a large area, it drew swarms of
moths and insects that the visitors sat picking out of their faces and shirts.

"I can't let my daughters go to school," said Yashoda, whose husband Ratilal Rathor
committed suicide in August. There is no school going beyond the 4th standard within
access. And her very young girls are both working for Rs.20 a day - when they get work.
Together with the Rs.30 Yashoda gets for the same labour, that is the money which keeps
the household going. Rathor had killed himself, distraught over crop failure, falling income
and rising debt.

The excitement over Bt cotton is pretty much punctured. But the deed is done. For months it
was vigorously promoted by Ministers, (hired) film stars, officials, and even sections of the
media.

Also, brands banned in Andhra Pradesh are freely available here. So lots of farmers have
invested in it at huge cost. The very farmers held up as its success stories are in deep trouble
now. For many banking on it, a disaster seems in the offing.

The collapse of rural credit, soaring input costs and falling output prices were themes
greeting the NCF team everywhere. "Don't measure progress in terms of production in
tonnes," urged Dr. Swaminathan. "Measure it in the rate of growth of farmers' incomes." By
which yardstick, much of Vidharbha is a disaster zone.
In Nagpur, the NCF team, of Y.C. Nanda, Atul Sinha, and Dr. Swaminathan called for
control to be exercised "over racketeering in trade and distress." They also urged the
Government to intervene "far more strongly in this sector." They termed the crisis as one
calling for urgent measures to ensure the farmers a better price, easier credit and higher
income.

Farm community exhausted

Vidharbha's farm community stands exhausted. There has been a suicide by a farmer every
12 hours while the team was in the region. There have been many more since they left. The
toll has been mounting since June. There were 29 reported since just September 26 and the
pace has quickened this month. Diwali is going much the way the Ganesh Utsav did. It has
brought little or no celebration to the villages. None at all to the house of Shamrao Khatale.

Vidharbha awaits a deadly harvest

In the three days the National Commission on Farmers team toured Vidharbha, there were six
suicides. In Panderkauda, the body of the latest farmer to take his life entered that town's
hospital the same day the team arrived there for a meeting on farmer distress. P Sainath
continues his series on Vidharbha's crisis.

31 October 2005 - Vidharbha sits on a volcano. An agrarian one. Official data given to the
National Commission on Farmers (NCF) shows that Yavatmal district alone has seen well
over 300 farmers' suicides since 2001. The figures indicate suicides in the district have
doubled almost every year in that period. Not that Yavatmal is the worst. It has just been
relatively more honest in counting this terrible loss of lives.

Yet, like everywhere else, these data exclude large numbers of such deaths by using a highly
flawed definition of `farmer.' For instance, if the main cultivator of a household kills himself,
but the land is in his aged father's name, this is not counted as "a farmer's suicide."

Meanwhile, unless the government announces a hike in the prices being offered for cotton,
the period from November to January could see a huge rise in even these dismal numbers.
And Yavatmal is just one of several districts in the region gripped by crisis.

Typically, the Cotton Federation here adds around Rs.500 as advance bonus to the minimum
support prices (MSP) offered by the Centre. Thus if the MSP for major varieties was roughly
Rs.1700, the price offered to the farmer was Rs.2250. This year, there will be no advance
bonus. It has been withdrawn. Which means - and most farmers do not know this yet - that
Rs.1700 is all they will get. A straight Rs.550 drop. This works out to below the cost of
production and would cripple lakhs already mired in debt.

Rs.1700 a quintal is a price farmers were last stuck with in 1994 - eleven years ago. A period
in which the cost of every single input has shot up many times over.

"We have hundreds taking their lives at the price of Rs.2250," says farmers' leader Vijay
Jawandia. "How many suicides there will be at Rs. 1700?" A team of the NCF, led by Dr. M.
S. Swaminathan, toured this region for three days. It has issued an appeal for a higher price
for cotton. And for linking MSP "with the wholesale price index (WPI). As is done in the
case of salaries and allowances of government employees."

Catch-22 situation

The NCF's appeal is vital and urgent. For Vidharbha is in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-
you-don't trap. A bumper harvest could further depress prices. More so since millions of
bales of cotton already lie in stock. With the United States alone subsidising its 25,000 cotton
producers to the tune of $ 3.9 billion a year, world prices are already at a low.

On the other hand, a failed crop would wipe out farmers who have borne their highest input
costs ever. Bt cotton area has increased 30 per cent. Which implies even greater input costs.
And some of them have sown two, even three times in the same season after being hit by
crop failure. With Diwali around the corner and prices tumbling, distress sales will begin
soon. Maybe at prices as low as Rs.1,400 a quintal.

In the three days the NCF team toured Vidharbha, there were six suicides. In Panderkauda,
the body of the latest farmer to take his life entered that town's hospital the same day the
team arrived there for a meeting on farmer distress.

The NCF team was deeply moved by its experience and called for urgently needed
measures. For instance, the Commission has bluntly stated: "Without a huge infusion of
credit, there is no hope."

Some of team's village visits were a revelation. Asked by the State Minister for agriculture,
who accompanied the team, why they did not try selling milk, farmers scoffed: "Milk is
selling at Rs.9 a litre while Bisleri goes for Rs.12 a litre. Is that any price? And there's a
huge fodder shortage here, anyway." That shortage has followed the decline in Vidharbha of
jowar - a source of fodder in this un-irrigated land.

One suicide-hit household the team visited, that of Maruti Rasse in Pisgaon, got
compensation 72 hours before their arrival. The tragedy had occurred months ago. But
official help showed up the minute the household appeared on the team's itinerary.

"I asked my friend, a banker, for a loan," one farmer told the NCF at a public meeting in
Waifad village of Wardha district. "My friend said, sure, but not as a farmer. That way you
get nothing. Start some enterprise like a shop selling seeds and I'll give you a loan. I did and
I got a loan of Rs.2 lakhs. The shop failed. I am not cut out for business. Now I was in
worse trouble. I told my friend I could not repay. He said that was no problem. Pay
Rs.25,000 and we'll cover up the rest of it in some other losses. I did what he said and it
worked."

"That is the difference between seeking a loan as a farmer and asking for it as someone from
commerce or industry." The team also listened to farmers who had mortgaged several acres
of land to pay their health bills. The collapse of the public health system had placed them at
the mercy of predatory private hospitals.
Some of the government-organised visits for the team were strongly criticised by leading
sections of the Marathi press like Sakaal. A few meetings were not announced at all, or had
their venues changed at the last moment. So many who wanted to attend them could not do
so. Yet, even these events proved embarrassing. One of them was wound up with alacrity
after farmers challenged some tutored speakers as agents and brokers of the Bt seed
companies.

The NCF has called for a "Centre-State Contributory Price Stabilisation Fund." For linking
MSP to the WPI. For a huge infusion of credit. For the Cotton Federation to pay farmers at
one time and not in instalments (Many are yet to get their dues for last year's produce.) They
have also called for a hike in import duties on cotton and for checking the dumping of
subsidised cotton on the Indian market to prevent distress sales. It has importantly suggested
that the price of cotton should reflect "what the international price would be if these price-
distorting subsidies [of the U.S. / EU] were not there."

Without swift action on these measures, the November-January period could bring Vidharbha
its most deadly harvest yet.

Cry, the beloved countryside

The agrarian crisis in Vidarbha has spun almost out of control. Appeals for swift measures by
many have fallen on deaf ears. The farm suicides are the tip of the huge crisis raging here,
not its whole. They are, though, its most powerful symbol, writes P Sainath.

14 December 2005 - For heartless cynicism, the Government of Maharashtra is hard to beat.
The agrarian crisis in Vidarbha has spun almost out of control. Appeals for swift measures by
many have fallen on deaf ears. Calls for remedies by the National Commission on Farmers
have been ignored. Farm suicides are on the rise. Sometimes there are two or three in a day.
None of this was unforeseen. In fact, it was expected.

Many inquiries have been held. Some set up by a government that hopes at least one will
yield a friendly finding. That has not happened. The latest such study by the Indira Gandhi
Institute for Development Research further damages the Deshmukh outfit. So did one by the
Tata Institute of Social Sciences (done at the behest of the Bombay High Court) in March
this year. Both point to big, policy-driven failures.

Vidarbha's mainly cotton farmers have been hit by rising input costs and the crash of output
prices. They have also been ruined by the collapse of rural credit. The banks will simply not
help them. So they turn to moneylenders. While 58 per cent of all farm households in the
State are in debt, it's a lot worse in Vidarbha. Here, close to 90 per cent of short-term credit
needs are met by private loan sharks. Meanwhile, farmers have also been crushed by fake
seed dealers. Mindless de-regulation has crippled the sector.

The farm suicides are the tip of the huge crisis raging here, not its whole. They are, though,
its most powerful symbol. The Maharashtra Government has given out three divergent
figures on the deaths. It told the National Human Rights Commission that 140 farmers in the
whole State had taken their lives. This was during 2001-04. These deaths, it said, were debt-
driven. (Indian Express, July 7, 2005.) A little later, it shifted ground. In a note this year, it
hiked the number to 524 for the same period. Yet, this October, it told the National
Commission on Farmers (NCF) something startling. Well over 300 suicides had occurred in
Yavatmal alone between 2001 and September this year. That is, in just one of Vidarbha's 11
districts.

The same data show that farm suicides in Yavatmal have doubled almost every year in that
period. There's more. Just 11 of the 307 families who lost a loved one this way got any
compensation at all. Since the day the NCF team arrived in Nagpur on October 18, there have
been 60 more suicides in Vidarbha. As many as 32 of them in Yavatmal alone. A worried
NCF made vital recommendations for relief. These have mostly been ignored by the State.

The crisis captures the decay of the political class in Vidarbha. No MP or MLA tried to even
meet the NCF team led by Dr. M.S. Swaminathan. This, although the team had in tow the
young Rana Patil, Maharashtra's Minister of State for Agriculture. It gets worse. The MLAs
from the districts most affected are mainly from the Shiv Sena and the BJP. Why help your
rivals?

Meanwhile, the advance bonus normally paid to cotton farmers has been scrapped. This
amount of roughly Rs.500 used to be added on to the minimum support price for cotton
declared by the Centre. The State admits it costs around Rs.2200 to produce a quintal of
cotton. Yet the scrapping of the advance bonus means farmers will get Rs.1700 a quintal. A
price last seen in 1994. The Maharashtra Cotton Federation is a mess. This year, the
Federation had its first elections in living memory. That too, an indirect one. Since 1972,
this body set up for kisans, has never had a ballot where farmers could vote directly. Those
who grow cotton have little say in its running. And none at all in the shaping of larger
policy.

Huge delays in paying farmers their dues (on the cotton it had procured) was just one
failure. The Federation made things worse by paying them in instalments. Making their
need for quick cash much sharper. It also increased their burden by cutting bank dues from
their earnings. So more and more farmers turned away from the body towards
moneylenders.

New sahucars

About the only action the Government has taken after the NCF's visit is a crackdown on
moneylenders. Very good. But here's the problem. One, the new sahucars, the powerful
input dealers, are barely touched. They are not seen in the village, anyway. The small-time
village lender is. And he is taking the heat. Ending harassment is right and deserves support.
But it comes at a time when the formal credit system has packed up. Thus the banks won't
give the farmer money. And the little lender is afraid to. So even weddings and funerals are
held up.

Meanwhile, the State Government has helped boost private traders. Those who exploit this
mess to lift the farmer's produce at rock bottom prices. Their parallel markets can now
function openly. Also, the State has never pushed the Centre to stop the dumping of highly
subsidised cotton from the rich nations. Giant subsidies by the United States to its producers
have killed the price of cotton. The duty on cotton imports is just 10 per cent. On sugar -
affecting western Maharashtra - it is 60 per cent.
Meanwhile, few other governments have brought in so many anti-poor measures. The Prime
Minister's distaste for the two-child norm means nothing to his party in Maharashtra. Here,
the State passed an Act that will make irrigation water charges one and a half times costlier
for those farmers having more than two children. It has already played havoc with the norm
in the panchayats. This is punishing people for being poor. Poorer families tend to be larger
than better off ones. That is an insurance against higher child mortality.

In barring them from contesting local body polls, the Government stifles their voices. Its new
bright idea is to punish those who have no toilets in their homes. It has a Bill coming that
would bar members of such households from fighting local body elections. A move that is
anti-democracy in a profound sense. But that means little to a regime which delights in
demolishing the homes of the poor. Meanwhile, Mr. Deshmukh's Ministers call for selling
off the last green spaces in Mumbai to private, mostly corporate hands.

Vidarbha is a happy hunting ground for money-grubbers. Ministers, officials and film stars
have done paid-for propaganda for Bt cotton. The hard sell has worked, too. Many small
farmers for whom this risk will prove fatal have embraced it. One last desperate throw of the
dice. Some film stars earned undisclosed lakhs for their skills. But it will be some time before
these 'brand ambassadors' dare visit the region again.

The resources and energies of this State, in agriculture at least, flow mostly towards western
Maharashtra. That province too, has its share of small farmers in distress. But the loot is
conducted in their name. The super rich who rule the region have seldom lacked for credit.
Or much else. The last year alone has seen thousands of crores of rupees going in credit and
subsidies to cooperatives. Bodies that have ripped off massive sums from the provident funds
of their members and employees. To sick sugar mills run by healthy barons who will never
repay their loans. To units that owe hundreds of crores in power bills that they have no
intention of paying. To rich horticulturists, some of whom are hobby farmers based in the
city.

Contrast this with Vidarbha's farmers taking their lives for lack of a minor crop loan. Or with
small farmers in western Maharashtra who find their funds siphoned off by the rich bosses of
their cooperatives. Political heavies who will not be brought to book. The big new idea from
the region? Wine to be freely sold in shops and stores. Never mind the public interest issues
involved. This would boost an elite already locked into State largesse. It would do little for
Vidarbha where a litre of milk sells for a lot less than a litre of bottled water. The just
announced waiver of Rs.100 crore of interest on loans bypasses poor cotton farmers. It does,
though, help rich horticulturists in irrigated Western Maharashtra.

One good development though, is that political protests have begun in the region. The sense
of a great letdown by the Shetkari Sanghatana had kept people away from such action for
years. This past week saw dharnas and sit-ins. And they've drawn not just farmers but
playwrights and professors, teachers and journalists. And others as well. People moved by
their conscience and the misery they are witness to. And with the knowledge that this is man-
made. Vidarbha might yet see the power of moral reasoning beat back the mad rush for
profits from human misery.
The swelling 'register of deaths'
Maharashtra began by telling the NHRC there had been 140 suicides Statewide since 2001. It
ended 2005 conceding a figure of 1,041. That is the fourth figure the same State has put out
within months. For Vidarbha, it is decidedly not a happy new year, writes P Sainath.

03 January 2006 - Farm suicides in Vidarbha since November 1 have crossed the 100 mark.
There have been 200 since June 2. But the last 100 have occurred in less than two months. A
little more than 65 farmers have taken their own lives in December alone. The total for the
year is over 300. This month, the Maharashtra Government admitted to over 1,000 farmer's
suicides in the State since 2001.

"The numbers are mounting," says Kishore Tiwari of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti.
"Efforts to stop them are failing." The `Register of Deaths' the Andolan maintains in
Yavatmal district is flowing over. Even this register is based mainly on newspaper reports.
Which means deaths that have gone unreported do not make it to the tally.

"Note that the rise in suicides has followed the fall in cotton price," points out Vijay
Jawandia, Vidarbha's leading farm activist. "This is no surprise. The government's so-called
`relief package' of Rs.1,045 crore for the farmer has not had the slightest impact on the
trend."

Minister's suicide bid

It is three weeks since the Maharashtra Government announced its package in the Assembly
session at Nagpur. That came after the former Minister, Gulabrao Gawande's attempted
suicide on the floor of the House in a bid to highlight the farm crisis. His action shocked the
State and he was tossed out of the Assembly for the rest of the session. But the session was
wound up weeks earlier than it should have been. So this didn't mean much.

However, little is now heard of the "Rs.1045 crore package." That, says Mr. Jawandia, is
because "there is no package. It's mostly farmers' money. Plus, money from existing
schemes. They have in fact taken away much more from the farmer than they have given to
him."

The advance bonus of Rs.550 normally paid to cotton growers has been scrapped this year.
This amount used to be added on to the minimum support price set by the Centre. Without
it, the cotton price per quintal falls from Rs.2250 to Rs.1700 roughly - that is, to the level of
the Centre's minimum support price (MSP).

"Scrapping the advance bonus means a loss of Rs.1,100 crore to the farmer," points out Mr.
Jawandia. "And that isn't the only problem." Over a third of the package is simply the
farmer's own money. That is, some Rs.370 crore have come from what is known as the
`capital formation fund' of the Cotton Federation. That body normally deducts three per cent
of the MSP given to farmers for that fund.

This money, anyway their own, is to now be returned to the farmers. Yet, that now makes
things harder for both. Without that sum in its kitty, it becomes far tougher for the
Federation to raise loans from the banks. That in turn affects the farmers from whom it will
have to purchase less. Cotton growers are thus pushed into selling to private traders at prices
as low as Rs.1500 a quintal. This now fuels farmer anger with a government that came to
power promising them Rs.2700 a quintal.

Farm activists also protest what they see as a lot of `fake accounting.' An official from the
agriculture department of one of the troubled districts told The Hindu : "A lot of the
`package' money is from other schemes already in place. There's too much juggling. Soil
conservation, watershed, other allied activities, all are now mixed up in this package." The
much-touted waiver of interest on loans comes to just Rs.61 crore.

Perhaps the one new element of the package is the State's decision to arrange for the
marriages of farmers' daughters in the six districts seeing the most suicides. It has set aside
Rs.1 crore per district for this purpose. "This amounts to telling the farmer we'll look after
you when you're dead," says Kishore Tiwari. "You go ahead with your suicide. We'll get
your daughter married."

Some communities have proved more innovative than the government. Like in Dorli village
in Wardha district. Farmers here simply put up signs announcing their whole village was for
sale. As gram panchayat members told journalists: "We await a customer. Let's sell the
village, pay our dues and move out. That's better than suicide."

For Dorli, that's worked a bit. The Member of Parliament for the region, Datta Meghe,
quickly announced Rs.10 lakh for schemes in the village from his MPLADS fund.
Elsewhere, despair overrides such drama. Debt-driven farm suicides are now on in rich
Western Maharashtra, too. Even wealthy Baramati has not escaped them. The Government's
response has been to crack down on private moneylenders. Over 500 sahucars have been
booked in Vidarbha since the drive against them began a month ago.

In itself a welcome action, it has misfired for two reasons. The banks still do not give loans to
farmers. And secondly, the new sahucars, that is, the input dealers and others, are left
untouched. With the small village sahucars on the run, there is now no source of credit at all
for many.

"None of the real issues have been touched," says Mr. Jawandia. "Not the burning problem of
price. Not credit. Not the headache of mounting imports. Nor the damage that BT cotton is
doing, pushing so many farmers over the edge. The package is not even about shifting money
from one pocket to another. It's about stealing from both pockets. Now, with the changes in
the marketing rules, private traders rule the roost. The middlemen have become the top men."

Meanwhile, the deaths continue. Maharashtra began by telling the National Human Rights
Commission (NHRC) that there had been 140 suicides Statewide since 2001. It ended 2005
conceding a figure of 1,041. That is the fourth figure the same State has put out within
months.

For Vidarbha, it is decidedly not a happy new year.

A scenario of post-mortems 24x7

Post-mortem registers at some centres in Vidarbha show poisoning cases outnumber all other
cases put together. Meanwhile, farm suicides are up sharply after November and spreading to
the paddy belt. In some districts, the suicide mortality rate for male farmers in 2004 was 10
times the national average for all males, writes P Sainath.

25 February 2006 - Rameshwar Suroshe got his name into three registers after February 9.
He clocked in as Entry No. 301 in the "Register of deaths" kept by the Vidarbha Jan Andolan
Samiti. That is, he was the 301st farmer in the region to take his own life since June 2 last
year. In the tally of a leading Marathi newspaper, Sakaal, he would figure as No. 278. In the
most chilling list of all, he may not merit a number as yet. That is the post-mortems register
of the medical centre closest to his village in Yavatmal district.

Suroshe's death in Nageshwadi was a bit unusual. The small farmer hanged himself. Most
farmers killing themselves have swallowed pesticide. So much so that the verdict of death by
"poisoning" has become synonymous with farm suicides. And those numbers have been
rising in Vidarbha. Not least in Yavatmal. Since September 2005, post-mortem centres in
Maharashtra are open 24 hours by government order. Which means that smaller local centres
can now take some of the load off the main district hospitals.

The post-mortem centre at the sub-district hospital in Panderkauda — the heart of the cotton
country — is a busy one. Here, poison deaths between October and early February were
nearly three times the number seen in the same period two years ago. Also, they make up
fully 75 per cent of all post-mortems this season. That is, 36 of the 48 post-mortems done so
far. Further, the centre here is just one of its kind. There are 16 in the district of Yavatmal.
And dozens more across Vidarbha.

Farm suicides have been on in disturbing numbers for some years now in the region. But
there has been an ugly spurt since last October. By the end of that month, the price for cotton
that farmers were getting sank by Rs.500 a quintal.

Which means Maharashtra's cotton growers lost some Rs.850 crore on that count alone. The
fall came with the Government's decision to withdraw the "advance bonus" of Rs.500 a
quintal. By November, it was clear this would not be restored.

In Panderkauda, poison cases during October-February stood at almost double the number of
all post-mortems done in the same period two years ago. The total number of post-mortems
has also risen. From 206 in 2003-04, to 223 the next year. With a month and a half still left in
the current year, it is past the 210 mark. And this is the worst period. "Of course almost all
are small farmers," says a doctor in this town of the deaths. "There may be some poison cases
of a different nature. But then there are also farmers who have hanged or drowned
themselves." He also points out that these are the figures of just one centre in a single district.
There are scores of post-mortem centres across Vidarbha.

Meanwhile, the total number of suicides is mounting. "It was clear this would happen once
they cut the advance bonus," says Kishore Tiwari of the Jan Andolan Samiti. It is in the
Samiti's register that Suroshe now resides as No. 301. There have been six more after him.
Which brings the tally to 307. This figure only covers deaths reported in the newspapers. So
it is not exhaustive. The Government's own count is 315 since April 1, 2005.
The official figure begins on that date as it sticks to the financial year. The Andolan number
starts from June 2 by when the farming season was in full swing. Sakaal goes by the count of
its own reporters. The Andolan also keeps logs for two or three years past. The Government
has changed its figure on the suicides four times in six months. And always upwards. From
140 to 1,041 State-wide. ( The Hindu , December 29, 2005.)

The Government admits to 309 farm suicides in Yavatmal alone from 2001 to September
last year. That count would now stand at around 400 for the district. Much less than 10 per
cent of the families hit by the suicides have got any compensation.

Collapse of cotton economy

The numbers since October are appalling. That month saw 20 farmers take their lives in the
region. There were 52 in November, 72 in December, and 68 in January. February is still
on. With few signs of a slowdown. The cotton economy has collapsed and most fear there is
worse to follow.

Meanwhile a new study adds fresh data to the subject. A team from the Indira Gandhi
Institute for Development Research, Mumbai, looked at agrarian distress in Yavatmal,
Washim, and Wardha districts. It also studied the larger trends of suicides in Maharashtra.
One devastating finding is on the spiral in the State's SMR or suicide mortality rate. (That
is: suicides per 100,000 population.)

"The SMR for male farmers in Maharashtra trebled from 17 in 1995 to 53 in 2004." In
contrast, says the report, for all males in the State, it stabilised at a level of 20 or 21 after
2001. For women it even fell after 1999. Clearly, farmers have taken a huge hit. So much so
that it pushes up the State's overall SMR level. "In 2001, age-adjusted SMR for males was
20.6 in Maharashtra compared to India's 14.0."

The SMR for male farmers across Maharashtra is 53. That is nearly four times the national
average for all males. In affected districts like Amravati, the figure for male farmers was
140 in 2004. That is, ten times the national average for all males. And seven times the
State's average for males. Vidarbha's farmers are in deep trouble.

In over two-thirds of the 111 farm suicides the study looked at, those taking their lives were
less than 50 years old. They were not novices. Close to 60 per cent had been farmers for over
ten years. Two in five had seen matric-level schooling. And four of every five suicides were
deaths by poisoning. That is, by drinking pesticide.

Meanwhile, the suicides have spread to the region's paddy belt. Not as yet in huge numbers.
But enough to cause alarm. There have been 24 in the paddy belt of Gondhia, Bhandara, and
east Chandrapur since June 2 last year.

Not a paisa of the Government's Rs.1,075 crore "relief package" has been disbursed so far.
"How do those in Mumbai care," asks Kishore Tiwari. "The suicides have crossed 300. But
the SENSEX has crossed 10,000."
'Forced privatisation' of cotton
Disputes over output do not hide the trouble Maharashtra's cotton economy is in. Small
farmers face another year of huge losses. The role of nature is very minor compared to
conscious policy measures that have undermined the farmer and world cotton prices, writes P
Sainath.

25 February 2006 - Maharashtra's cotton economy could be taking a hit of between

Rs.2,500 crore and Rs.2,750 crore this year. This could not come at a worse time for the
embattled farmers of Vidarbha. The amount of cotton being picked up by State agencies is at
a dismal low.

Private traders are buying a lot more — but often at below the minimum support price
(MSP). Total output in the State is down by at least 50 lakh quintals. So there is no relief for
the cotton grower.

Last year, there were 411 official centres to procure cotton. This year a mere 141. "But that's
because open market prices are better," insists N.P. Hirani. He is chairman of the
Maharashtra State Cooperative Cotton Growers' Marketing Federation. But on the ground,
his claim is challenged by farmers in Vidarbha. Most say the traders' prices are even lower
than the MSP.

Private centres now number 210. "It is a policy move to reduce procurement," says Vijay
Jawandia. "The government is pushing farmers towards private traders." The region's
foremost farm activist, he warns that "this will mean more losses on the price front. Farmers
have already lost Rs.1,000 crore as a result of the 'advance bonus' scheme being shut down.
This is forced privatisation of the trade."

Late last year, the State withdrew the "advance bonus" of Rs.500 a quintal. Which brought
down what the farmer received to the MSP of Rs.1,700 a quintal. On a likely output of 200
lakh quintals, that is the loss of Rs.1,000 crore Mr. Jawandia speaks of.

That is not all they will lose, though. Costs were up 25 per cent last year because of rising
input prices. Many more people went in for the costly Bt cotton. Further, many farmers lost
the first sowing due to bad weather and had to sow again. The losses from these problems,
says an official source, are not less than Rs.500 crore and could be closer to Rs.1,000 crore.

Steep fall in procurement

The fall in procurement is even more drastic than the fall in the number of Government
centres. The Cotton Federation's official chart shows that by February 11 this year, it had
procured just 4.83 lakh quintals. A gigantic fall from the 178 lakh quintals picked up by the
same date last year. In cash terms the fall is massive. The value of what was acquired from
the farmers last year on this date was Rs.3,970 crore. This year, it is a mere Rs.54.73 crore.

Has that been offset by the rise in private procurement? "Not one bit," says Mr. Jawandia.
And his view is echoed by farmers at the markets in Yavatmal. At the official centre in
Ghattanji, there were over 300 bullock carts with cotton piled up. "The private traders start
off in the morning by offering Rs.2,000 a quintal," say the farmers crowding around us.
"But in a few hours the price is down to Rs.1,600." They see the initial high offer as a ploy to
draw the crowds to the private centre.

"The farmer is getting a price neither from the Federation, nor from the traders," says S.N.
Deshmukh. He is a former general manager (sales and procurement) of the Federation. "But
you will find a rush to the Federation very soon. So far the grower has held out for a better
price. Now he will take it to them as he has few other options." Some 40 per cent of the
output is thought to still be with the farmers.

But private traders have bought far more cotton than the official body. "They have purchased
close to 100 lakh quintals," says a Federation official. At an average private price of
Rs.1,600, "farmers will lose Rs.600 crore at the least," says Mr. Jawandia.

"If the Federation price had been the same as last year," he points out, "not a single trader
would have ventured into buying cotton." This seems borne out by last year's numbers. Then,
the Federation alone mopped up more than four-fifths of the total production.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hirani of the Federation estimates that production in the State is down. "It
could be less by almost 50 lakh quintals this year," he told The Hindu . "Last year it was over
250 lakh quintals." The value of that lost output, estimates Mr. Jawandia, "is around Rs.850
crore."

Sources in the Agriculture Commissioner's office in Pune dispute this. They say last year's
figure was misleading. "A lot of that 250 lakh quintals came from neighbouring States," they
assert.

"This year that has not happened. We believe yield and productivity have gone up. It is 213
kg per hectare as against 176 kg last year."

That claim is scoffed at in Nagpur. "Output this year will in truth not exceed 160 lakh
quintals," says one official source. "Bt cotton was a disaster. Also, the crop was hit by
diseases."

As Bt bombed for many, they used pesticides for that too. In a country where cotton is
anyway the highest user of pesticides, this further upped the farmer's costs.

"Don't ignore the problem of the small trader, either," says Mr. Deshmukh. "Early on, a few
did pick up cotton at prices that might hurt them. And there seems to have been a fall in
'micronaire value' in this crop. That is a technical measure that makes for better spinning.
Small traders could be in troubled waters when they sell."

Imports of cotton have further depressed prices over the years. India's cotton imports
between 1997-98 and 2004-05 stood at over 115 lakh bales. That is over three times what
was imported in the preceding 25 years. In the same 1997-98 to 2004-05 period, exports did
not cross 30 lakh bales. In some years, they fell in both number of bales and value earned.

World cotton prices tumbled in the 1990s as the United States pumped billions of dollars of
subsidies each year to its 25,000 cotton producers. "And we," says Mr. Jawandia, "have left
our millions of cotton farmers to the mercy of traders and the subsidised global market. Now
anyone can import or export it. The import duty on cotton is ten per cent. And if you're the
textile lobby you don't pay even that. Anyone can buy, sell or trade in it. Private trade is up,
boosted by a withdrawing state. Our cotton economy is the closest thing to a 'free market' —
and see the results."

Creative solutions, sarkari-style

The many ways in which officials in a region gripped by crisis try to deal with it can be
intriguing. Even entertaining. From advising farmers to plant crops in line with zodiac signs
to suggesting they bear arms against moneylenders — it's all happening in Vidarbha, writes P
Sainath.

25 February 2006 - Officials of the Maharashtra Government have been holding bhajan-
kirtan programmes in Yavatmal. This as one part of their "atma vishwas jagruti abhiyan"
campaign. That is, an awareness and confidence building programme in the district. The aim
is to boost the morale of a farming community now rocked by large numbers of suicides.
"There have been 13 such programmes," Sub-Divisional Officer Dilip Swami told us in
Pusad.

"The region has a long tradition of spiritual movements linked to social reform," says a top
official. "So in itself, this might even be a good thing. But the question is if government
should organise such events. Whether its officers should preside over them. And if this
makes sense when the State does nothing about those problems driving farmers to suicide. In
such a situation, the SDO or Tehsildar singing on the stage may not be the best solution."
There have been 307 farmers suicides in the Vidarbha region since June 2. Over 200 of these
since November 1.

Overall, the awareness programme aims to make the farmers in this depressed region
'positive.' And to "educate them in due course on government schemes they can gain from."
And if it seems whacky to many, its authors' motives are honourable. But the list of official
attempts to come to grips with the huge crisis gets more bizarre.

Two officials of the Social Forestry Department, for instance, advised farmers to plant their
crops and trees anew. Not on soil and climatic notions. But according to favourable zodiac
signs. This provoked an enraged principal of an agriculture college to blast them in the
press. This, M.M. Borkar told the daily Lokmat, "was an example of intellectual bankruptcy
and an attempt to befool people."

Another official tack is simple falsification. As when the family of Hiraman Patil was
denied compensation after his suicide in 2004. "He took his life because of tension over his
debts," says his son Santosh in Virahat village of Akhola. "But they [the Government]
argued that he did not die for this reason. They insisted he had killed himself because he
was depressed over my mother's death."

There was a glitch in that argument. Hiraman's wife had died 15 years ago. That came out
with an intervention in a PIL by Deshonnati Editor Prakash Pohare. An annoyed Bombay
High Court slammed the Government. It ordered that Patil's family be paid Rs.1 lakh within
two weeks from January 19. "I have received the first Rs.30,000," Santosh confirmed when
we met him at his home.

Then came Home Minister R.R. Patil's crackdown on moneylenders. This focussed entirely
on the small village lender. It ignored the new class of Sahucars — the input dealers. These
dealers now use credit and input prices to exploit the farmer. Since the banks have shut out
the farmer, the dealer has a free hand. He charges extra for his inputs. The farmer might pay
Rs.125 for something that costs Rs.100. Further, the dealer tags on an interest rate of Rs.2 or
Rs.3 per Rs.100 each month on the total cost. (He justifies this by saying he is giving the
farmer three months time to pay the bills.) And often, he has first call on the farmer's harvest.
Mostly at a very low price that hurts the latter.

Since big input dealers are well off persons rarely seen in the village, they dragged out and
roughed up. The result was the complete loss of credit at the village level. Weddings and
funerals were held up as no one would lend the small amounts these needed. It has also had
the effect of making people lie about private debt. In suicide-hit households surveyed by The
Hindu before Mr. Patil's crackdown, people spoke to us at length about their debt to
moneylenders. After the crackdown, they've clammed up about private debt. Now many
speak only of what they owe to the banks.

The Home Minister went further during a speech in Kolhapur in January. There he said that
kisans in remote hamlets should have guns for self-defence. Since this was not Naxal terrain,
he was talking about their protecting themselves against moneylenders. The Arms for Farms
speech drew much fire. "If all is well on the law and order front," said Lokmat, "then why
should farmers raise arms? And where will they get the money for the guns?" The paper went
on to say that farmers were ending their lives due to huge debts. And because they were
unable to meet the basic needs of their families.

Other critics were less polite. There were those who said the armed farmer could use his gun
"to shoot both sarkar and sahucar." And those who asked: "Who do they think could afford
the ammunition? They can't afford food."

There was also the Government's much touted 'relief package' of Rs.1,075 crore for those
crushed by Vidarbha's ongoing agrarian crisis. The Government announced the fund in
December. More than two months later, not a paisa of it has been disbursed. The problem is,
as every analyst here is quick to point out, "there was never really any package." About
Rs.700 crore of that 'package' is farmer money, anyway. ( The Hindu , Dec. 29, 2005.) The
Cotton Federation normally deducts three per cent of the minimum support price (MSP)
given to farmers for its 'capital formation fund.' Farmers will now get back that money. This
will not help and will hamstring the Federation's ability to negotiate loans with banks. In any
case, nothing has happened.

A more well meaning effort was the despatch in 2004 of teams to 'counsel' the distressed
farmers. Not with bhajan-kirtans but with advice from psychologists, doctors and revenue
officials. In one village, after a long discussion with such a team, a farmer asked them:
"You've given us great advice on so many things. On combating stress, curbing our drinking
and so on. And you've asked us so many probing questions, too. Now ask us one more. Ask
us why farmers, who produce the nation's food, are themselves starving."
 Three weddings and a funeral
As farm suicides in Vidarbha cross the 500-mark in under a year, families are holding
funerals and weddings at the same time. Sometimes, on the same day. In moving shows of
solidarity, very poor villagers are pitching in to help conduct the marriages and funerals of
down-and-out neighbours, writes P Sainath.

23 May 2006 - In one third of Gosavi Pawar's house there was mourning. In another third,
celebration. In the last part of his home there was preparation for both mourning and
celebration. This Banjara household in Yavatmal had to conduct a funeral and three
weddings in 24 hours.

Pawar was the eldest brother and head of the extended family. The 'bada-pitaji' or big father.
"In the Banjara samaj," says Mohan Jadhav, "the eldest brother accepts a major role in the
marriages of his kin. And he had to perform two that week." Jadhav is secretary of the
Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) and helped steer the family through its crisis. "Gosavi
was deep in debt. As every farmer here is. Yet, he tried to get the weddings done." He was
also one of ten indebted farmers who killed themselves on May 9. And among the 520 who
have taken their lives since June last year in the region's ongoing agrarian crisis. The distress
driving the deaths reflects in everything from cancelled weddings to funerals.

Pawar was deep in debt and had little money for the new farming season. He had even
resorted to a 'khande palat' to raise the crop loan he required. That is, 'switching the burden
from one shoulder to another.' He needed Rs.65,000 to work his seven acres. But owed the
bank Rs.50,000, which he had to clear first. "So," says Kishore Tiwari of the VJAS, "he took
the latter amount from a moneylender at a charge of Rs.2500 - for just one day. He cleared
his bank debt with that, got the crop loan and repaid the lender. This means he was left with
just Rs.12,500. And a new debt of Rs.65,000." Khande palat is common in the debt-ridden
villages here.

Gosavi Pawar went on May 8 from his village of Koljhari to the town of Mohada. The
wedding of Savita, daughter of one brother, was set for May 9. That of Pramod, son of
another brother, was fixed for May 10. But Pawar never returned. "I first learned of his
death from an auto driver," says his son Prakash. "My father had gone to Mohada to buy the
clothes, garments and other gifts for the weddings." But no merchant there was willing to
extend him credit on the purchases. Already in despair over his debts, Pawar took his own
life.

He was brought to the post-mortem centre in Yavatmal town. The police wanted the body
removed quickly - post-mortem centres in Vidarbha are busy places. But the grieving family
needed to delay bringing him home. "How could they bring a dead body to a house where a
wedding was on?" asks deputy sarpanch Tulsiram Chavan. So the body's return was slowed
down until the baraat had left the house. Despite this, body and baraat met at a junction.
Pawar's pallbearers moved away into a field, behind a cluster of trees to avoid contact. But
the bride Savita wept, knowing it was her Kaka's last journey she was seeing at a distance.

There was still another wedding to go the next day. "I wanted to postpone mine when I
learned uncle was dead,' says the bridegroom, Pramod Pawar. "But the village pointed out
that the bride's family and others would be put to huge losses. More so because another
couple's marriage was also tied to mine to save money." Vidarbha's crisis has seen many
weddings called off. Few can afford them. The village elders knew that delay could mean
cancellation. So, heartbroken, they went ahead.

"We were so disturbed by my brother's suicide, we could not even attend to our guests," says
Phulsingh, father of Pramod. "I wanted to call it off." That's when the residents of this debt-
burdened village came to their rescue in a moving show of solidarity. People as poor as the
family and worse, contributed small sums and other help to see it through. "We held a
meeting that night to plan, and everybody chipped in," says deputy sarpanch Chavan. "Some
took charge of the cooking. Others looked after the guests. A few arranged the funeral, yet
others the transport." And a village celebrated its grief. For many across this region, funerals
and weddings now depend on the aid of neighbours whose economic condition might be
more dismal than their own.

Savita was married on May 9. Her uncle's funeral took place the same evening. Her cousin
Pramod's wedding took place on May 10, along with that of the last couple. The collective
effort of the Banjara clans saw the family come through the ordeal. At least for now.

The 80-plus Banjara families in this 'no-liquor' village have a collective debt of over Rs.22
lakh. Koljhari's agriculture is a picture of all that has gone wrong. Soaring costs, fake inputs,
crashing output prices, growing debt, and a collapse of formal credit. As with many others,
Pawar's tryst with Bt cotton also proved a disaster. His seven acres yielded just four quintals.
A crippling loss. Meanwhile, most adults here - and quite a few who are not - have sought
work under the national rural employment guarantee programme. But nothing has happened
so far.

Debt-related suicides in Vidarbha show no sign of slowing down. "Nor are they likely to,"
says Wamanrao Rathore in Koljhari. "See, people have readied their fields for the new
season. But no one has bought the inputs as yet. Who can afford them? The banks won't give
them loans. How do they cultivate?"

The 520 suicides listed by the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti since last June is the highest
number recorded here since 1998. The 306 since January means there's one every ten hours
now. While farm suicides doubled almost every year between 2001-04, the leap since last
November has been huge. That's when it became clear the government would not reverse the
cut in cotton price it had announced. Last year, the state withdrew its 'advance bonus' of
Rs.500 a quintal. This brought down what the farmer received for cotton to the MSP of
Rs.1700 a quintal. A move that has fed into and spurred disaster.

In Vidarbha's register of suicides, Pawar is just another statistic. Number 499. For Prakash
and widow Kamlabai, he was father and husband. And yet, his death was not a complete
surprise. "Yes. We feared he might do this,' says Prakash. "Anyone in our condition could do
this. I could also do this."

Slowing down the suicides

There are several immediate steps both the Centre and the Maharashtra Government could
take to ease the situation in Vidarbha. These would not solve the long-term crisis, but would
surely slow down the farm suicides that continue to rise, writes P Sainath.
15 June 2006 - Vidarbha's infamous 'Register of Deaths' closed on May 31 at 540 farmers
suicides. Only to allow for the opening of a new register for the fresh agricultural season
starting June 1. The latest list already has a dozen entries in it. As the agrarian crisis deepens,
there is a real fear that the new book will match the old. The 540 suicides listed in the closed
register occurred between June 2005 and this May. Of these, over four-fifths took place after
November 1 last year. As many as 325 farmers have killed themselves since January. And
May was terrible, with nearly 80 farmers taking their own lives during that month. Ten of
them doing so on a single day. Some weeks, there have been suicides every eight hours.

The register is the painstaking effort of the Vidharbha Jan Andolan Samiti. It has forced the
authorities to tighten up their own count. And has also inspired others, including newspapers,
to keep their own lists to make sense of what is going on.

Why were the suicides worst this May? Because that's when highly indebted people found
themselves unable to raise the credit to buy inputs on the eve of the new season. March, too,
was bad, when many either failed to sell their cotton, or were forced to do so at distress rates.
The steady rise in the numbers has been on since November, though. That's when it became
clear that the 'advance bonus' of Rs.500 a quintal - cancelled by the Maharashtra Government
- would not be restored. The loss borne by farmers because of that alone could be over
Rs.1,000 crore.

Meanwhile, the fields of Vidarbha have been prepared for cultivation. But there's no money
for inputs. Despite much talk of greater credit, crop loans elude many farmers. Whatever the
promises, the banks find ways of subverting them. And those at the top turn a blind eye to
the process. The banks claim their effort was to cut out 'defaulters.' But after seven
desperate years, everyone here is a defaulter. The default amounts are mostly below
Rs.25,000 (because bank credit was anyway less). But do what they will - people cannot
pay. Where's the money?

Bank pressures mean khande palat is spreading even amongst once better-off farmers. Take
a farmer seeking a crop loan of Rs.65,000 for seven acres, who has a pending bank loan of
Rs.50,000. He clears this by taking a private loan of Rs.50,000 for a single day. He gets the
Rs.65,000, but has to pay the lender Rs.52,500. That is, interest of Rs.2,500 for a single day.
Which means he is left with Rs.12,500 for seven acres. He also has new debt of Rs.65,000.
This is khande palat (or switching the burden from one shoulder to another). You can find
many such cases in every village.

So things are quite explosive at the start of the season. Yet, there are several steps the
Government can take, if it wants to. Quick measures that would at least slow down the
deaths. Allowing for more solid, medium, and long-term solutions to follow.

To start with, the State could restore the 'advance bonus' of Rs.500 a quintal. On 210 lakh
quintals (taking the previous year's output as the base), the cutting of the bonus implies a
loss of Rs.1,050 crore to farmers - every year. That's why the suicides shot up after its
withdrawal.

Alongside this, the State could ensure - rather than just speak of - fresh crop loans for every
farmer this new season. The kind of emergency Vidarbha is in, the loans should carry
minimal interest. For non-irrigated farmers, they should be interest free (China, as Dr. M.S.
Swaminathan has pointed out, has a zero per cent interest rate for farmers.) Without the crop
loans, the Andolan Samiti's new register will outdo its predecessor. The crop loans must be
based on the new costs of production per acre and not on outdated prices. Getting this and the
"defaulter" issue wrong will push many lakhs of people deeper into the grip of moneylenders.

It's heresy of course, in this era, to suggest writing off farmers' loans of up to Rs.25,000.
(Most of these were smaller sums that have bloated with interest.) You could modulate the
measure according to the acreage held by the farmer. And one can endlessly debate the
wisdom of such a step. The truth though is simple. Whether you write them off or not, people
cannot pay.

There's another vital zone where the State has no excuse. It must procure and provide cheap
inputs to prevent fleecing of the farmer. Since they will be starting their season late, input
costs will soon reach scarcity rates. The State must - and can - provide decent quality seed
free. And some other inputs at nominal rates. In any case, it must monitor and regulate the
costs of agricultural inputs. The prices extracted from farmers for these have been a quick
route to debt. The input dealers are the new, powerful sahucars of the countryside.

Time does not favour the farmer. The State needs to press the entire agriculture and extension
machinery into the process at once. And they have to work to a clear mandate. They must
distribute free or very cheap inputs - but not Bt seed, which would prove disastrous.

To propagate Bt in this unirrigated region, as this State has done, is to court chaos. Many
farmers have gone broke putting borrowed money in Bt. Countless others even now take that
risk in despair. In Maharashtra, Ministers and film stars promote Bt. There are MLAs, too,
with close links to input dealers. This includes some opposition figures. This is a mess
Maharashtra needs to get out of.

Incentives for food crops

It also makes sound sense to give incentives to those who grow food crops. Jowar once held
30 per cent of acreage in the region. Today, that's 5 per cent. This has not only meant loss of
a vital food crop, but also a severe scarcity of fodder. An incentive of Rs.1,000 per acre for
jowar cultivation would have many benefits. It would give poor farmers sustenance. It would
revive a crucial crop of this region. And it would allow real space for animal husbandry with
fodder making a comeback.

The State could also ask the Centre to impose a 60 per cent duty on cotton imports. (Equal to
that on sugar, Maharashtra's other major crop.) This is needed as western subsidies on cotton
have gone over the top. The United States last year gave its 20,000 growers a subsidy of $4
billion. The damage that has done to world cotton prices allows for extra cheap imports that
crush cotton growers here.

There's a big need to strengthen the rural employment guarantee programme. There is a huge
demand for it where people learn of it. Landless labourers, hit by the fall in farming, are in
the worst of shape. You can also see landed farmers with six acres in the queues for work. So
great is the pressure. Imagine the plight of the landless.
The Government should move fast to curb medical expenses and health debt. This is a
rapidly growing component of family debt here. Lots of farmers have mortgaged acres of
land to pay their costly private hospital bills. It would make a difference if the State were to
set up more public medical centres and bring in more doctors for these. Also, private
hospitals must be made to lower their charges.

Education is one of the badly hit sectors here. It is within the State's power to declare a fees
waiver for the children of farm families unable to pay school fees and thus dropping out.
Rural children should also not be required to pay for bus tickets when journeying to school.
At higher levels, many children who have got into professional institutions are now unable to
now meet the costs. Their parents are bankrupt. Here too, the State could step in to help ease
the burden.

Both Centre and State could get their act together and set up a Price Stabilisation Fund. And
link the minimum support price to the wholesale price index. The National Commission for
Farmers has already asked for this. Price volatility has been one of the things that has hit
farmers hardest. Getting shock absorbers in place to ensure them a decent price would make
things a lot better.

These measures do not add up to a solution to the agrarian crisis. That requires a far more
radical approach. And needs us to junk present economic theology. However, many of these
are short-term steps that can be taken at once. They would impact on several current aspects
of the crisis. Failure to act now could add many hundreds of more entries to the new register
of deaths.

How Mumbai came to discover Vidarbha

The Prime Minister's upcoming visit to Vidarbha has had an impact even before he's reached
there. It would, however, be a transient impact if he does not see through the charade. The
mess there starts right at the top. Vidarbha's condition is the product of design, not decay,
writes P Sainath.

30 June 2006 - Never has the Maharashtra Government been this active on the agrarian crisis
in Vidarbha as the past week. Could this possibly have something to do with the Prime
Minister's arriving here shortly? Officials are rushing out to pay compensation to suicide-hit
families whom they have ignored for months, even years. Villagers likely to have VIPs visit
are being coached in their lines. (With compensation being handed over at about the same
time.)

There will have been more than 600 farm suicides before Prime Minster Manmohan Singh
sets foot in the region. And that's only since June last year. For once, the suicide index gets
near equal billing with the Sensex. (Well not quite, and only for a week.) A top bureaucrat
from Mumbai warned cowering minions in Nagpur that suicides 'must stop' by the month-
end. That's an order. (How simple that sounds. And if it is, why did they not turn off the tap
earlier?) Some officials, ordered out into the villages, have phoned journalists to ask: "Where
should we go?"
'Guardian Ministers' are visiting places they've never heard of or seen in years. 'Briefs' are
being prepared for Ministers whose attention span is well described by that very word. The
Governor himself has hopped over to the region.

The poor Banjara household that saw three weddings and a funeral in 24 hours had
important visitors this week. They had none at all at the time of their tragedy on May 9 or
any day since. They are now getting Rs.1 lakh. Earlier, compensation was denied to the
most genuine cases of suicides driven by agrarian distress. To the extent that an angry High
Court rattled the State Government more than once. This week, compensations are being
paid out with little or no verification at all. Time is of the essence. Get things under control
for when Dr. Manmohan Singh is here. This is what matters most. The State has figured out
a vital point the Prime Minister's visit implies. For long the Chief Minister and Union
Agriculture Minister have suggested that All's Quiet on the Western Front. Dr. Singh's visit
calls that into question.

Only a month ago, the Chief Minister wrote on the front page of the Maharashtra Times to
rebut pesky journalists out to smear the Shangri-La his regime had so lovingly built. His
first target was distinguished journalist Govind Talwalkar (editor of that newspaper for 27
years). A distressed Mr. Talwalkar had scorched the State over its failure on the farm crisis.

For his pains, the well-known editor was mocked for handing out advice while residing
(after retirement) in the United States. There is rich irony in this. Mr. Talwalkar's physical
distance from Maharashtra is far less than Mr. Deshmukh's mental distance from Vidarbha.
The brief visits made by the Chief Minister to the region saw several farmers take their lives
during the very hours he was there. Meanwhile, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar
insisted that, on average, the number of farm suicides in the country was 'normal.' Both now
seem far more concerned about the farm deaths. Perhaps due to the growing sense that their
relief 'packages' are more about packaging, less about relief.

To that extent, the Prime Minister's visit to Vidarbha has had an impact even before he's
reached the place. It would, however, be a limited and transient impact if he does not see
through the charade. Cracking down - as will surely happen - on officers in Vidarbha for
their 'failure' is an evasion. The mess there starts right at the top. The lower orders merely toe
the line their bosses lay down. Vidarbha's condition is the product of design, not decay.

There is no need to rediscover the main reasons for farm suicides. You can leave that sort of
quibble to media and market analysts. Governments know why they are happening. Large
numbers of such suicides have also occurred in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Punjab,
and elsewhere. Besides, Vidarbha has seen a lot of 'suicide or distress tourism' from official
quarters. This came after the visit of the National Commission on Farmers whose findings
are too hard for government to swallow. (Even now, there is a National Commission for
Farmers draft national policy for farmers inviting comment and debate. It is not a closed
matter nor a secret document. It's up on their website and goes beyond relief and immediate
steps. You can agree, disagree, attack, suggest alternatives. But there is not a word on this at
the top. A debate is not welcome.)

Over a dozen teams of one kind or another have since landed up here to produce one report
or another. The hope, in part, was that someone would throw up a report soft on the
government. That did not happen and most were damaging. However, needless time was
wasted even as hundreds of more farmers took their own lives.

It's also clear that too many in power do not want to look at the reports of the NCF. These
contain sound advice on some of the vital issues. A bit of this advice, alas, runs counter to
market fundamentalist theology and thus cannot be entertained. Agriculture is no longer just
a hostage to the monsoon. It is held to ransom by a mightily rigged Market. And there is
direct personal gain for many making decisions. In this State, where so many in power are
among those who profit from farmer misery. And at the centre, where lobbyists of the World
Bank and WTO within government also get to line their pockets nicely, thank you.

All in all, Dr. Singh's visit to Vidarbha has set off a process that has the State Government on
its clumsy toes. Yet, there's a long way to go. The visit raises hopes - from a trough to a new
high. From their State Government, people in that region have learned the hard way to expect
little. The massive numbers of suicides, after all, also speak of a breakdown in trust. A total
loss of faith.

The Prime Minister's visit could well re-kindle the dying embers. But then it's got to deliver.
Or the outcome will be most painful. Ever since he said he intends to visit the region, the
pressure has been on to hijack his tour schedule. Demands to open memorials to eminently
forgettable people. To address meetings and visit ashrams. Fair enough - that's part of the
game. It will be a sad game though, if this does happen.

Sending out a message

Were Dr. Singh to focus on agrarian distress and nothing but, his visit would at least send out
a message. To the people of Vidarbha and Maharashtra. To the State Government. Maybe
even to his own Cabinet colleagues. Yet, it's got to go beyond such a statement. What he
announces at the end of his trip must meet the most basic demands of farmers here. And
elsewhere too. Leave aside long-term solutions for the moment. The bandaids had better be
good. The higher the hopes are, the harder they'll fall.

For weeks now, those in power have bristled at the very mention of a loan waiver. Yet, it has
got to happen. Even the colonial Raj, with all its cruelty, did take such steps in times of acute
mass misery. And like it or not, it will happen at some stage. Not just in this region, but
across the country for farmers who have been destroyed by policy. In any case, there is not a
murmur of protest when tens of thousands of crores of NPAs are written off for a handful of
industrialists. But write off the tiny amounts of millions of farmers? That's heresy.

Meanwhile, intense lobbying is on. One plea is that all problems would be solved if irrigation
in Vidarbha were set right at once. Sure, irrigation is a major issue. It does need a focus. One
that is sustainable and affordable to the farmer. That's hard to do in today's Maharashtra. And
is made almost impossible by that regressive piece of legislation: The Maharashtra Water
Resources Regulatory Authority Act. This World Bank-driven Act makes it impossible for
small (even big) farmers anywhere in the State to afford irrigation in the future.

It would be nice to see a few of the region's eight irrigation projects, some pending for
decades, completed. But such schemes in this state have seen cost overruns of several
hundred per cent long before completion. In the Tembhu project in Karad, as a devastating
NDTV report pointed out, the cost of irrigation could be well over Rs.20,000 an acre. What
happens when the new Act kicks in? Watch this space.

Debt waiver. Fresh crop loans based on current costs. A new line of credit. Urgent help with
free and cheap inputs. Return of the 'advance bonus' and a proper minimum support price for
cotton. Steps to stabilise prices. Higher state procurement. Duties to prevent dumping. These
are just a few of the measures Dr. Singh could and should announce in Vidarbha. They won't
solve the problem, but will reduce the misery. What he finally does will have an impact not
just on that region, but on Indian farming as a whole.
THE AGRARIAN CRISIS IN VIDHARBHA – MAHARASTRA
Jaideep Hardikar

Vidarbha 2004: a suicides diary

The “simple man” silently walked out of his hut that fateful day, went to the backyard and
consumed pesticide in the veil of darkness. Rising family debt had forced his children out of
school, and that proved the last straw. Jaideep Hardikar recounts the stories of this and two
other farmer suicides.

8 January 2005 - Finally, there was some rain to save the third sowing. And Sumitra Matte’s
face bore signs of some relief. “It’s not been the best of the times for us,” she says, squatting
on the floor of her dilapidated hut that stands on the land they encroached years ago.

Sumitra’s husband, Ganesh ended himself in this Bhambraja village of Yavatmal in early
August, a week after his neighbour, also a farmer, had ended himself. Both the farmers
consumed Endosulphan, a poisonous insecticide. The seemingly endless burden of debt and
long spells of drought, the widows say, caught up with
their men.
Vidarbha is the eastern region of
“My husband would never tell us about the
Maharashtra, spanning 11
borrowings, but we could see tension on his face. He
districts. Six western districts are
would talk very little with us,” Sumitra says, with her
known for cotton and the five
eyes set on the floor. A number of women from the
eastern districts including
neighbourhood surround her. Ganesh’s suicide was in
Nagpur, for paddy. Nagpur is also
the news before the 2004 assembly election. It had
famous for its orange production.
drawn the attention of the BJP-Sena Opposition in
Maharashtra. A bandwagon of the Shiv Sena and BJP
leaders descended on this village to visit Sumitra soon after Ganesh ended his life. They
promised to give her Rs 25,000 in aid, and help her two daughters and son get back to
education. Sumitra hasn’t got anything till date. But that’s a different story. On the other
hand, the Government of Maharashtra does not count Ganesh’s suicide as one out of distress.

Meanwhile, Sumitra’s problems have only just begun. Ganesh has left behind for her: two
unmarried daughters, a young son, a dilapidated hut and loans. The Matte’s belong to the
Maratha ‘Kunbi’ community, which means Sumitra is not eligible for a slew of government
schemes that benefit the Dalits and tribals of the region. And being poor does not help her,
since the saffron-coloured ration card that the family possesses means nothing. The food
prices in the fair price shop here are compatible with the private shops. “That’s why I prefer
to purchase the ration from a private shop, because it’s good in quality, cheap and the shop
keeper gives us credit,” she adds.

Sumitra says she has no knowledge of bank transactions, no idea of loans that she has to
repay to the ‘unknown’ lenders from whom Ganesh borrowed money. She has no other
source of income apart from her three-acre land. After the death of her husband, she was
helped by the neighbours to procure the seeds, and pesticides for the third sowing from a
seed-dealer in the village. The bill was Rs 10,000. And she’s yet to repay that. But the total
sum of capital and interest by the end of December had become Rs 12,500. The yield has not
been good. And this family is now set to be doomed. She and her children have already
begun working on other farms on daily wages of Rs 20 a day.

But why did Ganesh end his life? A landless labourer, he purchased three-acres of land about
four years ago. And from the first agriculture season on his land, he could never recover from
the loans. First he defaulted on the payment to the village credit cooperative society, then a
cooperative bank, followed by private usurers. Coupled with that, he had borrowed huge
sums for the marriage of his two elder daughters, Sumitra reveals.

In 2004, Ganesh borrowed money for sowing in May end. “It must be at an interest of Rs 25
per Rs 100 borrowed,” says Jaimala Gomase, the loquacious neighbour of Sumitra who’s
been helping her run the show since the tragedy struck her. The first sowing failed; there
were no rains till the first fortnight of June. He went in for the loans again, for the second
sowing. That too failed. By that time the entire region looked headed for a drought. Several
farmers from the surrounding villages and districts had begun taking the extreme steps. In
this village, Ganesh saw his neighbour end his life by consuming pesticide.

By the first week of July, things had come to a boil. Two failed sowings and outstanding
loans; there was no way he could have obtained money for the third sowing. There were still
no signs of any rain, or government declaring any help to the farmers then. He had run out of
his patience.

With the things having gone wrong on agriculture and financial fronts, Ganesh could no
more bear the guilt of keeping the family starving. His daughters and son had to drop out of
the school in 2004. And that proved the last straw. The “simple man” silently walked out of
his hut that fateful day, went to the backyard and consumed the pesticide in the veil of
darkness.

***

Around the same time, in a distant village of Jhatala

in Ghatanji tehsil of Yavatmal, a Gond farmer of big Babji was known for introducing
land holding was also grappling with his finances. high-yielding varieties of cotton
Babji Maruti Masram was in the midst of a crisis and soyabean seeds in his farm and
never seen before by the family that once owned vast the use of latest and costlier
stretches of agriculture land in and around the village. pesticides. But he never built up his
Babji himself was known to be a seasoned farmer, own water resources.
and was the Sarpanch of this village for a long time.
He had relinquished the post only six months before
his death. His father was known popularly as Maruti Mahajan, who owned about 100 acres of
land even after much was procured by the government under the Land Ceiling Act. Babji was
the key man in his family. He cultivated all his family’s land, including the share that went to
his brother.

Babji ended his life by jumping into the well. The government has not yet accepted that his
was a suicide driven by agricultural distress. After all, how could a farmer of such a big land
holding end his life? But Babji’s son, Arvind, insists the reason for his father ending himself
is nothing but agriculture. “He was under huge debt,” he says. “Some of his lenders are from
this very village,” he reveals.

In the early nineties, Babji decided to shift completely to the cash crops – cotton, followed by
soyabean. The family cultivated cotton always, but not on the entire stretch of land. Babji’s
father also cultivated jowar and pulses besides cotton in his time. “May be this complete shift
from the food crops to the cash crops proved suicidal for him,” his old mother Zamrabai
feels. “I used to tell him don’t invest huge money on hybrid seeds, pesticides, but he would
not listen,” she cries. Amazingly, Zamrabai understands agro-economics better than most of
the new generation farmers of this village do. And she makes no secret of the fact that it was
Babji’s foolish run for the costlier inputs than threw the things awry. “In older days, we paid
more attention to the pulses and food crops for household needs,” she tells me. Even in the
worst years of drought, this family never faced any major problem, as it did in good years of
monsoon in the recent times.

A gap between generations: Zamrabai, the grief-stricken mother of Babji Maruti Mesram, a
farmer of Jhatala who ended his life following huge debts, sits with her grandson Arvind.
Pic: Jaideep Hardikar.

Babji was known for introducing high-yielding varieties of cotton and soyabean seeds in his
farm and the use of latest and costlier pesticides. But he never built up his own water
resources. After the division of the land, he tilled the lands of his two brothers as well, but
the farms remained – and still remain – parched. He never addressed the basic issue – water
scarcity. So, much though he tried improving his land, it remained rain-fed. It still does. On
the one hand he exhausted his finances on seeds, pesticides and chemicals, and on the other
he slowly delineated himself from the traditional ways of farming. He had to purchase seeds
every year, a shift from his father’s way of farming.

"Maruti Mahajan supplied seeds to the entire village once from the stocks that he saved from
his own produce every year," informs Kisan Belabe, a villager and close friend of Babji.
Thus while his father never spent on seeds or pesticides, Babji not only purchased seeds and
pesticides every year, but also spent heavily on the inputs. The more the land, more were the
inputs required. In the mid-nineties, when the state run Monopoly Cotton Procurement
Scheme went into a mess, Babji’s financial problems soared. Cotton prices crashed around
the same time. So with huge input costs and less produce prices, Babji plunged into huge
losses. The losses only soared in the years to come because he stuck to the cash crops, and
could never take up a second crop due to lack of water. The wages that Babji paid to the
farm-labourers also added to the big input costs, Belabe says.

In 1997-1998, Babji had to borrow money, perhaps for the first time. That was also the year
when the region faced its worst drought. The dwindling yield pushed him further, as his loans
and interests added to his losses. In the last five years, his loans from the private usurers and
interests on it compounded his problems. Babji had to sell his produce in open markets twice
in distress, informs Belabe. That year – the 2001-2002 season – Babji piled up unprecedented
losses.

In 2004, his sowing failed completely in June. He went for a re-sowing on the huge area of
land that he cultivated. Which meant he needed to borrow money for seeds, again. He did,
and sowed seeds a second time. But when the monsoon failed to smile on the region, the
seeds failed to germinate once more. Babji needed to purchase seeds again, this time for the
third sowing. The lenders played their part in fueling the situation. They demanded the
reimbursement of previous loans. Since that day, Babji never recovered from the tension, his
mother says. On July 8, when the things looked bleak on the agricultural front, he took the
extreme step.

In Sonbuldi village near Pandharkawda, Devidas Lengure was perturbed when his sister
Nirmala called on him in August 2004. His brother-in-law Atmaram Shende had been in
distress a month ago. This time, it was Nirmala. Would the ‘Sahukar’ help once more in less
than a month, he thought. He gave it a try, and got some money from the Sahukar for
Nirmala.

Within 15 days of her husband committing suicide in village Pada in the crisis-ridden
Yavatmal district, Nirmala had landed into the same trap that saw her distressed husband
committing suicide. Two failed sowings and private borrowings that kept mounting with
compound interest had driven a tense and broken Atmaram to end his life. The banks offered
no loans to those who didn’t have an account. So bank aid for the Shendes was out of
question. The owner of the village seed and fertilizer shop wouldn’t have helped for the
second or third time; he had lent the seeds and chemicals to Atmaram on credit for the first
two sowings. So he too was out of question. Nirmala desperately wanted money to perform
the last rites of her husband, and then purchase the seeds for the third time.

Devidas knew of only one person who could help the bereaved family once again. He had no
alternative but to get money from a private lender for his sister. The interest could have been
a whopping 50% for three months. But that was the only option.

It was just the beginning of Nirmala’s multiple woes. She sold the bullocks and the cart, went
in for fresh borrowings. The liabilities had soared to Rs 50,000 in all. She had become a
victim of the agriculture crisis within a week of her husband’s death. “After the death of their
husbands, the burden of debt from private moneylenders, the village cooperative societies
and other sources is catching up with their widows now,” says Ritesh Parchake, a stringer
with a vernacular newspaper in Pandharkawda.

Nirmala’s son Satish has, in the meantime, taken up a small job. He herds the goats of the
villagers. He earns Re 1 per goat every day. “I’ve about 15 to look after, so I earn Rs 15 a
day,” he says. “It’s too little, but still better. I could be of some help to my mother in
repaying the debts of my father,” he says. He and his three sisters have dropped out of
school. But at 13, Satish has matured fast. He knows he’s already a debtor by inheritance.

Loan after loan

A farming family holding 27 acres in Vidarbha has become a marginal landholder in a span
of few years, and a vicious cycle of usurious debt robbed their lands and hopes. There are
hundreds of others in the lurch similarly. The farming crisis has different shades of
exploitation; Jaideep Hardikar

18 January 2006 - Fubgaon, Amravati: The Kitukles had hit the nadir of their desperation,
and there was only one thing left to try. It was their only hope out of the crises, they realised.
So, thirty-year-old Babita Kitukle handed over her mangal-sutra to her husband Vilas.
Mortgaging it would fetch them Rs.500 - an amount enough to lodge a complaint with the
police, and do the paper work in which lay their hope. But that too has been futile; a month
later the Kitukles are still waiting for the police at the block headquarters to act decisively on
their complaint.

"This was the last option," holds Babita, the family's rallying point. "We had no cash. We
decided to mortgage my mangalsutra to raise some money for paper work and lodge a police
complaint," she adds.

Babita hasn't lost hope yet. Vilas had given up in between, but he is hanging on now. Having
twice attempted suicide in the past month, the 35-year-old farmer in Fubgaon is lucky to be
alive. But villagers say he may attempt to end his life again. He is perilously on the edge, to
be next on Vidarbha's growing list of farm suicides in the cotton belt.

"We are with him," declares the village veteran and a Shetkari Sanghatna activist Babuji Patil
Kitukle. "Don't lose hope," he tells Vilas and Babita. The couple is clinging on to a fresh
hope of retrieving their 19-acre land grabbed by two private usurers. Maharashtra deputy
chief minister R R Patil, who also holds the Home portfolio, had ordered the police to "skin
the private money lenders", who are exploiting the gullible farmers. Two months since that
order, close to 600 private unlicensed moneylenders have been booked and arrested in
Vidarbha. The Kitukles hope the police would book their tormentor and help get back their
fertile land.

"The same money lenders have similarly grabbed land of other peasants too," says Khushal
Bhorgade, a dalit farmer. Bhorgade lost his land to a lender, and is now trying to retrieve it
by lodging a police complaint.

Back in their small house in this village, about 50 km from Amravati, gazing at the ceiling
listlessly while lying on his bed is Vilas's 65-year-old father Ambadas, a farmer who worked
very hard in his youth. "He has become insane; he lost his mental balance in 1998 when we
got our first shock," says a worried looking Damayanti, Vilas's mother. That year, this family
suffered staggering losses in their 27-acre farm. Steeped in worries and harried by private
lenders, Ambadas crashed mentally. He stared at losing his five-acre land mortgaged with a
private moneylender at Chandur Bazaar in 1989. He can't speak now, but his condition does.

"I had not dreamt that we'll have to go through this," she Damayanti, squatted on the floor.
"When I married him, our combined family owned 70 acres of the most fertile land, we did
not depend on the market for any thing," says the frail woman, a shadow of distress and
despondency.

Vilas, the youngest of Ambadas' three sons, inherited the debt from his father. His elder sons
are employed with private companies in Pune. When Ambadas went insane, the usurer
mounted pressure on Vilas to repay his debt or allow him to sell off the mortgaged land. In
nine years, the Kitukles had already repaid a little over Rs. One lakh as interest on the
principal amount of Rs 30,000, but the unscrupulous moneylender demanded his capital
amount back with more interest. "He had an eye on the land that bore about 400 orange
trees," says Vilas. "I resisted him and kept paying interest in the successive years despite
bearing huge losses in agriculture," he recalls.

To salvage this land, Vilas went to other Sahukar in 2000, and borrowed 60,000 against his
two-and-a-half acre land that was registered as a sale deed against the loan (by this time,
mortgages were passé and land sale was in). Vilas immediately paid that money to the first
sahukar, Munot, with the hope of getting back the five-acre plot of farm. "He did not return
our land papers still; he had mounted more interest on it." In the next 16 months, Vilas paid
an interest of Rs 1.15 lakh to the second sahukar, who he identifies as Rajesh Chandak.
Incidentally, this sahukar was Vilas's classmate till tenth class. Chandak left studies after
12th, while Vilas had to drop out after passing his tenth. "Chandak wanted to sell my land to
a third party, but I resisted. This was the best plot I had. I told him that you return me this one
and take another plot of eight-acre."

After much persuasion and help from a middleman, Vilas got back his two-and-a-half acres,
but lost his eight acres. The cost of that land, going by the market rate then, was Rs 1.5 lakh
per acre, say the villagers.

"I was desperate to retrieve my best plot, and there was no purchaser for my eight acres
then." The eight-acre plot he lost to the lender had about 950 orange trees. Vilas says the
sahukar agreed to pay his outstanding bank loan and electricity bill together amounting to Rs
1.2 lakh, and settle his own loan that had scaled up to Rs 1.15 lakh in this deal. Thus, Vilas
lost his eight-acre land for a paltry Rs 2.7 lakh, managing to get back his previous land
papers for which he had already shelled out an interest of Rs 1.15 lakh on the principal
amount of Rs 60,000.

That deal was struck in May 2000. In August the same year, Vilas sold six more acres of his
farm to Chandak for Rs 80,000. "We needed hard cash again, and I could turn to no one but
him. The banks had refused to give us loan for some reasons. From that amount I repaid a
small loan borrowed from a villager and invested the remaining in farm," he says.

While these developments were unfolding, the first Sahukar mounted his pressure on Vilas to
relinquish the five-acre land mortgaged with him. Finally, Vilas gave in 2002. The five-acre
plot went out of his hold.

There were two reasons for Vilas's crisis. One, he was strongly in the clutches of the two
usurers. And two, he had suffered huge losses in 1999 and 2000, when he sowed onion after
laying a pipeline on his farm for irrigation. That investment was huge. "I got a good crop that
year, but the prices of onion had crashed phenomenally," he laments. Vilas had to sell 500
quintals of onion for Rs.30 a quintal. The previous year onion prices were Rs.500 per quintal.
Per quintal, he suffered a loss of Rs 470. In 2003, he raised a good orange crop, but just
before plucking, a hailstorm destroyed the fruit irreparably. "We could have settled all our
loans that year, but destiny had something else in store for us," he laments.

For the sahukars it came as a golden opportunity to wrest the prime land of the Kitukles.
"This year, Chandak earned Rs.5 lakhs from his orange orchards," says Vilas. In all these
years, Vilas' elder brother gave him about Rs 1.5 lakhs to be pumped in agriculture, and all of
that money too went in repaying loans. Also, he spent heavily on his father's illness.
Finally, in 2004, Vilas had to sell three-and-a-half acres more. This time to the first lender.
That fetched him a price of Rs.43,000 per acre from which he cleared all his remaining
liabilities. "I've finally settled all my debts", he says. But he's bankrupt. All that he's left with
is a little less than three acres of land. And the cotton that he grew on it has fetched nothing.
"For the last seven-eight years we haven't celebrated any festival," murmurs Babita. "We had
no peace of mind. Our land slipped out of our hands like sand. We kept paying and paying
hoping for one good crop that would bail us out. It did not happen. Poor prices have done us
in."

Babita may not know that a series of government policies also had something to do with their
woes. Dramatic declines in rural credit, rising input prices, dwindling output prices, lack of
irrigation or processing of agriculture produce in the region, and declining state investments
in the sector, have all been responsible for the misery of not just this family, but tens of
thousands of other cotton farmers of Vidarbha. Why did the web of private lenders spread in
the first place? As farmers' leader Vijay Jawandhia puts it: "It was the lack of availability of
institutional credit at low interest rates that added impetus to private sahukari in the region."
The interest rates on cooperative bank loans too add up to around 20 per cent per annum, he
points out. "Is the government not a sahukar then?"

Now, the state government's purported intention to act severely against the Shylockian
moneylenders has brought a little cheer to the Kitukles who lost their precious land. The
indigent family may never know the difference between the sahukar and sarkar, though.
Those who do say there is hardly any; the sahukar and sarkar are simply two sides of the
same coin.

Cotton marketing fails Vidarbha farmers

The Maharashtra State Cotton Growers’ Marketing Federation was originally setup to
procure cotton from growers at reasonable prices and sell it to mills and traders. Instead, with
government policies not helping, it has trapped itself and farmers in a vicious cycle of debt
and losses, reports Jaideep Hardikar.

20 January 2005 - Vidarbha’s beleaguered cotton growers are staring at disaster in the New
Year.

The deepening agrarian crisis has ripped the economy of the region, which grows about 75%
of cotton produced in Maharashtra. About 150 cotton farmers have ended their lives in the
year gone by. The spell of suicides continues even in the harvest. The last two years have
seen inadequate rainfall. The irrigation scenario is frustrating and water resources are fast
drying up.

With all this, an unregulated open market and private usurers have tightened their noose
around the debt-ridden cotton farmers. Worse still, the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena
saffron opposition is savouring the malady for its petty political gains as much as the ruling
Democratic Front (DF) does.

Consider this: The Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, inaugurates a sugar mill started by a
co-operative presided over by Leader of Opposition and the BJP’s Maharashtra President
Nitin Gadkari in the Orange belt of Vidarbha during the winter session of Maharashtra
Legislature in December 2004. There, he adds insult to the injury of cotton farmers. “Cotton
is no more a paying crop, you must grow sugar-cane like western Maharashtra farmers,” he
suggests. As if growing water-intensive crop like sugar cane in a region lacking irrigation is a
sweet way to face a bitter crisis.

Two days after the inauguration, three marginal farmers end their lives in Yavatmal and
Akola, the districts in distress, at a time when cotton procurement had just started. But the
legislature session is wound up without any discussion on the issue. Farmers’ leader Vijay
Jawandhia at Wardha says with concern: “It’s not a good time to be a farmer in Vidarbha and
it is almost suicidal to be a cotton grower.”

State run monopoly riddled in crisis

Until a year ago, Maharashtra was the only state in the country with a state run monopoly
scheme to procure cotton from the farmers. The Maharashtra State Cotton Growers’
Marketing Federation, a state government appointed body, purchased cotton from farmers at
an assured price, and then sold it in the open market to the mills and traders. The body never
had a farmers’ representative.

The scheme ran well till mid-nineties. Farmers did

1995-96 spelt the first signs of
not make big profits then, but were at least assured
doom for farmers. The marketing
of returns that did not fluctuate. But
federation, already in losses, failed
maladministration and rampant corruption saw the
to make timely payments.
Federation sink in huge debt, and the state
government never bothered to set the things right.
The Federation also became a coterie of political
leaders who had failed to get a cabinet berth.

Around 1994, the Federation wanted to procure cotton at cheap prices. The manipulation in
gradation of cotton varieties began then. Good quality cotton was graded as low variety yield
and priced accordingly. Also around the same time, the huge influx of cotton imports led to
the Federation beginning to incur losses, since it could not resell its procurement at higher
prices. The grading malpractice still continues, with farmers ending up earning less.

It was the season of 1995-96 that spelt the first signs of doom for farmers. The Federation,
already in losses, failed to make timely payments to the growers. The BJP-Sena government
had raised the Federation’s procurement price to Rs 2,100 that year from Rs 1,700 per
quintal, to woo a constituency that was hitherto a Congress stronghold. The Federation had
no say in the government’s decision.

In Maharashtra, cotton is procured from farmers from Rs 1700 to Rs 2500 per quintal
depending upon the variety. Vidarbha grows a variety that fetches an average of Rs 2100 per
quintal. (one quintal = 100 kg)

The Federation defaulted in paying dues to farmers and went into financial doldrums.
Without cash, farmers took the stick the hard way. On the one hand, the year had seen
fertilizer and seed prices double up. Costly hybrid seed varieties had flooded the market,
riding on the state government’s dictates. Farmers were forced to take loans from the banks
and institutions for the next agriculture season at whopping interest rates. The debt trap
spread.

The central government’s policies hurt farmers here too. For instance, while the sugar import
duty steadily rose to over a hundred per cent, the duty on cotton declined to ten per cent in
1997. That year, local markets crashed for the first time. That was also the year when
Vidarbha first heard of farmers’ suicides. Since then, hundreds of farmers have ended their
lives, unable to find avenues of bailing themselves out of the crisis.

Monopoly goes, mess worsens

As the crisis was unfolding, unregulated seeds and fertilizers penetrated remote villages. In
the 2003-04 fiscal year, the state government discontinued the procurement monopoly and
opened it up, with the Federation still remaining a player. This was also the year when cotton
produce plummeted in Australia and the United States, driving up demand for Indian cotton.
International prices for cotton were good.

With procurement now opened up, traders in Vidarbha procured cotton from farmers directly
at Rs 2800 to Rs 3200 per quintal in 2003 and sold it at much higher prices in the
international markets. Even the Cotton Corporation of India had opened the procurement
centres in Vidarbha. But traders also made further merry of the situation. Many traders had
become money lenders to the farmers by then. Some traders have seed and fertilizer shops
known as Krushi Kendras in the Vidarbha region. They milked the farmers for cotton against
recovery of their loans.

The state-run Federation could have also bought from the farmers to make up for its own
losses. But it managed to procure only 3200 quintals of cotton that year, 2003-4 as against an
annual average of 200,000 lakh quintals. Why? The key reason was that private traders
offered a higher price to the farmers that year, and two, traders make a one-time payment to
farmers, but the Federation does not. Also, traders purchase the cotton at farmers' doorsteps
thereby saving transportation costs for farmers. To sell to the Federation, farmers have to
bear the transportation costs on their own.

This year

This agriculture season, 2004-5, things went the other way. International prices declined
drastically. Also, delayed rainfall in Maharashtra resulted in the first two sowings (June-July
2004) in some districts failing. Vidarbha's cotton yield, usually expected in November,
declined considerably. But the Federation wrongly claimed in the first week of December
2004 that there had been a “bumper crop” in the state. (Produce usually reaches markets in
December after plucking.) The Federation's statement was enough to bring about a price
crash in the local procurement markets dominated by private buyers and emerging
moneylenders. Private traders offered a mere Rs 1500-1700 per quintal to the cotton growers.

The Federation however has been of the “competent buyers” in the open market this season.
At the dictate of the state government, it announced the minimum guaranteed price of Rs
2500 per quintal for the best variety of cotton. The state government says it has made it
mandatory for any buyer (traders included) to procure cotton at a price not less than the
minimum guaranteed price. Ironically, as Kishor Tiwari of the Vidarbha Jan-Andolan Samiti
tells us, "The traders don't follow the rules, and there's no mechanism with the government to
ensure that they gave minimum guaranteed price to farmers."

There were two options for the farmers who had cotton to sell. To sell to private buyers at the
rates fixed by them for a one-time payment or to sell the produce to the Federation and wait
endlessly for it to pay the money. Many farmers preferred the first option. They got the cash
immediately and as in 2003 they also settled, in several cases, the loans with their buyers,
who were also their lenders.

But more was to transpire. Even as its statement about “bumper crop” enabled local traders to
buy cotton at low prices, its own offer of a higher MSP, triggered a flow of cotton towards it.
Private traders under the garb of local farmers and other farmers made a beeline outside the
Federation’s centers. Traders sold cotton to the Federation at profits. And to sell to the
Federation, they misused the green cards of the cotton
growers.
"The traders don't follow the
“The farmers naturally prefer cash in one installment.
rules, and there's no mechanism
They sell their cotton to the traders, who then cart the
with the government to ensure
cotton to the procurement centres, bribe the graders so
that they gave minimum
that they certify the yield as the best variety, and
guaranteed price to farmers."
pocket the huge commission. A trader earns a
-- Kishor Tiwari, Vidarbha
minimum Rs 400 for every quintal of cotton sold. It’s
a whopping income. Going by the average
procurement, a few traders would make a minimum Rs 8 crore, just in commission,” explains
Kishor Tiwari of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti.

And more. The Federation’s price offer was also much more than the prices in Andhra or
Gujarat. Even the rate of Rs 2100 for an average quality grown in Vidarbha was more than
procurement prices in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh or Gujarat. The farmers of those states
transported their produce in Maharashtra. Outstation farmers also tied up with the local
farmers. They also used the green cards of the locals to channel the produce in to the
Federation procurement centres.

Still, how is the Federation going to pay for all its procurement this year?

The payments are still to be made. But whenever the Federation pays (with losses borne by
the state government exchequer), it will be at the rate of Rs 2100 to Rs 2500 depending on
how it graded the cotton. And by all indications, payments are not going to be less than Rs
2100 per quintal. The Federation has said that the money will be given in three installments,
but it has not fixed any time frame. It could take a year or more. For its part, the state
government has recently promised to make financial arrangements for the Federation.

But the traders are willing to wait.

It was only at the end of December that the Chairman of the Federation, N P Hirani,
conceded that yield in Vidarbha itself was indeed less. Hirani also confirmed that
Maharashtra had seen a lot of influx of cotton from the other states -- Andhra Pradesh and
Gujarat. Nearly 70% of the two hundred thousand quintals of cotton procured by the
Federation, was from outside the state, he admitted.

Originally setup for the benefit of the state's cotton farmers, the Federation has trapped itself
and farmers in a vicious cycle. First it delays and defaults on payments. This forces the
farmers to go for private loans. Indebted and cash-strapped, they sell their produce to the
private lenders at low prices for quick cash and more loans; the loss riddled Federation's
continually poor payment cycles do not help. The traders themselves then sell back the cotton
to the Federation illegally. In the meantime, the Federation is in need of bailouts from the
government, which traders know will come.

Poll freebies not relieving Vidarbha farmers

Last year saw Maharashtra go to the polls and the incumbent government offer freebies to
farmers. But cotton growers in Vidarbha saw their problems only worsen as they entered
2005. None of the political parties seem interested in a real way out, finds Jaideep Hardikar.

24 January 2005 - The new year has caught Vidarbha's cotton farmers in crisis. The
Maharashtra State Cotton Growers’ Marketing Federation has trapped both farmers and itself
in a vicious cycle. Last year also saw the state elections with the Congress and BJP led fronts
in keen contest. The Sushilkumar Shinde government also made offers of free electricity and
interest waivers to the state's farmers. But none of this ended up really resolving the cotton
growers problems as they entered 2005.

Elections, problem solving and misplaced policies

Just before the 2004 elections in Maharashtra, Sena Chief Bal Thackeray pleaded with the
farmers not to commit suicide, but bring about a ‘parivartan’ of power. That came a cropper.
Much though Thackeray would like to forget, the suicides were first reported in the cotton-
rich belt of Vidarbha when Sena-BJP was in power in the state seven years ago. A few
cheques given in aid to the farmers had bounced then.

Free electricity

On August 4, 2004, in a run up to the elections, the then CM Sushilkumar Shinde announced
“relief measures” supposedly for the farmers -- a free electric power largesse. Ironically,
none of those who ended their lives – consider even the small number that the government
machinery says are “genuine suicide cases” – had electric pumps or irrigation. Not a single
one.
The one unfortunate family whom Sonia Gandhi
Those ending lives are also not
visited in Talegaon near Wardha had an electric
battered by the nationalized or
pump, but the electricity supply had been
cooperative bank loans, but the
disconnected by the MSEB almost eight years ago. In
private usurers. A large number
Vidarbha, the state electricity board concedes that the
of farmers in this belt have
number of motor-pumps is just about 92 per 1,000
defaulted on repayment of bank
farmers. Which means, less than ten per cent farmers
loans long back.
would benefit from the free power that the
government announced.

In fact, the day the government announced the free

power sop, three peasants ended their lives in just one tehsil of Yavatmal, while two others
consumed pesticides to end themselves in Amravati district. The death toll had touched 44 in
Yavatmal alone. And together, across Vidarbha, the toll crossed the 70-figure-mark since the
agriculture season began in the first week of June 2004.

Loan interest waivers

Before the elections, the state government also announced a waiver of interest. But again,
this would benefit less than ten per cent farmers, who had borrowed from the nationalized
banks. And those farmers were not the ones in distress or debt-trap. That measure too did not
help those in distress.

Those ending lives are also not battered by the nationalized or cooperative bank loans, but
the private usurers. A large number of farmers in this belt have defaulted on repayment of
bank loans long back. Today, farmers are under huge debts of the private usurers, some of
whom, as my visits to Yavatmal yielded, enjoy proximity to the powers-that-be. Some are
traders who are also in processing industries like ginning and pressing.

Irrigation and cash crops

For many farmers, a shift from food crops like jowar to cash crops was suicidal. In
comparison with jowar, cotton crops require much more fertilisers and chemical inputs,
necessiating higher cash requirements. And many did not get credit at the start of this
agriculture season.

Irrigation is another factor. While cotton's water requirements are less compared to jowar,
timing is crucial. For good yield, the first few rains in July and August are absolutely
essential. For its part, the government has failed on the irrigation front for years. Big dams –
the Upper Wardha dam on Wardha river and the Gosekhurd dam on the Wainganga -- are
under construction for two decades, but irrigation has not improved. In fact, some of the
farmers who ended their lives this year are from the command area of two medium irrigation
projects in Yavatmal. The irrigation department could not release the water for agriculture
when the farmers needed it most.

Even so, some of the farmers who ended lives the past year were from the better-irrigated
paddy-belts of Bhandara and Chandrapur districts. It was the seventh or eighth year of
suicides. Again, the regions where farmers ended themselves in distress were not always in
drought.

Farmers’ distress is always linked to drought, but the fact is that more complex matters have
been at work. (See: Cotton marketing fails Vidarbha's farmers.)

Post elections

Post-elections, the government has reneged on its promise of raising the guaranteed
procurement price of cotton to Rs 2700 per quintal (1 quintal = 100 kg). The Democratic
Front had made this promise in its pre-election manifesto. The free power sop may be
discontinued, the government says. As for the announcement of drought and relief measures,
the surveys have just begun. And as always, they are being conducted in the villages neither
drought-prone nor crisis-ridden.

Farmers were bullied by private seed-retailers and a mafia of private usurers. They have lost
out also because of the unregulated sale of spurious seeds. Most of those who ended
themselves did so because they could not sustain their families’ basic needs from agriculture,
their only sources of income here. They saw mounting debts, crop failure, and seemingly
unending penury. Some of them were big 35-acre farmers, who suffered significant losses in
the past few years.

Wrongheaded policies, the mess in the monopoly cotton procurement scheme and
unregulated usury has driven farmers to a state of desperation. But neither the state
government nor the opposition parties seem interested in helping farmers with a way out.

350, and counting

Inexplicably, Maharashtra's bosses have gone into hiding after announcing a "bailout
package" for Vidarbha's beleaguered farmers. Not a single pie has been distributed yet, two
months after the chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, announced it. Farmers' suicides are
failing to move a heartless government, reports Jaideep Hardikar.

11 March 2006 - Yavatmal, Amravati, Wardha: It's only getting worse and worse. The first
nine days of this month have seen 25 farmers commit suicide in Vidarbha. The register of
farmers' suicides is swelling with every passing day in Vidarbha – 367 according to the
Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) at the last count on 10 March -- for the agriculture
season that started on June 2 last year. Over 150 suicides have happened in the last three
months, and a hundred of them are in Yavatmal alone. Those who are clinging on to a hope
for better life and an end to the crisis are unfortunately discovering far greater levels of
distress and desperation, even as the marketing season silently comes to end.

Inexplicably, the state bosses have gone in to hiding, after much brouhaha over the
announcement of, what they call, a bailout package. Ironically, not a single pie of even that
package has been distributed yet to the beleaguered farmers, two months after the chief
minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, announced it in Nagpur.

"Continuing spell of suicides is a concern; the implementation of package is being delayed,"

Deshmukh himself admitted in Yavatmal, while addressing a farmers' rally on February 27,
2006. He had announced the much-trumpeted package during the winter session of the
Maharashtra Legislature at Nagpur. That delay though has cost over 150 lives – that's the
number of farmers who committed suicide since the announcement of the package in
Vidarbha.

The Rs.1075 crore package is for only six cotton districts of Vidarbha, but the ugly spell of
suicides is spreading in eastern districts of the region that grow paddy. Over 30 paddy
growers too have ended themselves in the past three months – in Gondia, Bhandara and
Chandrapur districts. And the central reason, evidently, remains the same: declining market
prices and rising production cost.

"The trend is not surprising," says farmers' leader Vijay Jawandhia at Wardha. "Paddy
cultivators are not getting the minimum support price, which is why they are unable to
recover the high production cost." A little trigger is disastrous then.

The losses to the cotton growers are phenomenal this year, says Kishore Tiwari of the
Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti. Maharashtra government withdrew advance bonus of Rs.500 a
quintal over the guaranteed price before the commencement of the season – that alone
amounts to a loss of thousand crore rupees to the cotton cultivators, notes Jawandhia. "By
March 9, the federation's procurement stood at 15 lakh quintals, while that by the private
buyers had crossed a hundred lakh quintals," says a high placed federation official at Nagpur,
who preferred to not be named. "That's a phenomenal dip considering the last year's record
250 lakh quintal procurement by us," he adds. "Whereas the total bills stood at Rs.4000 crore
last year, this year we've had to pay only Rs.180 crore to the farmers so far." Add to that the
abysmal prices in private markets that have picked up about a hundred lakh quintals of cotton
from the growers. (1 lakh = 100,000)

Former General Manager (Procurement) of the Maharashtra State Cooperative Cotton

Growers Marketing Federation S N Deshmukh says the yield may not be more than 170
lakh quintals this time around. That means about 50 lakh quintals of cotton is still with
growers, procured neither by the federation nor by private buyers. And the clamour for
selling it is just picking up.

"It's clear, the government is pushing the farmers to private buyers," Jawandhia points out.
By the end of January, the state-run federation had silently closed down its procurement
centres without giving any reason, leaving the farmers in the lurch. In Yavatmal, tens of
farmers awaited the federation or private traders to buy their cotton. Nobody did so for days,
pushing the cultivators to a point of desperation. So much so that at one centre angry
farmers resorted to violence.

But the state government remained unmoved, negligent towards their plight. What is more,
the government had clandestinely applied a clause to its policy of procurement. The
federation decided not to buy substandard cotton (called Kavdi in this region), mostly the one
that comes with the third or the fourth picking. Kavdi forms a substantial quantity and is
processed into bales and sold at cheaper rates to the mills. The decision not to buy Kavdi was
not made public. Farmers did not know this. It was a silent move -- the government feared it
would have triggered a political storm.
However, in February the government rolled back that decision apparently under fire from
the Centre over the suicides. "We had decided not to buy cotton that was below par on its
micronear quality, but we've withdrawn that condition now," marketing minister
Harshwardhan Patil said at a news conference in Nagpur on March 1. He said that was the
reason why the federation's procurement centres did not buy cotton from cultivators for some
time. "Now that we've issued the GR, the centres will start procurement."

"We can't keep cotton beyond March. Its quality will start deteriorating fast if it is not sent
for ginning soon," Deshmukh says. If their remaining cotton is not bought now, farmers are
doomed. But this is the trick, says Tiwari. "Now the growers will sell it in distress at any
(little) price."

Kavdi is being procured at Rs.750 a quintal, said a federation official. But the federation will
try to brand even the good grade cotton as Kavdi and try to buy all of it at Rs 750. This is the
end of the season. Gradation has always been a problem and steeped in corruption. The
government-run agency has presumed that the cotton left to be sold is of poor quality. The
abysmal prices will ensure farmers won't go to the federation anyway (which is the main
reason why the government has taken this decision) and would prefer to sell cotton to private
traders at slightly better prices. This is how the government is withdrawing itself from the
game - by hook or by crook.

Another factor: The losses have been accentuated by failure of Bt seeds, notes an official in
the federation's Nagpur office who prefers to remain unnamed. Bureaucrats in the federation
do not want to come on record fearing that may create a further controversy. While the crop
failed, the cultivation cost multiplied manifold. And drop in prices mean a sure disaster, says
Tiwari. But not all the cotton crops that failed were due to the bollworm pest. In fact along
with the pest attack, the cause for devastation this time around was a disease called 'Lalya' in
local parlance, or "reddening". Farmers say this was unseen before, and that it affected Bt
more than the non-Bt cotton crop.

Suicides continue, even as the state bureaucracy hold programmes in villages to "revitalise
the self-confidence of farmers" or "generate awareness." In Pusad block of Yavatmal, for
instance, the sub-divisional officer, Vijay Swami, hosted discourses in villages to prevent
farmers from committing suicide. He called it a way to reinvigorate the lost confidence
among the crisis-hit peasants of his area.

Farmers though want a better price to their yield. "Until we get better prices and institutional
credit, the situation won't improve," holds Anil Kale, a progressive farmer in Pandharkawda.
The prices have dwindled to Rs.1400 a quintal in private markets, which start the day's
procurement with a better price to draw farmers to their mandi. "But by the noon, rates start
sliding, and by the evening, we may get only Rs.1400 or further less a quintal," says a
farmer.

Holds Jawandhia: "These 'jan-jagruti' programmes may go on, but after a slew of important
policy measures – institutional credit and better prices, of all." Says Tiwari: "We don't need
to make aware the farmers any more. We've to make the heartless government aware of the
grass-root situation. The need is not of shetkari atmavishwas jagruti abhiyaan, but sarkar
jagruti abhiyaan!" So far, the government's approach to tackling such a serious issue has been
appalling.

In fact, the government's drive against sahukars (rural money lenders) notwithstanding,
exploitation is going unchecked. Sanjay Mohod, 35, was beaten by a whip by his lender,
when he failed to repay Rs.400 borrowed a month ago in Amravati's Chincholi village.
Broken by that, Mohod made a futile bid to take his own life. With two acres of land to farm
upon, he also works as a labourer to make his both ends meet.

Suicide in a distant land

In Vidarbha, where over a thousand farmers have taken their own lives in last the four years
over unabated distress, Venkanna Ramayya Rayee's suicide has an unusual edge. A farmer
from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, his name won't figure as an entry in the suicide ledger in
either state. Jaideep Hardikar has more.

12 March 2006 - Zari Jamni, Yavatmal: Venkanna Ramayya Rayee was escaping distress in
Andhra Pradesh, his native state. He couldn't escape it in Vidarbha, a distant land.

So, when the 21-year-old chilly farmer, originally from Guntur, suffered staggering losses
last year and stared at a certain disaster this year too, he swallowed pesticide in his cramped
hut at his farm on February 2.

Venkanna's became an unusual suicide in the cotton belt of Vidarbha, a land where over a
thousand farmers have taken their own lives in last the four years out of debt, losses and
unabated distress.

In Maharashtra, Venkanna's name won't figure as an entry in the suicide ledger, and neither
will it in Andhra. His suicide would go down unnoticed as a death in the alien land. As the
agrarian distress threatens to engulf crops other than cotton in not just this region but other
states too, the young farmer could not escape the fury. It was just a matter of time.

"He suffered staggering losses," says Yellamanda Kotaiyya Bellam, an old farmer and distant
relative of Venkanna. As did the tens of other chilly growers who farm the land taken on
lease from local cotton farmers.

But Venkanna could not have recovered the production cost from the yield even this year,
which was the cause of his tension, says Narayana, a relative, who farms the plot next to that
of the Venkanna's in Mucchi village, 40 km south of Pandharkawda in Yavatmal. Chilly
prices have dipped to an all time low today, even as the inputs prices skyrocketed.

Tens of Andhra farmers lease agriculture land from cultivators in Vidarbha every year, a
trend that picked up in the mid-nineties when Telangana was devastated by successive
droughts and policies belting the peasants. Venkanna cultivated about nine acres of land at a
lease rate of Rs.4500 per acre. Which means, he paid Rs.40,500 on lease alone. Add to that
the per-acre production cost of Rs.35,000, plus the transportation costs post-harvest. The
largest component of the production cost is seeds, chemicals, and electricity, constituting
nearly 40-50%.
"This year chilly prices stand at Rs.2500 a quintal down from Rs.5000 at least in 2002-03,"
mumbles Narayana, worry writ large on his face. The price drop has been caused by a
bumper crop and price rigging by market players at Nagpur, the main hub for chilly. There is
no minimum support price (MSP) for chilly currently, and volatility in international markets
has also impacted prices. With chilly economics turning the other way in a span of two years,
Andhra farmers here were plunged in huge losses. Their debts obviously piled up.

Explains Suresh Bolenwar, a farmer from Hiwra Barsa village in Kelapur tehsil: "If a chilly
farmer fails to get an average 20 quintals of yield, he is set to be doomed. The economics
would not work out in his favour then."

Indeed, when they made profits, they made it big time. But in the volatile markets as the
prices slid down, these farmers too ran into trouble, says Kishore Tiwari, convenor of the
Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) at Pandharkawda. "They do intensive farming,
involving greater risks."

Adds Venkatrao, another chilly farmer: "Every crop failed last year, but chilly failed totally."
Also take this: Venkanna's risks were manifold – the crop was his but the farm was not, and
there was nothing to fall back upon once the crop suffered irreparable damage without any
insurance cover.

"Every farmer is in trouble, and chilly grower is no different," Tiwari says sarcastically. The
issue of pricing is central, he adds. And until that is addressed, the government won't be able
to bail them out of debt-trap.

Venkanna's name does not figure in the list of 367 suicides of Vidarbha in the current
agriculture season till March 10. He does figure in the post-mortem logbook though at
Pandharkawda sub-district hospital. And that's the only proof of distress that the Telugu
farmer was in, in a land away from his homeland.

Poison reaches them, government does not

Suicides by consuming poison contribute to over two-thirds of the total autopsies performed
at a sub-district hospital in interior Vidarbha, Maharashtra. "Pesticide could be bought from
any Krishi Kendra. But for medicine, they've to walk miles before they could get it," says one
health official. Jaideep Hardikar reports.

29 March 2006 - Yavatmal, Maharashtra - He was too young to die. But Ayya Baheru
Atram, 28, was sure he could not get out of debts in this life. So, the Kolam tribal farmer in
the remote Dubhati village, in south Yavatmal's Zari Jamni block, hung himself from a tree
along his farm on February 8, leaving a shattered Suman, his wife, and two young kids –
Sunanda and Charandas, to face the Sahukars.

A few miles from this village, two sisters are yet to come to terms with the suicide of their
father, Ganpat Naitam, in Shibla. Pranita, among the two, is remorseful to say the least. It
was the worries of her marriage that did her father in. Ganpat had run out of patience, and
money. Cotton prices did not give any breather. He ended his life in September, last, when he
saw no chance to fish himself out of the muddle. He consumed poison – that is pesticide. But
before closing his eyes, he told Pranita of his debts.
Both, Atram and Naitam, figure in the logbook maintained by the sub-district hospital at
Pandharkawda of the post-mortem cases. Poison and hanging – the two modes leave behind
all other causes for death going by the post-mortem logbook here. Also, it shows, a dramatic
rise in the number of poisoning and hanging cases. So much so, that poison cases have
become synonymous with farmers' suicides across Yavatmal.

"An overwhelming number of poison cases that come for post-mortem are farmers," reveals
Dr Rajesh Dhatrak, in-charge of sub-district hospital. Look at the trend: Suicides by
consuming poison contribute to over two-thirds of the total autopsies performed here.
Elsewhere too, the trend is similar. "These cases increase in the period of October-January,"
notes Dr Dhatrak. In those months in 2003-04, this hospital saw 23 cases of poisoning. It
went up to 39 last year, and 48 this year, that is 2005-06.

Adds Dr S D Dhale, a health official in Ghatanji: Suicide's instant source is available in the
market easily. "Pesticide could be bought from any Krishi Kendra. But for medicine, they've
to walk miles before they could get it," he says.

In September last, the state government issued instructions to the post-mortem centers to run
round the clock, even in the nights. They do now.

Meanwhile a new study stirs up the issue with fresh data. The Indira Gandhi Institute for
Development Research, Mumbai, which looked at the agrarian distress in Yavatmal, Washim
and Wardha districts, has a devastating finding on the state's suicide mortality rate or SMR.
A team of researchers also studied the larger trends of suicides in Maharashtra.

"The SMR (suicides per 100,000 population) for male farmers," it says, "trebled from 17 in
1995 to 53 in 2004." That was the period when farm suicides grew appallingly. In contrast,
adds the report, for overall males in the state, it stabilized at a level of 20 or 21 after 2001.
Concurrently, the SMR for women actually fell after
1999.
New research Evidently, the farmers are in for trouble, having taken
a stick on many fronts. As the report indicates,
The Indira Gandhi Institute for
farmers' suicides have actually pushed up the state's
Development Research's report
overall SMR level. "In 2001," the study states, "age-
on suicides is available online.
adjusted SMR for males was 20.6 in Maharashtra as
Pages 31 to 45 refer to mortality
compared to India's 14.0."
rates among farmers.
So, at 53, the SMR for male farmers is nearly four
times the national average for all males. In the crisis-ridden district like Amravati, the SMR
for male farmers shot up to 140 in 2004, ten times the national average and seven times the
state's average for all males.

Over two-thirds of the 111 suicide cases that the study looked at were of farmers less than 50
years old. Close to 60% of them had been farmers for over ten years, two in five had
completed their matriculation, and four in every five suicides were deaths by poisoning. That
is, by consuming pesticide.
Vehicle loan currents in turbulent Vidarbha
A two-wheeler loan bonanza is overrunning crop-loan concerns in crisis-torn Vidarbha,
where two to three farmers have been committing suicide daily. In a land where farmers find
it difficult to get institutional loans for their crops, it seems getting loans for bikes are not.
Jaideep Hardikar reports.

9 April 2006 - When Managing Director of the State Bank of India A Rameshkumar handed
over keys of a new two-wheeler to the 351st consumer recently, it made a big news in
Yavatmal. The bank proudly announced its target: To clear at least a thousand cases by this
March end through the 'Baliraja' scheme and "give dignity and improved mobility to
farmers." This is the first year that the banks are making easy bike loans accessible to the
farmers. It's a new trend. Other banks did not lag behind either. They organized loan-fairs to
offer easy vehicle loans to peasants, in the name of giving them "much-needed dignity." Each
one also had a target to be attained through such fairs.

Only three months ago, Diwakar Ganpat Ashtekar, 63, ended his life in paddy-rich Awalgaon
village of Chandrapur district. His crop and vehicle loan liability stood at Rs 5 lakh when he
consumed pesticide and died. As the risks in agriculture grew, he collapsed. The six-and-a-
half-acre farmer had borrowed Rs. 2.5 lakh for a jeep from the SBI's Medki branch seven
years ago for "agriculture transport." He still owed Rs.3,66,497 after having repaid
Rs.1,60,776 at 18% interest rate to the bank. Also, he had Rs.1,23,771 to be repaid to the
village society towards crop loan. As his debts shot up, a small natural trigger was enough for
him to give in.

"We purchased the jeep for transportation of vegetables from our own farm and the village to
a nearby market," says his son Rajesh, 33. "But that objective failed with the failure of crops
due to droughts." The family was broke. And the jeep never ran after a few months for want
of petrol. The bank has not yet seized the jeep yet. In such cases, bank officials don't dare
enter the house immediately.

And yet, two-wheeler bonanza is overrunning crop loans here in crisis-torn Vidarbha, where
two to three farmers are committing suicide daily – one in every eight to twelve hours.
Yavatmal which alone accounts for over a hundred farm suicides this season is looking at
record two-wheeler sales among peasants through easy loan schemes against land.

Cross over to western Vidarbha, in Bhadumri village of Yavatmal: Dilip Shende, 31, a six-
acre farmer, is done in by his overriding tensions today. For the last one year, he has been
enjoying a ride on his bike – a Hero Honda Splendor. Now he wonders how he would pay
loan installments. This year the crop failed. Had it been good he could've paid the bank loan.
"I don't have money for petrol today, where do I bring money for the installments? I wish I
had not spent money on petrol," he repents.

A month back, Dilip's neighbour Dyaneshwar Bhendare, a 31-year-old marginal farmer,

committed suicide, with worries of soaring debts finally catching up. His loan wasn't for a
bike, but agriculture. It was a private loan. In the same village, where an average farming
household is in debt, five new bikes came in last month. The buyers were landholders
between five and ten acres. A few more cases are in the pipeline for Bajaj Pulsars.
Says Ankit Naitam, a Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti activist: "More than 150 bikes have
come in to four villages in Kelapur in a month." These are the villages where over ten
farmers have ended themselves this season. They did not have bike loans, but they were in
debt averaging between Rs.35,000 and Rs.1 lakh, all for agriculture purposes, borrowed from
institutional and private sources. And none of them had a capacity to repay the loan.

"It's a sure way of pushing farmers in to debt trap that would end up in a death trap," adds
Vijay Jawandhia, 65, farmers' leader in Wardha. Jawandhia himself does not have a vehicle.

Another cotton farmer Pundalik Soyam, 47, says: "These men are heading for a sure death;
they can't and won't pay the installments to the banks." Where will the money come from?
"When we are unable to repay the crop loan in time and feed the families properly, buying a
bike is not just foolish, it's a gamble we are bound to lose." Soyam does not own a vehicle
either, and he's not entirely wrong.

The loaned money for the two-wheelers is directly going to the vehicle showrooms; the
manufacturers benefit because their sales are going up. But next year when the same farmers
need crop loans, would the banks give them money again, and more so when they are unable
to repay the existing loan? That's the question Jawandhia and Soyam are raising.

Take Punaji Maraskolhe, 33, in Jhuli village. He bought a new Bajaj CT 100 a year ago by
depositing Rs.15,000 towards down payment. He could not pay the annual installment of
Rs.10,000. "The bank seized my bike last week," complains Punaji, a 21-acre farmer. "My
other debts and liabilities are so much that I could not have paid for the bike."

The deals are tempting. You get a bike with a sat-bara (7/12 extract), which is not even
considered a proof of land ownership. It is a basic land record, and does not substitute for a
registered sale deed and a few other documents. So, if a farmer fakes on this document by
bribing a clerk in a land-records office, he can get a document on his name without actually
owning the land. And if a bank gives money to him on this basis, there's risk involved if that
farmer decides not to repay the loan. Also, any crook may cheat a genuine farmer, who owns
land, by claiming a 7/12 document on his name through bribing. This practice is still
rampant.

Still, in the name of giving dignity to farmers, the easy-finance schemes are being pushed as
agriculture loans, meaning a bank approves loan with strings attached. Some of these are
interwoven also with crop loans.

A State Bank official in Yavatmal says, pleading anonymity: "The loan is treated as
agriculture term loan to be repaid in equal installments in a stipulated duration of four years
at 9% interest rate." If a farmer fails to repay money, the vehicle is seized, he admits.
Eligibility criteria for term loans are that a farmer must have a good track record in crop loan
payments and own either four-acre irrigated or eight-acre non-irrigated land.

Explains Kishor Tiwari, convener of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti: "Every year the bank
will increase the term loan amount and deduct the installments for the bikes. The debt burden
will mount on a farmer." Some farmers are aware of all this before they sign up, but they feel
that banks would give them crop loans for the next season and deduct some amount from that
towards the bike loan. The total loan would mount, but at least it guarantees them some
money for next season, they feel.

Rajeev Niwal, 40, co-partner of Parvati Automobiles in Yavatmal, takes a different view:
"This is a good scheme for the emancipation of a farmer." His argument is a bike gives
mobility to a farmer, efficiency in supervision of farm work and dignity. "The two-wheelers
are in huge demand in the countryside," Niwal claims. He says that this scheme will change
the farmers. "It will accelerate the growth of allied businesses. For instance, the dairy
business."

"Yes, it would indeed change a farmer's life, but for the worse," scoffs Tiwari. "So, when P
Chidambaram announces a hike in agriculture loan in budget, it's good news for automobile
industry," he says sarcastically.

Cheques and balances, farmers have none

Thousands of cotton farmers in Maharashtra are due money from the state's procurement
agency -- the marketing federation -- for the 2004-5 season. Though officials maintain that
they have released payments, farmers are not getting money from the banks. Jaideep
Hardikar reports.

30 May 2005 - The Maharashtra State Cooperative Cotton Growers' Marketing Federation,
the nodal agency for state sector cotton procurement, saw two records come its way in the
season just gone by. One, it broke all the past records by purchasing a phenomenal 212 lakh
quintals of cotton from cultivators across the state. And, two – alarmingly – it saw its cotton
on fire all over the state. 111 fire incidents gutted cotton worth about Rs 36 crore at several
of its godowns and yards. (1 lakh = 100,000)

In two cases, the Federation handed over the probe to Crime Investigation Department (CID).
It fired five of its employees "prima facie
guilty of negligence" in Even though farmers get cheques three separate cases,
suspecting their from the Federation's involvement. Dr N P
Hirani, the Federation procurement centres, they cannot Chairman, confesses: "It's a
black scar on our encash the cheques at the district efforts." However, there's
some solace for the cooperative banks until the federation. Since the cotton
was insured, the government releases the money to Federation would claim a
full insurance. Local the Federation through the district leaders and cotton farmers
charge the federation treasury. with high-handedness
though. They wonder how it procured cotton at
216 centres without any regulator or vigilance squad
to keep vigil on the process.

Farmers not getting dues

Amidst the charges and counter charges regarding the fires, one key question remains
unanswered. For all the cotton purchased, when will the farmers get their dues? Thousands of
them are awaiting their payments ahead of sowing season. And though the state government
and federation maintain that they have released the entire payment, farmers aren't getting
money from the district central cooperative banks.
"This is a crucial period for the farmers," says Kishor Tiwari, President of the Vidarbha Jan
Andolan Samiti. "If the government fails to make payments in the next seven days, the
cotton growers are set to be doomed. Their debts would soar phenomenally," he fears. The
Samiti is a socio-political organisation working in Vidarbha among the farmers and tribals.
It is also one of the movements supporting the long standing separate statehood demand for
Vidarbha.

The Federation claims it has arranged for Rs 3663.22 crore by borrowing from the Life
Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and other financial institutions. The money was
released to the banks in bits – Rs 1238 crore; Rs 1200 crore, Rs 500 crore, and so on. This is
only the first installment that the Federation owes the farmers. "This takes care of the
minimum guaranteed price for the different varieties of cotton we bought from farmers,"
informs G H Vairale, General Manager of the Federation. "We are making arrangements for
Rs 1,007 crore to pay the second and third installments of bonus and interim payment to the
farmers. The installments are due for July and August," he says. (1 crore = 10 million)

Hirani claims the problem of disbursing money to the farmers is with the banks. The banks
beg to differ. The process of payment is complex. A farmer gets a cheque from the respective
procurement centre of the Federation. He is expected to withdraw his money from the nearest
branch of the district central cooperative bank after the government intimation. The
government, through the Federation, pays the money to the district treasury, which in turn,
disburses the money to the cooperative banks on the basis of a financial statement prepared
by the procurement centres. When the treasury releases the money, the banks open their
counters for the farmers for disbursement of the cotton payments.

"We clear the cheques as and when we get the money from the government treasuries. Unless
we get money from the treasury, how will we pay money to the farmers?" asks a branch
manager of a district central cooperative bank in Nagpur. He does not want to be named.
"This is a political issue, I will face an action if I speak to you," he pleads.

Federation's financial woes

The bumper production and purchase threw the Federation into tatters. It procured 211.53
lakh quintals of cotton, about 43 lakh bales and 117.66 lakh quintals of seeds (Sarki, in local
parlance). And the procurement continued till late April. Consider this: Federation's average
procurement always stood at 90-100 lakh quintals. Which means, its cotton procurement
more than doubled this time around. So have the bills, which stand at a little over Rs 4,700
crore. Delays in payments to farmers stem from the huge losses that the procurement scheme
has run into over the past decade. The Federation has pushed the payment burden onto the
Vilasrao Deshmukh-government. Cash-strapped, the state government has found itself
grappling with the whopping cotton bills.

Delay in payment is just one problem. This year's losses at the Federation are pegged at
around Rs 1,600 crore. But Kishor Tiwari claims the losses would be "somewhere to the tune
of Rs 3000 crore". There are no takers for the local cotton, one. And two, the cotton imports
are expected to go up, with the import duty just 10%, he says. This means market prices will
remain low and the Federation will not be able to sell the cotton profitably, having purchased
it at the guaranteed prices. The Federation's total accumulated losses are at Rs 4,000 crore,
but add the huge interest liability, and the situation becomes murkier.

Hirani believes unless the government backtracks to the original form of the scheme, the
state marketer will continue to garner huge losses. The Chairman is strongly recommending
that the government to run the monopoly scheme on the “no-profit-no-loss basis”, i.e. the
Federation will procure cotton at prevailing market rate. It will announce a minimum
guaranteed price before May 30. Growers will then estimate their returns for the upcoming
season. "We will buy the produce at the guaranteed price only. If the government wants, it
can pay the bonus (to farmers) independent of this scheme," Marketing Minister
Harshwardhan Patil told a media conference in Mumbai on May 10, speaking on behalf of
the Federation. The Federation falls under his ministry. The government (state cabinet) is
considering the recommendation and is expected to come out with a new policy shortly, Patil
declared in the conference.

But there is a catch. Farmers won't still be able to have a say over what the selling price of
their yield would be. They would only know in advance the total losses they would bear at
the end of the season, should they opt for cotton crop. "This is the beginning of winding up
of the scheme and allowing the private buyers to dominate the markets," says the Andolan
Samiti's Tiwari. The Federation contends this claim. "By declaring procurement price before
sowing season, farmers would be able to decide whether they should go for cotton crop or
not. Or, if the private buyers decide to buy the cotton, they would have to pay the guaranteed
price at least," argues Hirani.

Hirani also says the Federation is thinking of going for low-interest loans to clear some of its
debt burden. Not everyone agrees that low-interest loans will come to the Federation. "The
financial institutions are not very keen on bailing out the federation because they know that
this is a loss-making organization," explains an ex-official of the federation, pleading
anonymity.

Farmers' leader in Wardha Vijay Jawandhia says that unless the Centre hikes the import duty
cotton farmers won't stand in the face of international competition.

In the meantime, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has been on record to admit the failure
of the government to pay the dues in time, this – notwithstanding electoral promises. In fact,
this year's payments crisis has its roots in the very electoral promise made in the past
elections. The Democratic Front promised a rate of Rs 2700 per quintal to cotton growers
before elections. But it turned its back soon after. It reduced payment liabilities by asking the
Federation to declare a support price of Rs 2500. Still, the price offer had a catastrophic
effect on farmers, says Jawandhia. "The promise of Rs 2700 per quintal, and the previous
year's boom at international markets, saw the acreage of cotton rise by 20%." Though the
cotton yield dwindled in Vidarbha itself, Marathwada saw a bumper harvest this year, he
says.

Also, the huge influx of cotton from the neighbouring states added to the Federation's woes.
Hirani estimates that 20% of cotton came from the neighbouring states, which is significant;
he had overestimated this number at 70% earlier in the season.
A fresh crisis is brewing Thousands of cotton farmers may
opt for credit this time because they
A fresh crisis is now on the cards as the new have not yet been paid by the
agriculture season starts in a week's time. At some government. Seed companies have
places, the season may have already begun by now. begun sales, introducing new
Says Vilas Bhongade, a social activist: "The seed varieties and fertilizers, and they
companies are holding farmers' convention in villages are pressing cultivators to buy
and small towns across the region." Which means, the stocks in advance.
traps are already in place. With less than a month to
go for the monsoon, seed companies through the network of their retailers have launched off
their sales, introducing new varieties and fertilizers to farmers, and pressing the cultivators to
buy the stocks in advance.

"The farmers are usually coaxed into booking their quota by an advance payment or availing
the credit facilities offered by small retailers at varying interest rates," says Kashinath
Milmile, an old-time seed and fertilizer dealer in Pandharkawda. Thousands of cotton
farmers, he says, would opt for credit this time. Because they have not yet received their
dues from the government – the first installment. Which means the cash-starved farmers
will be indebted even before sowing starts. The same retailers would buy back the cotton,
deducting their loans at the end of the harvest. If the international prices stay stable then, the
small time seed-dealers would be richer. If global prices fall, the Federation would see a
spurt in its business, with traders running to sell there, at the cost of government's exchequer.

Simply put, the Federation has become a shield for private traders in under the garb of
farmers' interests, say farmers' leaders themselves. Timely payment of dues to farmers is
therefore crucial.

Vidarbha distress and the end of innocence

Ten months after his father ended his life, Madhav toils from 6 am to 8 pm to herd the cattle
of a big farmer for a paltry Rs 20 a day. Education? Forget it. In village after Vidarbha
village where farmers have committed suicide, children have eventually dropped out of
schools to take up the plough and work like beasts of burden, reports Jaideep Hardikar.

17 November 2005, Vidarbha - When cotton farmer Digambar Agose, 55, swallowed
pesticide in Malvagad village near Mahagaon town in Yavatmal on January 18, 2005, his 12-
year-old son Madhav became a debtor by inheritance. Today, ten months after his father
committed suicide, Madhav toils from 6 am to 8 pm to herd the cattle of a big farmer for a
paltry Rs 20 a day. Education? Forget it. He has to help his mother Rukmabai feed the
family. Then, he has to tend to his three younger siblings. Cut in to Padha village, also in
Yavatmal:

Satish Shende, 15, is slowly learning to farm, but has dropped out of the school. In June last
year, his father Atmaram, also a cotton farmer, consumed pesticide to end himself. Satish is
too young to understand the complexities that forced his father to commit suicide. He knows
his father is dead, but doesn't know why. He's yet to know that the debt burden has
automatically shifted on to his shoulders along with the family's responsibilities. Satish will
now have to marry off his two sisters, besides paying off the liabilities of his father by
helping his mother Nirmalabai. Atmaram married off his eldest daughter, but had loans of
about Rs one lakh (100,000) outstanding. "I first started herding goats, and got Re 1 per goat
per day till recently. I had to look after 25 goats of the villagers," says Satish.

In Akola's Dahihanda village, Ganesh Thakre's son Sushil, 20, wanted to become an
engineer. "We spent Rs 25,000 on his admission and fee to a polytechnic college," his mother
Rekha informs. After first year, he left the college and joined his father to run a vegetable
shop. In June, with every thing gone wrong at home and farm, a debt-ridden Thakre ended
his life in distress, and Sushil left his studies forever. He says he has no option but farm and
run vegetable shop to make ends meet.

"This is the saddest fallout of farmers' suicides," says Ritesh Parchake, a stringer with a
language daily in Yavatmal. Adds another journalist Sanjay Bhagat, in Mahagaon, Yavatmal:
"It can't get any worse than this. The Agose family was virtually penniless and still the
government inquiry into the suicide of Digambar concluded that he had ended his life due to
depression. Had the government taken a sympathetic view and given the compensation, this
Andh tribal family could have breathed a little easier, and all the children could have
continued with their education."

The state government and the Centre have refused to move, though. "The situation is
responsible," was the flat answer Maharashtra Marketing Minister Harshwardhan Patil gave
at a press conference in Nagpur, to persistent queries on reasons for unabated farm suicides.

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar was more forthcoming. "The state (Maharashtra) is
doing as bad as any other state in the country in the agriculture sector due to declining private
and public investments," said the Maratha strongman touring Vidarbha. But about suicides,
he shrugged off the responsibility to point out: "Agriculture is a state subject."

But if agriculture is a state subject, why does the Centre not send the state's ministers to
WTO meetings instead of the Central ministers? Pawar skirted this and further questions on
the issue and his thrust still remained on private and corporate partnerships. He told reporters
that a significant drop in investments in agriculture was the reason for the serious agrarian
crisis prevailing in the country. A slew of measures, he said, would be needed to bring that
sector back on the rails.

Meanwhile, Yashodabai, Ratilal Rathod's widow in Bandargaon, a remote and backward

village in Yavatmal inhabited by the Banjaras (tribal community), has no knowledge of this
backstage politics. She has lost her husband to an agrarian crisis that has for long been not
just neglected but also blatantly ignored by the nation's polity.

"Had the government taken a

sympathetic view and given the
compensation
When Dr M S Swaminathan, widely known as this (penniless) Andh tribal family could
the father of green revolution and Chairman of have breathed a little easier
the National Commission on Farmers, visited this and all the children could have
family and offered to provide for the education to continued with their education."
her children, a perplexed Yashodabai refused to -- Sanjay Bhagat
part with her less-than-12-year-old daughters, Yavatmal journalist
Ranjana and Kalpana, both of whom dropped out
of school after their father's suicide on August 21, 2005. "They help me eke out our living,"
she told a cavalcade of NFC members, agriculture department officials and some of top
bureaucrats. The two girls work as farm labourers for Rs 20 each and contribute to the
income of house. Their brother, Sadanand, is too small to work yet.

More than 20 cotton farmers ended their lives – and many others continue to do so in the
dusty villages of Vidarbha, after the NCF toured the region. One estimate suggests that a
farmer is committing suicide every 22 hours, and that rate, fear farm leaders, would
accelerate over the next three months. Vidarbha alone has reported 110 suicides since 2 June
2005. That is since the fresh agriculture season commenced in the cotton belt.

Sadly, even widows are following the footsteps of their husbands who ended themselves in
the past seven years. Meerabai Hatti Chavan, a Banjara woman, consumed pesticide on
Diwali day (Nov. 1), in Ambezari village of Ghatanji, Yavatmal. Seven years ago, her
husband had done the same thing. And the reason for both suicides was soaring debts. Now,
their four children are at the mercy of the village for food and work.

In Chandrapur's Bhisi village, Baba Wanjari, another marginal cotton farmer ended his life
out of distress on November 8 barely a year after his wife ended herself in their dilapidated
hut. Four children, including two daughters, of the Wanjaris are staring at a grim future.
Suvarna, 14, their eldest daughter, is still in a state of shock. She now has the responsibility
of her young siblings. It was last year after scoring 60% marks in SSC she dropped out of
school.

In village after Vidarbha village, amidst the graves of farmers, young girls and boys are fast
losing their innocence to a piling debt and daunting responsibilities, after the suicide of their
fathers. In every farming family that has seen the headman commit suicide, the children have
eventually dropped out of schools to take up the plough and work like the beasts of burden at
tender age. Girls are among the worst hit. Problems prop up when they get ready for
marriage. Finding a groom for a girl whose farmer father commits suicide proves to be tough.
The prospective groom could reject the proposal for two more reasons: One, the economic
compulsions of bride's family would force the marriage to be a low-key affair, and two it
could shift some of family responsibilities (including debt of bride's father) on to the groom.
"That's why many families don't report the suicides, fearing for the social ramifications," says
a high ranking police officer who asked not to be named because the issue was politically
delicate.

But now, these kids are potential suicide candidates, fears local stringer Parchake. And he is
not wrong. Neeta Pundalikrao Bhopat, 19, a bright student of BA first year in Aasra village
of Amravati district snapped her life by consuming pesticide on November 4, during Diwali
vacation. "My family can't make even a thousand rupees a month. And I have two younger
sisters. My parents can't bear the burden of our marriages when we don't have enough to eat.
So, I am ending my life. Nobody should be blamed for it," wrote Neeta in her neat
handwriting, minutes before she took the extreme step. She had lots of aspirations, the
villagers remember. But back home, things had slowly come to a boil, and she could sense,
most certainly, that if it weren't her, it would be her father any moment. Pundalikrao is a
marginal farmer of four acres of unirrigated land. He has private debts amounting to Rs
75,000.

So, this student of a nearby Mahatma Jyotiba Phule College consumed Endosulphane and
bade good-bye to the world. The suicide note speaks much more than those four lines. It
insists that the agrarian crisis has ripped apart farming households in rural Vidarbha. It has
ensnared its every member – infants, young and old, alike. It's not just the death of a farmer
when he commits suicide but the end of innocence for his kids as well.

Another farmer ends life, villagers distraught

"In the time of crisis, when no helping hand is coming forward to rescue us, we have to
manage ourselves," says Bhagwat Jadhav, a resident of Bondgavhan village in Vidarbha. His
neighour, cotton farmer Ramesh Rathod committed suicide recently. "It could be our turn
tomorrow," says a worried Jadhav. Jaideep Hardikar reports.

12 December 2005 - Bondgavhan, Yavatmal: When Ramesh Rathod was nearing his end,
the villagers of Bondgavhan assembled for a quick meeting in one corner of the rural
hospital. After a brief discussion the illiterate and poor villagers began collecting all that they
had in their pocket at that time. Yet the total collections were still short by Rs 120; they
needed Rs 450 for the post-mortem and transporting Rathod's body to the village in a hearse
van, and they could collect only Rs 330. Then a veteran had a word with the hospital
superintendent.

"He was a kind man; he did not press for payment of full money after Ramesh's death," say
the villagers in gratitude. They have yet to pay the remaining amount to the hospital, they
inform. The villagers, 17 of them, equally poor, performed last rites the next morning from
the collections again.

Ramesh died on November 8, 2005. Thirteen days later, villagers pooled in more money –
this time for the post-death rituals. Banjaras, who are nomads, follow the Hindu rituals. So
they performed the rituals sans a Brahmin, says Ramesh's 12-year-old son Pintu. There was
no money to pay for a priest, he says. The Banjara families left their nomadic traditions long
ago and opted for farming like the original inhabitants.

Dharmibai, Ramesh's widow, shivers at the thought of her future. "Had the villagers not
contributed money, we would not have been able to cremate him," she cries, grieving the
untimely demise of her companion. The widow says they suffered losses on their three-acre
farm for years.

When Ramesh consumed pesticide on November 8, his bank balance had tanked to Rs 52.
"We made all efforts to save him," lament villagers. "But it was too late when we finally
reached the hospital in a bullock-cart from our village that evening. Ramesh had consumed a
full bottle of pesticide."
Ramesh had borrowed around 800 rupees in 1995 from a cooperative bank and failed to
repay the loan. "It had shot up to Rs 15,000 along with the interest on the capital," says
Dharmibai. "A few days ago, we received a notice from the bank to repay the loan. He was
under tension from that day. For, he had also borrowed money from private moneylenders."

The day since her husband died, Dharmibai has taken ill. The widow is gripped with fever,
fear of the moneylenders and burden of the entire family – her mother, a son and a young
daughter. "All we've got with us is Rs 52," she wails, as the beleaguered villagers contribute
more for this bereaved family since government help is far from the sight.

This is harvest time. Vidarbha's cotton cultivating districts are witnessing death and distress,
with the number of farmers ending their own lives rising dramatically with each passing day.
"It is as if the farmers are staging a suicide protest against the unheeding government and a
society that has not cared to take cognizance," fumes Kishor Tiwari, convenor of the
Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS). "The fact that there is no intervention from the
government indicates that it is no more an issue for the thick-skinned insensitive rulers of the
state." Tiwari notes that the crisis tells upon the entire village. "Only one farmer may commit
suicide, but the economic problems confront the entire village. It is the economy of the
village which is in the peril," he says.

From all angles, Ramesh's death looked imminent. For seven long years, he struggled hard to
break even, but the economics of farming fueled by the fast changing global processes had
set in a crisis that was beyond his apprehension. "He made every effort to come out of the
debt – sold his cattle, went for better seeds, even Bt this time, but every time he ended up
with more debts and more losses. He had no irrigation facility either. Of late he was ailing
but had no money to treat himself," says Madhukar Rathod, a veteran, unrelated to Ramesh.
"It's not as though we did not know his condition. We tried to help him in all possible ways,
but his pride was hurt every time. He was aware that all the villagers were also in the same
condition."

Rathod says that Ramesh's loans had soared to roughly Rs 55,000, including private debt.
Because he had an outstanding loan at the district central cooperative bank, he could not get
any fresh credit. "Last year he married off his daughter to his nephew in the neighbouring
village. That was because he had no money for dowry and a lavish marriage ceremony. His
elder sister knew his problems and agreed to accept his daughter as her daughter-in-law. He
was much relieved."

Apparently, there was a severe pest attack on the Bt (Bacillus Thuringeinsis, genetically
modified variety) cotton crop in Ramesh's farm. There were other complications too. The
leaves of his cotton plants turned red before drying up. Ramesh had purchased legal Bt seeds
-- Bollgard brand MECH 162 variety costing Rs 1800 per 450 grams -- from companies
having commercial license from Mahyco/Monsanto. He was certain these were not spurious
seeds. The official price is Rs 1600, but the local inputs dealer in Vidarbha levies an
additional Rs 200 when a farmer like Rathod procures it on credit. "He was staring at further
losses because he had spent a lot of money on inputs this year, and the yield was destroyed
irreparably," say villagers.
"Who will compensate for the loss of his life now?" asks Dharmibai. "We were told that Bt
seed will change our lives," she adds. It has, but for the worse. "In three acres of land we
haven't got even three quintals of cotton this year. It has all been eaten by the pest despite
spraying chemicals." Dharmibhai says she used Endosulphane and Tracer - two costly
pesticides -- used against the bollworm pest which attacks cotton crops.

Add to these losses the rising health problems in the region. Strangely, for some reason,
many villagers are sick. That is partly due to the power crisis. "Sometime we get power at
night, so those who have irrigation and pump have to water their farm in the dark, and doing
so in the winter comes with the obvious risks to health," explains Mainabai Chavan. "Yes,
many of us are running fever because of that, but where is the money for treatment?" ask
villagers, still to come to terms with Ramesh's suicide.

The tragedy is pervasive. Dharmibai's old mother Totibai has stopped eating for three days
now. She is having an acute stomach ache. "But we can not take her to a doctor, that will be
an additional expenditure of Rs 300 for one trip. We can not do anything, it's left to God
now," murmurs a distraught Ramesh's widow.

Notes Sunita Raut, the village Sarpanch: "We never thought a person as strong as him would
commit suicide." She wonders that if this crisis could shatter the confidence of a mentally
strong person like Rathod, what would it do to weaker people? "These days when men go to
their farm, women pray for their safe return home, such is the concern among them. At the
back of their mind they fear their men too could take the extreme step," she says.

Ramesh, remarks another neighbour Bhagwat Jadhav, epitomized the condition of every
villager here in this Banjara-dominated village of the district's Ner block. In fact, he was a
symbol of crisis-ridden farmers in entire cotton belt of the western Vidarbha. "All of us are
bankrupt and indebted to private lenders," says Umesh Raut, Sunita's husband. "Some of us
have multiple loans. We don't know how we will clear all our debts." Umesh Raut is among
the villagers who raised money for Ramesh's funeral.

"We feel it's our responsibility to help this family. It's in the worst state. We will do whatever
we can, collectively," say villagers. "In the time of crisis, when no helping hand is coming
forward to rescue us, we have to manage it ourselves the way we can," says Bhagwat. "Who
knows!" he adds, "It could be our turn tomorrow. If we don't help them today, nobody would
help our families if – God forbid – we too end ourselves."
Executive Summary
Suicide of Farmers in Maharashtra
(Submitted to the Government of Maharashtra)
by Srijit Mishra
Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai
26 January 2006
1 The Context

1.1 In recent years, a larger agrarian crisis, particularly in cotton growing regions of
Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra in India, has precipitated a spate of
suicide death among farmers. This is of public policy concern. It is with this concern
that the current study looked into various socio-economic aspects to understand
processes and identify risk factors which would help formulate policy suggestions.

1.2 The broad objectives of the current study are:

• To analyze the agrarian scenario in Wardha, Washim and Yavatmal districts.
• To look into the trends and patterns of the recent suicide scenario in
Maharashtra.
• To study the nature and extent of indebtedness among deceased farmers.
• To identify and examine other socio-economic factors leading to farmers’
suicidal death.
• To compare the suicide (case) with non-suicide (control) households.
• To suggest policy measures.

2 Summary Findings

2.1 The Agrarian Scenario

2.1.1 Farmers in the selected districts are exposed to both yield as well as price
shocks for their Cotton crops. In 2004, the selected districts experienced acute water
problem due to deficit rainfall. Though Cotton cultivation was affected in at least
some pockets of the selected districts, there has been record production in the state as
well as in the rest of the country. Increased supply of Cotton in 2004 was worldwide
leading to a fall in its prices.

2.1.2 Price risk in Cotton is further compounded due to large subsidy provided in the
United States, low import tariff of only 5 per cent in India and the failure of the
Monopoly Cotton Procurement Scheme (MCPS) in providing a fair price to the
farmers in Maharashtra.

2.1.3 The number of rural branches of Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) has not
increased and it has been declining as a proportion of total branches. Agricultural
credit as a proportion of total credit disbursed by the SCBs has been declining. Credit
lines of co-operative societies are chocked. Credit flow through primary agricultural
co-operative credit societies indicate that loan per hectare gross cropped area is the
lowest in the Vidarbha region.

2.1.4 The breakdown of formal credit structures has led to increased reliance on
informal private sources of credit with greater interest burden. Under normal
circumstances interest charged by private moneylenders is around Rs.25 (sawai) or
Rs.50 (dedhi) for a loan of Rs.100 that is to be repaid in 4-6 months time.

2.1.5 In the absence of government extension service, farmers are advised by input
traders leading to an increase in input costs through supplier-induced-demand.

2.1.6 Share of input costs for seed, pesticide and fertilizer in Cotton is higher than that
for other crops. In fact, 90 per cent of the total insecticide/pesticide usage in the five
major crop groups in Maharashtra is in Cotton.

2.1.7 Cotton’s share of gross value addition in Maharashtra’s agriculture is much

lower than its share of gross area under cultivation. In fact, estimated cost of Cotton
cultivation in 2004-05 would at best break-even with the price under Monopoly
Cotton Procurement Scheme.

2.1.8 In recent years, there is shift in cropping pattern from Cereals (particularly,
Jowar) and Cotton to Soyabean. Increased supply of Soyabean has also led to a
reduction in its price.

2.1.9 Area under cultivation in the selected districts is largely unirrigated and with
option for cash crop being limited to Cotton or Soyabean the gross value addition per
unit land size in these districts will be lower than that in Western Maharashtra.

2.1.10 Expenditure under public intervention programmes like the Maharashtra

Employment Guarantee Scheme (MEGS) is not commensurate to the regions share of
poor. The share is even lower for agriculture and irrigation schemes, which together
account for 44 per cent of the state’s expenditure under MEGS during 2001-4.

2.1.11 At the all India level, gross fixed capital formation in agriculture, as a
proportion of gross domestic product, has declined from 3.1 per cent in 1980-5 to 1.6
per cent in 1997-2002. During the same period, proportion of plan expenditure
towards agriculture & allied activities has declined at the all India level as well as for
Maharashtra.

2.2 Trends and Patterns of Suicides in Maharashtra

2.2.1 Maharashtra’s suicide mortality rate (SMR, suicide death per 100000
population) has been higher than the all India situation. In 2001, age-adjusted SMR
for males was 20.6 in Maharashtra compared to India’s 14.0. Similarly, age-adjusted
SMR for females was 12.6 in Maharashtra and 9.5 at the all India level.
2.2.2 SMR for male farmers in Maharashtra trebled from 17 in 1995 to 53 in 2004.
Whereas for the overall population, the age-adjusted SMR for males has stabilized in
the range of 20-21 from 2001 and that for females has been declining after 1999.

2.2.3 Male SMRs have jumped to a higher level around 2000 or 2001 in Amravati,
Nagpur and Pune divisions and this is also evident in the selected districts of Wardha,
Washim and Yavatmal.

2.2.4 During 2001-4, age-specific, education wise and marital status wise patterns
indicate that SMR for almost each and every sub-group in Amravati and Nagpur
divisions and in the selected districts is greater than the corresponding SMR for
Maharashtra.

2.2.5 SMR for male farmers is the highest in Amravati division – annual average of
116 for the period 2001-4 and as high as 140 in 2004. Compared to the state average,
Aurangabad and Nagpur divisions also show higher SMR for farmers.

2.2.6 Distribution by method of committing suicide indicates the higher usage of

pesticides (34 per cent males and 30 per cent females). It is much higher than the state
average in Amravati and Aurangabad divisions and also in the selected districts of
Wardha, Washim and Yavatmal.

2.3 Probing Suicide Deaths: Micro Analysis

2.3.1 The analysis of 111 suicide cases indicates that the deceased were mostly males
(91 per cent), currently married (80 per cent), below 50 years of age (71 per cent) and
with more than 10 years of experience in farming (58 per cent). Nearly two-fifths
have completed their matriculation or higher education. Four-fifths of the suicides
were committed by consuming insecticide/pesticide.

2.3.2 In our sample, the modal groups with greater proportion of suicides are Kunbis
(31 per cent) and Banjaras (16 per cent) among caste groups and small (39 per cent)
and semi-medium (21 per cent) farmers in terms of size-class of land. This is so
because the population proportion of these groups will also be large. Comparing
across three broad caste categories and three broad land size-class groups, difference
in suicide incidences are not statistically significant after normalizing for population
(agricultural census, 1995-6). Nevertheless, one observes that suicide incidences are
slightly higher among Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) across
caste groups and for marginal and small farmers across size-class of land.

2.3.3 The interrelated and co-existing socio-economic stressors identified in order of

frequency are indebtedness, deterioration of economic status, conflict with other
members in the family, crop failure, decline in social position, burden of
daughter’s/sister’s marriage, suicide in a nearby village, addictions, change in
behaviour of deceased, dispute with neighbours/others, health problem, a recent death
in the family, history of suicide in family or other family members being ill.
2.3.4 Compared to the 106 non-suicide control households, the 111 suicide case
households on average have a higher family size (particularly, greater number of
females). The proportion of joint families among them is, however, lower. Their
ownership of assets and access to basic amenities and average value of produce are
also lower.

2.3.5 The average amount of outstanding indebtedness even after adjusting for family
size and land size is 3.0-3.5 times higher among suicide case households when
compared with non-suicide controls. After excluding households with no dues (those
whose outstanding indebtedness is nil), the average amount among suicide cases is
2.2 times higher.

2.3.6 On average, suicide cases had taken more number of loans and a greater
proportion of these were from informal sources. For both the groups, the reliance on
informal sources has increased in recent years. Most of the outstanding indebtedness
was for agricultural purposes, but this is relatively lower among suicide cases (67 per
cent of the total amount of outstanding indebtedness for the group) when compared
with non-suicide controls (89 per cent). The non-agricultural purposes are largely for
marriage, but consumption, education and healthcare among others were also
mentioned.

2.3.7 A statistical analysis comparing suicide case and non-suicide control households
indicates that indebtedness and absence of bullock (a productive asset that also serves
as a liquid asset) are significant risk factors. Under other restrictive conditions (like
controlling for land size, caste or limiting ourselves to a certain district), higher
family size and lower value of produce also turn out to be significant risk factors.

2.3.8 There is scope for subjective interpretation while scrutinising criteria on

eligibility for compensation. The criteria are: the deceased should be a farmer, the
deceased should have been indebted and that indebtedness was the cause of suicide.
Subjectivity can crop in because of de facto versus de jure ownership of land,
difficulty in verifying informal sector loan, restricting loan as a cause/risk factor only
if there was harassment. A perusal of the suicide case households does not reveal
differences in the eligible and non-eligible households in terms of land ownership or
indebtedness.

3 Policy Suggestions

3.1 Agriculture related strategies

Policy interventions should not be restricted to suicide households. A deeper agrarian

crisis can be averted by policy interventions beneficial in overall terms. It will also
help reduce suicides.

3.1.1 Revitalize rural financial market: The credit market needs immediate
attention; the formal credit structure should be revitalized.
3.1.2 Vaidyanathan committee report: One could benefit from the recent
recommendations of the “Task Force on Revival of Cooperative Credit Institutions,”
which suggests to make the cooperative credit societies accountable, to reduce the
number of intermediary societies in the three-tire structure, to reduce interest rates
charged to the farmer, to reduce intervention by the state government, and to bring
them under Reserve Bank of India (RBI) regulation.
3.1.3 Vyas committee report: Another recent report is on “Flow of Credit to
Agriculture and Related Activities from the Banking System.” It suggests a
two-stage reorganization of Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) to consolidate their
functioning. This will help them scale up their operations, utilize manpower
optimally, have greater autonomy and infuse professionalism while retaining their
rural focus.
3.1.4 Working Capital: This can be for consumption purposes also. It can be
operationalized through Kissan Credit Cards.
3.1.5 Investment Capital: Care should be taken not to divert loans given for this
purpose. There should be strict supervision by formal institutions to prevent such
possibilities. Otherwise, repayment will become difficult.
3.1.6 Information bureau: 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.
3.1.7 Micro credit: Formal institutions have by now started entering into rural credit
market through SHGs and other micro credit enterprises. They should be encouraged
to intervene and have a greater presence among farmers.
3.1.8 Regulate private moneylenders: The Non Governmental Organizations
(NGOs) are already involved in facilitating self-help groups (SHGs). The NGOs and
local SHGs should be encouraged to act as pressure groups to regulate private
moneylenders.
3.1.9 Insurance schemes: 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.
3.1.10 Risk mitigation fund: A risk mitigation fund can be generated to finance the
three different insurance schemes – crop, credit and income – or any other appropriate
risk mitigation scheme. This fund will have contribution from the Government and
can also be drawn from the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF).
3.1.11 Water management: 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.
3.1.12 Land management: 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.
3.1.13 Diversification of cropping pattern: The important cash crops of this region
are Cotton and Soyabean. To reduce the vulnerability, the farmer should have more
options and be able to go beyond these crops. Policies that can make diversification
of cropping pattern feasible should be put into place. Inter-cropping, fitting two crops,
crop rotation and horticulture should be encouraged. Better water and land
management will also help in attaining this objective.
3.1.14 Revive agricultural extension: In cotton, there is the emergence of new
varieties of seeds that makes conventional methods of cultivation redundant. The
experience gained over the years is of no use. There is deskilling. The farmer has to
upgrade his technical know-how. He should also be abreast with the latest
developments in water and land management. An appropriate mechanism to revive
agricultural extension is urgently required. Local NGOs can also be involved in
facilitating agricultural extension.
3.1.15 Input quality: Inputs in the form of seeds, pesticides and fertilisers sold to
farmers could be of spurious quality. There is no regulatory mechanism. We came
across situations where farmers were advised by traders to go in for a third sowing – a
case of supplier-induced-demand. The private traders should be regulated. Local non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) can be involved in regulating the private trader.
3.1.16 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. The Vidarbha
Organic Farmers Association and other similar organization may be involved in this
endeavour.
3.1.17 Integrated pest management: Another alternative is to encourage a judicious
mix of organic and inorganic farming. This will also require help in terms of
agricultural extension, quality control and marketing.
3.1.18 Increase import tariff: The farmer is exposed to price fluctuations,
particularly in cotton, because of global price movements. In the current scenario low
domestic price is largely due to huge subsidy by the United States of America (USA),
a major exporter, and low import tariff in India. The Government of India may be
requested (1) to raise the issue of high subsides in the USA at appropriate forums and
(2) to increase the import tariff in Cotton to 30-35 per cent from the current 5 per
cent.
3.1.19 Price stabilization: The Monopoly Cotton Procurement Scheme of
Maharashtra has failed in mitigating price fluctuations. Some of the reasons are
because of inappropriate functioning of the scheme like payment of additional
advance price without looking into market conditions, rent-seeking by office bearers
during grading/weighing, involvement of middlemen who
take a commission from farmers, delay and staggered nature of payment to farmers
and the payment to farmers being linked with loan repayment among others. These
failures should be looked into and an appropriate mechanism to control price
fluctuation may be considered. It will also help in risk mitigation.
3.1.20 Marketing of produce: Good marketing network can reduce transaction costs.
It will also provide non-farm employment opportunities with agricultural linkages.
3.1.21 Non-farm employment: A large proportion of rural population being
dependent on agriculture (cultivators and agricultural labourers) indicates that there
are not many avenues of diversifying sources of income. Agro-based industries and
other non-farm opportunities should be increased. With the current cropping pattern,
the agro-based industries can be cotton or oilseeds based. It can be related to organic
farming like manufacture of composts, bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides among
others.

3.2 Other Suicide Mitigation Strategies

3.2.1 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 Marathi. 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. Some of the above-mentioned practices have helped reduce
organophosphorous poisoning deaths in Sri Lanka.
3.2.2 Public Health: The average distance to reach a health facility which can handle
poisoning cases is more than 20 kilometres in Washim and Yavatmal 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.
3.2.3 Volunteer crisis centres: Organizations operating in urban areas like The
Samaritans may be encouraged and provided with support to open their centres in
these regions. The volunteers working in these centres should be adequately trained to
identify psychological illness and be allowed to refer cases for more personalized
care. There should be a process of certification and regulation of these centres to
ensure quality and adequacy of care provided by them. Networks of various crisis
centres should be encouraged so that they can learn and support each other’s work.
3.2.4 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
organisations operating in urban areas like Nagpur and Mumbai can be disseminated.
3.2.5 Community groups: Develop a protocol for starting survivor support groups.
Form community/farmer groups in rural areas. These groups can discuss farm related
and other socio-economic problems.
3.2.6 Socio-religious activities: The help of socio-religious organization like The Art
of Living or Vipassana may be sought to mitigate the general state of despair among
people.
3.2.7 Responsible reporting: 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.
3.2.8 Administration-media coordination: 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.
3.2.9 Reduce social expenditure: One of the reasons for indebtedness is expenses
associated with marriages in the family. A related risk factor observed is the difficulty
in conducting daughter’s/sister’s marriage when faced with an economic crisis like
crop loss. Initiate involvement of civil society to discuss and bring about changes in
the society by curtailing huge expenses on marriages and other social functions.
3.2.10 Social sector needs: Healthcare needs and higher educational requirements
also lead to credit requirement and indebtedness. Poor infrastructure also adds to
transaction costs in terms of storage and marketing. Poor transportation can also lead
to delay in seeking healthcare during times of emergency (including the consumption
of pesticides/poison). Appropriate interventions may be designed.
3.2.11 Research: More multi disciplinary research should be encouraged.

3.3 On Documentation and Compensation Criteria

3.3.1 Decriminalize attempted suicide: 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.
3.3.2 Clear guidelines: 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.
3.3.3 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.
3.3.4 Criteria for compensation: The criteria for compensation should be clear,
unambiguous and minimise scope for subjective interpretation. As mentioned earlier,
there was not much difference between suicide case households considered eligible
and those considered not eligible in terms of land ownership or indebtedness. 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.
3.3.5 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.
3.3.6 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.
3.3.7 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
 OTHER ARTICLES OF SAINATH .P

Mass media versus mass reality

The media have decided that 70 per cent of the population does not make news. The
electorate has decided otherwise. P Sainath contrasts expectations before the elections with
actual outcomes, and finds plenty that should have been always evident.

May 2004 - The first thing the election results drive home is the sheer disconnect between
the Indian elite and the Indian people. Here was a leadership that thought the `India Shining'
campaign would bring it success. A part of the elite — even those with the Congress party —
went further than that. They believed the claims of `India Shining' itself were valid and true.
The dispute was over the patent rights on the shine. Did those belong to the Bharatiya Janata
Party or to the Congress?

The Indian voters had very different issues on their mind. They were rejecting the National
Democratic Alliance Government, which, as one poll slogan had it, stood for the "National
Disinvestment Agency." The intensity of this electoral quake rates an 8 on the political
Richter scale. At this point, the `feel good' factor seems so pathetic as to require no ridicule.
The ruling party even tried to co-opt the thrill of a great cricket tour of Pakistan. It didn't
work. Yet while the spin doctors have been sacked, the age of spin doctoring has arrived.

Also rubbed in yet again was, of course, that second huge disconnect. That between mass
media and mass reality. Little in the media output of these past five years had prepared
audiences for anything like this outcome. The polls succeeded where journalism failed. They
brought back to the agenda the issues of ordinary Indians. Deeper analysis must await more
data. However, some broad contours seem clear.

There is almost no government in the country that has ill-treated its farmers and not paid the
price. That has hurt agriculture and not been punished. India has never seen so many farmers'
suicides as in the past six to eight years. For some, the urge to blame it all on nature is
overwhelming. And yes, droughts have badly hurt people in parts of the country. But that
would be missing the wood for the trees. Countless millions of Indians have seen their
livelihoods crippled by policies hostile to them. Many of these applied to agriculture, on
which two-thirds of the people depend. Any incoming government that fails to see this writes
its own exit policy.
The politics of divisiveness and intolerance also stand
Droughts have badly hurt people
rejected. In no other period post-Independence have
in parts of the country. But that
the minorities felt so insecure. And with good reason.
would be missing the wood for
From Graham Staines to Gujarat, the record is a grisly
the trees. Countless millions of
one. The basic fabric of a secular society came under
Indians have seen their
assault. Co-opting a few figureheads from the
livelihoods crippled by policies
minorities failed to work for the BJP-NDA. People
hostile to them. Many of these
went by their lived experience, not by the lure of poll-
applied to agriculture, on which
eve lucre. And amongst all communities, people have
two-thirds of the people depend.
shown they want a secular polity. Even in Gujarat, the
Congress party seems to have made its gains in the
areas worst hit by the bloodshed of 2002. It suggests that many Hindus, too, have counted the
costs of the past few years.

Under no other national government has there been the kind of intolerance towards dissent as
in the past six years. The Tehelka episode and the hyper-activism of the Censor Board are
just two of many examples. The rewriting of history — often with bizarre content — was
also part of this. So too the vilification of some of this nation's great historians. Years from
now, the country will still be assessing the damage done to some of our best-known
educational institutions. It's worth remembering that much of this happened with elite
consent. Until, of course, Murli Manohar Joshi got carried away. It was when he trampled on
the Indian Institutes of Management, the elite's pet institutions, that the squeals of protest
began.

Dr. Joshi has been defeated. So too have been the Ram Naiks, the Yashwant Sinhas, the V.C.
Shuklas and the Sharad Yadavs. The electorate has shown little respect for those we call
`heavyweights.'

The polls also seem to show India 2004 to be a far more federal nation than before. There
will be many different forces vying for political space. And that reflects the nation's
diversity. Those yearning for a simple `two-party' system have a long wait ahead. One vital
feature of this election was the partial recognition of this by the Congress party. Wherever it
struck alliances and accommodated other forces, it gained. Now this can be termed electoral
arithmetic. Even opportunistic. And indeed it is. Like it or not, it is also a negotiating of
political space in a vast and diverse nation.

The poll campaign of the ruling formation was also marked by sharp hypocrisy. Appeals at
press conferences and on television for decorum were followed on the ground by crude
personal attacks. Indeed, this seems to have backfired in Tamilnadu. Even apart from the
crushing strength of the DMK-led alliance, the foreigner diatribe against Sonia Gandhi did
not go down well. Not in a State that knows her husband — also an Indian and a Prime
Minister — lost his life on its soil. A victim of mindless hatred.

At one level, elections in the past year have followed a simple pattern. With a few
exceptions, the Congress has gained greatly where the BJP or its allies have been in power
for some time. And vice versa. People in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are
still voting against the policies of their former Congress Governments. Even the massive
numerical strength of the Congress-NCP tie-up in Maharashtra did not bring them the gains it
should have.

The electorate has put the new Government on notice. "Business as usual. More of the same,"
won't do. Already one Congress leader at the Centre has promised exactly that. Far from
rejecting the Chandrababu Naidu model, he suggests the Congress will give the people of
Andhra Pradesh "Naidu +." In which case the people of Andhra Pradesh will surely give his
party the treatment they gave Mr. Naidu — +.

Simply put, the term "reforms" is much like the words patriotism, motherhood and apple pie.
Who could possibly be against any of those? It's when you get down to defining these terms
that the gaps show up. (Mahatma Gandhi was a patriot. The BJP thinks Narendra Modi is
one, too.)

At the height of India Shining, our rank on the Human Development Index of the UNDP
made sad reading. It is better to be a poor person in Botswana or the Occupied Territories of
the Palestine than one in India. If the "reforms" mean policies that better the lives of
hundreds of millions, then surely people want them. That means, amongst other things,
addressing people's rights to resources such as land, water and forests. It means making more
jobs, not depriving millions of the ones they have. For some, the "reforms" simply mean
mindless privatisation. The transfer of public wealth and resources to private hands. The new
government needs to know that this was also a mandate against such an assault on people's
lives and rights. A glance at the fate of the so-called `reform-minded' State Governments
shows us this.

As long as the most basic needs of the Indian people

Already one Congress leader at
are not met, the elite will never find the `stability' they
the Centre has promised that far
so long for. Often, this is confused with continuity.
from rejecting the Chandrababu
The Modi Government continuing in Gujarat does not
Naidu model, the Congress will
make that State stable in any positive way. And it's
give the people of Andhra
worth remembering that before Mr. Modi gave
Pradesh "Naidu +." In which case
Gujarat his brand of stability, the BJP ran through
the people of Andhra Pradesh will
four Chief Ministers in almost as many years. It even
surely give his party the treatment
managed to bring down its own Government despite
they gave Mr. Naidu - +.
having a two-thirds majority in the Assembly.

Meanwhile the markets have been shaky for some days. It's a mystery how the expensive
analysts of Dalal Street function. If they could not factor in these outcomes into their
`possible scenarios,' they must be poorly informed and connected. I was assured by some in
the fraternity a few days ago that Chandrababu might face `a little anti-incumbency' but "let's
not forget there's real achievement here and people reward governments for that." Maybe we
can talk to them again when they're rescued from under the rubble.

The street analysts of Andhra Pradesh were a little better with their dark humour. "Bill Gates,
Bill Clinton and Dollar Bill. Naidu has saddled us with a lot of Bills to pay," was one
wisecrack making the rounds. The reference was to the incredible borrowings of the State
under Mr. Naidu. Something that never seemed to worry the well-paid analysts. Maybe the
world of such analysts is driven by the fact that (as the CII once reported) only 1.15 per cent
of Indian households invest in stocks.

As for the media, there is a great and urgent need for introspection. The failure of journalism
was far more predictable than the poll results. For years now, the media have stopped talking
to ordinary people. How on earth can they tell their readers and viewers what is going on?
There are 400-+ journalists to cover Lakme India Fashion Week. Almost none to cover the
agricultural crisis in any informed way. The labour and agriculture beats in newspapers are
almost extinct. The media have decided that 70 per cent of the population does not make
news. The electorate has decided otherwise.

Little pani, less panchayat - I

Backdoor grabs of water by big landlords and contractors are the 'model' in Orissa, says P.
Sainath

Nuagon, Angul (Orissa), October 2002 - WE stopped Pala Majhi in front of the Apex
Building of the Aunli pani panchayat. "What is this building?" we asked the marginal farmer.
"That," he said, in all seriousness, "is the World Bank office." Nuagon being a remote village
in Angul district of rural Orissa, that was startling. By this time, more people had stopped to
look at the five journalists with cameras. We asked Prahlad Pradhan, another small farmer,
about the building. "It's the World Bank office," he said.

But isn't it really a sarkari building, we pressed. Pala Majhi broke in. "Our sarkar has left
and there is another there, now," he said in innocence. Majhi seems to believe that the bank
now runs taxes in his village as well.

"Are all of you members of the pani panchayat here?" we ask. A babble of voices breaks
out. "We've paid our Rs.10," says Prahlad Pradhan. "But it's meaningless for us. I've never
been called for a single meeting. The big people here have captured all the water." Some of
the others say they have no clue what the pani panchayat is about. But they gather it is not
for them.

A day earlier, I had spoken to Jahnabi Pradhan. She's secretary of the now famous all-women
water users' association, or pani panchayat, of this area. "Who organised your pani
panchayat, Jahnabi?", I asked. "First the World Bank people came," she began cheerfully.
"They set us up and .... "

"No, no," the Irrigation Department official present hastily interrupted. "There was also the
NGO. Tell them about the NGO."

"Well," she rephrased her line. "An NGO came from Angul and did some surveys. But then
the World Bank and the Americans came and they got active. That's how we got organised."
The non-governmental organisation involved was the Youth Service Centre (YSC), Angul.
Its chief, Vijay Mahapatra, takes no credit for the big idea. "It was all," he says, "the World
Bank's concept. Neither the Orissa Government's, nor ours. Only the all-women panchayat
was our idea."
Welcome to the Aunli Irrigation Project in Angul district. The four "Water Users
Associations" covering eight villages here are Orissa's pride. They are held up as the State's
"model" pani panchayats. One of these is Jahnabi's all-women outfit. Astonishingly, officials
of the World Bank seem to have been directly involved right at the village level, in
organising things here. This is even though Mahapatra clarifies that there was no direct
funding of the bank "either to our NGO or to the pani panchayats". But he says: "Many
officials of the World Bank have visited these panchayats since 1996. More than 10. And
totally more than 15 to 20 visits."

The YSC pioneered the bank's entry into the area. "We mobilised the farmers. We started the
pani panchayats. And we opened their bank accounts." But, adds Mahapatra of the whole
exercise now: "It's not sustainable. It doesn't work. People have been misled on the aims and
realities." The YSC's links with the project came to an end in 1998. The canal system of the
Aunli project was handed over to the "water users' associations". This, says an official
document, was done on the World Bank's orders. "This concept of handing over canals to
farmers," it says, "is now termed as Pani Panchayat."

Aunli, say the Irrigation Department officials who joined me during my first visit, is the
success story. Assistant engineer S.K. Pradhan makes a compelling case for the panchayats.
They have brought much prosperity, he says. For instance, "Bank deposits shot up from Rs.
30 lakhs to Rs. 108 lakhs in just one year. Water is more efficiently shared. Pani panchayat
membership is rising fast. It now stands at 77 per cent of all farmers. The women are taking
major decisions."

There has certainly been some prosperity. Almost all of it is cornered by the largest landlords
and contractors of the region. On the ground, there is sharp distress. "Over 150 heads of
cattle were sold in Nuagon in the past two days," says Balakrishna Pradhan. He heads what is
likely the largest land owning family here. "They were sold at prices as low as Rs. 50 to Rs.
400." His son, Manas Ranjan is the chairperson of the apex body of Aunli's four pani
panchayats. His family owns more than 140 acres of land.

Those prices indicate a severe distress sale in themselves. But the timing is also very
significant. "This is the period of Gahmapurnima," says Abhoy Singh, editor of the Oriya
magazine Pravaha, who was travelling with me. "That's when people celebrate the sacredness
of the cow. It's when they are least likely to part with their cattle. On this day, in other States,
people tie raakhis on the hands of other people. But here in Orissa, they tie raakhis to their
cows. Those who sell their cattle in this period must be truly desperate."

They are. The way water is "distributed" by this panchayat means that poor farmers will get it
only every alternate year during the rabi season.

There are seven canals serving the eight villages in the Aunli belt. "There is less flow in the
rabi season," say Balakrishna and Manas. "So one year, we operate four canals on one side of
Aunli. In the next year, these four are kept idle and we operate the other three. So there is
rotation of water use."

There's a catch to it. Big landowners like Manas have land on all sides of Aunli. So they get
water every year, regardless. But if you're a small farmer like Jaiya Raoul with one acre at
one spot, you have no rabi crop at all every second year. Even Jahnabi of the women
panchayat went without a rabi crop last season due to the "rotation". On the other hand, all
the big landowners will have a crop every rabi season as some part of their fields will get
water. The system is structured to favour the big farmer. It's crushing the small ones. "How
am I going to feed my family?" asks Jaiya Raoul.

Did anyone ever consult him on the system before it was put in place? "Big people come to
the village and speak to the big people here. No one tells us anything. To begin with, my land
is in the tail region and got less water. Now there's no water at all for people like us."

Marginal farmers like him are the vast majority here. Then where did that prosperity — the
huge rise in bank deposits — come from? Meet Khristian Mahanandia. He's the manager of
the State Bank of India here in Aunli. And his dynamism is the main reason behind the rapid
rise in bank deposits. His story of where the money came from, though, is startling.

"The deposits have risen from Rs. 77 lakhs to Rs. 101 lakhs. That's the correct figure. But
much of that has come from outside the Aunli service area. Most of it is from non-pani
panchayat villages like Bagadia. And the bulk of the rise has come from the personal
segment savings sector. From school teachers. From people in service. Retired government
servants. Not from agriculture."

When Mahanandia became manager, he focussed on raising deposits from Bagadia. It is

outside his branch's service area. "But I know this village. I know the people here. So I
pushed very hard. And deposits from Bagadia went up from zero to Rs. 6.5 lakhs."

That seems to be more than the money that came in from agriculture from all the eight pani
panchayat villages of Aunli. The biggest increase in those villages came from Marudip —
Rs. 3.5 lakhs. "Most of that came from personal savings. There are lots of school teachers
there. Little came from agriculture. There were also lots of other villages where deposits
came from." In short, the rise in deposits in no way reflects a growth of prosperity in the pani
panchayat region. The deposits have come from nearly 30 villages. Less than one-eighth of
the rise has come from these eight villages. And much of that from outside of agriculture.

"Oh, but there is prosperity," says marginal farmer Goutham Pradhan. "It's just that it is all
for the benefit of the great people here. The rest of us, the small kisans, are doing very badly.
With no rabi, with huge cost increases, we are in trouble. Even if the child falls ill, I cannot
afford any treatment or medicines. But the big people are doing very well." The first time I
went to Aunli with Abhoi Singh, we were joined by Irrigation Department officers. We met
Manas, Jahnabi. All the key figures of the local establishment. It was when I returned a
second time — with four young Oriya journalists — that things began to happen.

Seeing us come back, people decided they wanted to talk to us. The village of Nuagon now
felt we had not bought into the miracle. Frustrations poured out. There were more people
wanting to complain than we were able to talk to. And the picture was no different in other
parts of the pani panchayat area.

It was odd how many people brought in the "World Bank". But there are reasons why they
believe everything happens because of the bank. For one, as Mahapatra points out, bank
officials have made many visits here. Further, people have seen the cringing servility of the
local bureaucracy towards visiting bank officials. From that, they seem to conclude who the
real boss in this show is. An astonishing amount of propaganda has also been at work. People
were told the "Vishwa Bank" would bring huge loans. They were led to believe that even the
standard government programmes of their villages — same as anywhere else — were there
because of the bank. So today many believe that the Apex body building is a World Bank
office.

What they were not told was that the water they had always had access to would pass out of
their control. That the big farmers who anyway dominate the village would grab control of
this vital resource. That they would find their always fragile economies now slipping fully
beyond their control. "The concept of panchayat is meant to be a democratic one," says ex-
MLA Nabaghana Nayak. "But there is no fairness in it at all. People do not participate in the
scheme. Nor can they. Some big farmers have captured the whole thing. This pani panchayat
idea has failed totally here. And so too in all of Orissa. Water is becoming private property."

Little pani, less panchayat - II

Backdoor grabs of water by big landlords and contractors are the 'model' in Orissa, says P.
Sainath

Nuagon, Angul (Orissa), October 2002 - WHAT sharing?" asks marginal farmer Goutham
Pradhan. "Who gave these people control anyway?" He's talking about those who run
Orissa's "model" pani panchayats in Aunli, Angul district. A handful of powerful landowners
who have cornered Aunli's most vital resource. Water.

Aunli's pani panchayats have never seen an election. To any post whatsoever.The men who
control Aunli's water cannot claim to represent any interests but their own. Indeed, it is true
of pani panchayats across Orissa. They are all unelected bodies. "It was done by consensus,"
says Irrigation Department assistant engineer S.K. Pradhan. That's a phrase echoed by the big
landowners of the region.

"The Government appointed electoral officers," laughs Vijay Mahapatra. "But it never held
any elections." He heads the Youth Service Centre in Angul. An NGO that helped build these
pani panchayats. The "consensus" merely reflects the will of Aunli's biggest landlords. The
rest just have to toe their line.

The "democratic" structure favours the landlords in more ways, too. They all have multiple
votes in the pani panchayats.

There are four pani panchayats across eight villages in the Aunli region. Any farmer with
land in any of these zones can become a member by paying Rs. 10. For the vast majority of
farmers with two acres or less, this means they can be members in their own villages. But
for someone like Manas Ranjan Pradhan — his family owns over 140 acres — democracy,
Aunli-style, works better. He has land across the entire area. By paying Rs.40 he can be a
member of all the pani panchayats in the area. He also has the right then, to vote in all of
them. That's if a vote should ever be needed. Most often, the writ of Manas and other large
farmers runs unquestioned.
Marginal farmers out in the cold. Apart from no say in the pani panchayats, every altemate
year, they have no rabi crop because of a discriminatory system of rotation.

There are some 1,700 farmers in the area. Just a few of these, each with 100 acres or more,
are in command of the whole process. Aunli's water resources have steadily moved into their
tight control.

Manas also owns a rice mill and is a wholesaler of rice. "I'm getting into the cattle feed
business," he told me at his house in Nuagon. A large house that "we actually built for the
State Bank of India branch here. But for some reason, they haven't yet taken it from us." His
father, Balakrishna Pradhan, is a retired headmaster and inspector of schools. He is
promoting hybrid seed "which I am exhorting my neighbours to convert to". He aims to deal
in cattle as well. "We need Jersey cows here," he says. "It was I who told the Americans to
adopt this village," he says with some pride on the arrival of the World Bank in Aunli. "I
went up to them when they came here and told them what the village needed."

They must have listened. Balakrishna is very articulate and the most educated person in
Nuagon; also, the one man the bank officials met who could speak fluent English.

How do the water users' associations or pani panchayats work? Each of the four here has a
president, a secretary and treasurer. Not one of them is elected. Each sends these three office
bearers to the apex body of the pani panchayats; that meets once on the ninth of each month.
Oddly, the apex committee meets far more often than the pani panchayats themselves. Power
is concentrated in this body.

Manas is chairman of the apex body. Unelected. He and the 11 members — all unelected —
decide the schedule of irrigation. With them on the body are a large number of Government
officials. There were at least nine of them at the last meeting. And the Government can co-
opt still more to sit in on the show. The collector is the chairman of the district-level pani
panchayat. It's unlikely these panchayats will ever be representative. But if they do become
so, there are ways of scuttling them. Just pile on more officials. Also, in battles over water
within the big farmers, the more powerful ones can enlist official muscle. The Oriya daily
Sambad reports that apex body members of 13 pani panchayats resigned en masse last
month. This was in the Derenjeng project area. One official had swung the water battle in
favour of a single pani panchayat, in which, allege the farmers, he has a vested interest.

The rest resigned in protest (Sambad, August 19). Similar actions were being planned in
Nuapada district. The pani panchayats we saw there were in no better shape. Some of those
who resigned were themselves large landowners. What if you're a small farmer? You are
anyway out of the decision-making. But what about the economics of it?

Jahnabi Pradhan is secretary of the now famous all-women pani panchayat of this region. A
model that has never had any power or say at all. No one from her panchayat is or has been
an office bearer in the apex body. It controls the smallest area. Just 288 hectares of nearly
1,750 hectares. And just one canal comes under its control.

Jahnabi and her husband work on their three acres. "We cannot afford to hire labour," she
says. Jahnabi may not have understood it yet, but pretty soon there will be a lot more that she
cannot afford. No one has explained to the poor farmers here the time bomb of hidden costs
ticking away in the whole scheme. Running the old canal system has many expenses.

"The total expenditure on Aunli," says Mahapatra of YSC, "must have been over Rs. 3 crores
roughly." That includes Rs. 23 lakhs on the apex building people know as the "World Bank
office". Then there's "the costs that went into the canal system repairs. Well over Rs. 1 crore.
And there's a bridge that's been built twice. The first time for Rs. 19 lakhs. Then Rs. 88 lakhs
to rebuild it after it collapsed." "The Government gave us Rs. 35 per hectare towards
maintenance," says Jahnabi. And she and many others believe that this official grant in aid
will soon go up to Rs. 100 per hectare. Indeed, that should have happened this January.

It didn't. And the Government is in fact working itself out of any such obligation. The real
costs of maintenance could be as high as Rs. 750 per hectare. That's apart from the water
charges that the revenue department collects, which could soon touch Rs. 250 per hectare
against Rs. 100 right now. Irrigation officials say the World Bank had wanted a charge of Rs.
400 per hectare. "But we knew the explosions that would follow," says one. "So we didn't
agree to do it at one time." It's now being phased out over a year or so.

Aunli's farmers will soon find all these costs transferred to them. It would wreck the small
farmer. And even these costs are misleading. This is a flow irrigation region. Where lift
irrigation is required, the power and other costs would shoot up much further. Predictably,
pani panchayats in lift irrigation zones have been a non-starter. For large numbers of farmers
in Aunli, even the present costs are not bearable. Jahnabi says as much while worrying about
why the Government's grant-in-aid has not come this year.

By the time the smoke clears, the smallest farmers will be paying several hundreds of rupees
a month, more than they ever have for water. "And in this place," says Balakrishna Pradhan,
"you are very lucky to earn Rs. 3,000 per acre in a whole year." Simply put, you're out of the
game. The damage would be even more quick in a lift irrigation zone. There's something else
many of the farmers do not know. A while from now, those who are not members of the pani
panchayats will not be entitled to water. The big farmers who control these are clear on that.
The rest are totally in the dark about it.

"That will happen when full transference of management takes place," says an Irrigation
Department engineer. Translated, that means when the canal system, with all its costs, is
solely the responsibility of the pani panchayat.

In Nuagon village, Manas Ranjan Pradhan is worried. He has five pesky journalists asking
people questions. And people are talking despite their obvious fear of him. He drags me
away to show me the great work the pani panchayat has done in restoring a tank. "The tank
covers 40 acres," he says. "Of that, 14 acres is public land, the rest is mine. We spent Rs.
60,000 putting up a bathing ghat here."

In short, a good sum of pani panchayat money has been spent on upgrading Manas' private
property. And in many ways, that tells the story.

Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's stand on water is quite positive. "We are not for
water privatisation," he told me in Bhubaneswar. "We want to hand over control to the
community. To the farmers themselves." He also favours smaller, localised irrigation
systems. "Not big dams." Those are good intentions and worthy of support. But not quite the
way things are working out on the ground. In the real world, "community control" is now a
cover for private control.

Public interest is the guise in which water is being privatised here. Expenses will be borne by
the public. Profits will be made by a few big landlords. With huge costs being passed on to
them, many small farmers will go bankrupt in the near future. It's being done through the
pani panchayat. A supposedly democratic form. But, very simply, Aunli's water resources are
passing swiftly into private control. That includes water bodies that were never private.

And there's more to follow. As the small farmers lose control over this vital resource, they
will be unable to hold on to their land. Land consolidation in the hands of a few big owners
must be the inevitable result. That's an outcome the authors of the scheme could not have
been unaware of.

Aunli is Orissa's "model" of what pani panchayats should be. What happens here will be
replicated in other parts of the State. Orissa's farmers have already been hit by policies they
can't cope with. Policies they never asked for nor had a role in shaping. Now they face their
newest threat: the privatisation of water through the backdoor.

Pick your favourite millionaire

Even allowing for under-valuation, many candidates are worth crores officially. P Sainath
looks through election candidates' disclosures in Andhra Pradesh.

May 2004 - Maybe there is something to Chandrababu Naidu's claims of women's

emancipation in Andhra Pradesh after all. A strange form of this is manifest in the poll-time
declaration of assets filed by the State's top political leaders. In many cases, the stated wealth
of a leader's wife far exceeds his own. Mr. Naidu himself leads the way. He is worth a
modest Rs.1.6 crores. His wife is worth more than 12 times as much at Rs.19.3 crores.

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Lok Sabha hopeful from Narsraopeta is also outdone by his
spouse. She is closer to the Rs.10-crore mark. Her husband reports a mere Rs.7 crores. The
wife of an MLA from Anantapur district is worth a full Rs. 1 crore more than her husband.
The Telangana Rashtriya Samithi (TRS) MP candidate in Medak owns almost nothing,

Contrast that with Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani who at Rs. 1 crore is doing a lot better
than Mrs. Advani is. Or film star Govinda in Mumbai who owns more jewellery than his wife
does. His personal collection clocks in at Rs.1.83 crores, eclipsing his wife's paltry Rs.32
lakhs. (It could be argued, of course, that men in Andhra Pradesh are given to marrying
women of great wealth. But that's another story.) All in all, women's property rights do not
seem to be doing too badly in Andhra Pradesh. Not if we go by these declarations of assets.

compared to his wife's assets.

The press in Andhra Pradesh has seen much good-
In many cases, the stated wealth
natured humour over the declarations. Many reports
of a leader's wife far exceeds his
sympathise with their "very poor" leaders. More so in
own. Mr. Naidu himself leads the
the case of stalwarts who have announced their worth
way. He is worth a modest Rs.1.6
in tens of lakhs of rupees. When all the world knows
crores. His wife is worth more
the true numbers to be in crores. Yet these doctored
than 12 times as much at Rs.19.3
documents do throw up many vital facts. Some of
crores.
which help us understand better the vicious and violent
battle for the party `ticket.'

Several of those contesting have held some kind of office before. This might be at just the
mandal level. Yet, even there, they seem to have acquired huge assets. In quite a few cases,
obscure little men at the mandal level have declared their worth in millions of rupees. Several
had no great source of income before holding elected office. (Unless they were contractors of
some sort.) A share of what they have made is now invested in the hope of higher office.
They've figured out this much: nothing makes more money like more money.

As one of the State's better-known investigative reporters puts it: "It has [been] proved
possible to amass crores in a very brief period. The more so in a State throwing thousands of
crores at `development.' That money translates mostly into contracts. So you have a very
large number of contractors contesting elections. They can afford it. In fact, they can't afford
not to. The polls are a serious investment in moving to the higher league." Many, watching
how this is done, are spurred to enter the arena themselves.

Andhra Pradesh has raised over Rs.50,000 crores in loans in the past nine years. That is, the
period of Mr. Naidu's tenure. Close to a third of that has come from external agencies such as
the World Bank. And a good bit of this greases the process of primitive accumulation on in
the State. Even `drought relief' translates into contracts. As do food-for-work programmes.
And thus into money and assets.

Anantapur, for instance, is one of the State's poorest districts. It has seen more farmers'
suicides than any other part of the country. Severe drought has also plagued the district. Yet
there are perhaps more luxury vehicles and SUVs per capita on the roads here than in many
big cities. (Including hundreds of air-conditioned Tata Sumos and Spacios, Scorpios and
Qualises.) The greater the money coming in for `relief' and `development,' the swifter the
expansion of this fleet. (The Hindu Sunday Magazine, July 13, 2003.) Most of the fancy cars
here are owned by contractors and builders.

If you are an elected representative you can guide many contracts towards yourself. (Or your
wife.) On the other hand, if you are a contractor, it makes sound sense to get yourself elected.
Getting to be an MLA or MP also helps you get permission to build, say, half a dozen
engineering colleges. Education is a multi-billion rupee business. The merging of the
contractor-elected representative is moving ahead very fast in the State.

That begins to explain in part not just the size of assets declared, but also the desperation to
contest the polls. There is too much at stake. Getting elected is a form of contract renewal. If
you do not manage it, you could lose your source of income. It also explains how costly the
purchase of your `ticket' can be. And how so many are able to afford it. The more so in a
State where a `ticket' can sometimes cost upwards of Rs. 20 lakhs. Where a candidate's
campaign spending in a single Lok Sabha constituency can be well over Rs. 2.5 crores. (And
up to Rs. 1 crore or more in an Assembly contest.)

Add to this the groupism and caste contours of Andhra Pradesh politics and you have an
explosive mix. Almost no other State has seen such a large number of attacks on party offices
during the `ticket' allotment process. These were not an onslaught by rivals. Just violence
from those who feared their own parties would deny them the ticket. There have been nearly
a dozen such attacks, often smashing the party office. (And some public property for good
measure.)

Barring the Left parties, all have tasted this fate. In Kurnool, Congress party workers torched
their own office after their leader was denied the ticket. TDP men in Gudivada ran wild at
their office after a former MLA was turned down.

In Hyderabad, violence erupted at the Congress headquarters, the mis-named Gandhi

Bhavan. Irate ticket-seekers ransacked the BJP office in the State capital. If the TDP office in
the city did not suffer the same fate, it was because of the huge police presence there to guard
the party from its own members. This did not, however, prevent rival TDP groups from
clashing within and outside the office. TRS men had to be physically restrained outside their
president's house in Hyderabad.

In one incident, a regional TDP office was ravaged by

Getting elected is a form of
a poll-hopeful fearing he would be denied the ticket.
contract renewal. If you do not
In fact, he got it, along with a dressing down from Mr.
manage it, you could lose your
Naidu who seems to have asked him what the point of
source of income. It also explains
the destruction was. Local journalists say his answer
how costly the purchase of your
was special: "Anyway," he replied defensively, "this
`ticket' can be. And how so many
office was built mainly with my money." Much of
are able to afford it.
`his' money came from contracts on public works.

There is a less funny side to the growing clout of

money power in the polls. The media here scoff at the level of assets declared. They point to
the fact that plots of land in prime locations valued at crores are listed as worth only lakhs of
rupees. Even allowing for under-valuation, many candidates are worth crores — officially.

The larger question is: what sort of character will a legislature full of such people have?

It is quite likely that most — if not all — of those elected could be worth, on an average,
between Rs. 50 lakhs and Rs.1 crore. (A conservative estimate.) How representative will they
be of voters whose annual average income does not exceed Rs.12,000? And is much less at
the lower levels of society. Even as the wealth of those up for office (or in it) shoots up, that
of the voters does not. A look at the growth of per capita income across all States in the
1990s makes that point. Andhra Pradesh's rank in per capita growth was lower than it was in
the 1980s. The gap between electors and the elected widens.

However, much of this is true of other parts of the country as well. What sort of legislatures
will we have? How true will they be to the issues of millions of poor Indians? Nearly 60
years ago, journalist and media critic A.J. Liebling wrote: "I think almost everyone will grant
that if candidates for the United States Senate were required to possess ten million dollars,
and for the House one million, the year-in-year-out level of conservatism of those two bodies
might be expected to rise sharply. We could still be said to have a freely elected Congress.
Anybody with ten million dollars (or one, if he tailored his ambition to fit his means) would
be free to try to get himself nominated, and the rest of us would be free to vote for our
favourite millionaire or even to abstain from voting..."

Liebling's own country turned his wit into reality decades ago. But he could have been
writing of the current Andhra Pradesh elections. Or of money power and the polls in India as
a whole. Your voting rights could increasingly mean your right to vote for your favourite
millionaire.

The class war in Gurgaon

The scenes from Gurgaon gave us more than just a picture of one labour protest, police
brutality or corporate tyranny. It presented us a microcosm of the new and old Indias.
Different rules and realities for different classes of society, says P Sainath.

13 August 2005 - A horribly oppressed wife, so runs the old American tale, slapped her
husband in despair. The man punched her over 30 times, till she lay battered and he was
exhausted by the effort. Then, panting, he told her: "Now we're even." That's right. Both
sides were violent, weren't they?

That's pretty much the both-sides-did-it line, now in vogue to describe the brutality in
Haryana. Months of being denied their rights, the ruthless cutting of their jobs, the despair of
the workers, count for little. The breaking of the nation's laws, the torment of the sacked
workers, their wives and children count for less. Context counts for nothing at all. History
begins with the televised violence of two days. Not with the hidden violence of years.

Even those 48 hours are instructive. On the one hand, hundreds thrashed mercilessly by the
police. Some still being clubbed as they lay bleeding on the ground. Hundreds missing.
Lathis, teargas, water cannons and other action from the police. One woman sick with
anxiety, swinging a stick at them - shown ad nauseum on every channel. That, and some
stone-throwers targeting cops in bullet-proof vests, neatly symbolised the match-up. Yup,
both sides were violent.

The Haryana police lived up to their history. At the best of times, this force would not win a
prize in any human rights competition. (Unless the only other contestants were Abu Ghraib,
Guantanamo and the Punjab police. The race might then be close.) This is the state of Jhajar,
where five Dalits were lynched by a mob. Their crime: they were suspected of killing a cow.
The Haryana police swung into action as only they could, filing cases against those they
suspected of cow slaughter. Then too, only nationwide outrage saw matters go further. Then
too, the site was close enough to the capital city for the media to take notice.

Yet the present violence in Haryana speaks of newer things as well. There was something
quite symbolic about Gurgaon being the venue of the protests. About "old" Gurgaon being
the scene of bloodshed and mayhem. While "new" Gurgaon with its bustling, happy, mall
culture, saw business as usual. Gurgaon's mall has won the attention of media the world over.
Many well-known papers, notably, the New York Times, have added lustre to its legend.

On Tuesday, one television channel was smart enough to see the contrast. The clearly better-
off (and for now unaffected) having their hot dogs and coleslaw in the Mall. While the plebs
battled the cops at the barricades in "old" Gurgaon. In that is a parable of an old and new
India as well.

This time, much of the media got the picture, but many of them missed the point. Two
channels at least, told us the police were showing "maximum" and "extreme" restraint. This
against a background (reported by the same channels) of hundreds missing. Of injured
persons being frogmarched from hospital to lock-ups. And of frightened people searching for
their relatives. This, too, alongside visuals of police battering unarmed people lying helpless
on the ground. I guess that's the maximum restraint the Haryana police are capable of,
anyway.

The second day's violence was reportedly sparked off when frantic members of the public
who turned up at the civil hospital could not find their relatives. Some of these seem to have
been whisked away by police to be charged with the previous day's violence. That inflamed
matters. Note that some non-involved citizens of "old" Gurgaon got quickly involved. What
they had seen angered them. And anyway, their anger had other causes, too. Oddly, those
pushing the "both-sides-were-violent" line seek no action against the police. Both sides were
violent, right? How come one side faces no punishment?

Gurgaon was about the police and administration increasingly acting as enforcement agents
of big corporations. Not without precedent in the past. But more and more a symbol of the
new India. It has been happening for some years in Kashipur and other parts of Orissa. There,
police and local officials have functioned almost as a private army of the mining companies.
Opposition leaders, even elected representatives, have been attacked when reaching there to
inquire into the violence.

In Haryana, Honda did not even have to come into the picture till things went awfully wrong.
The police and administration were there to act on its behalf. Had this incident occurred in
Japan, where Honda has large unions to deal with, some of its top brass would have been
seeking new employment. Here, they've just begun to talk about giving back some of the
workers their jobs.

Japan's Ambassador to India says this episode might prove bad for our image as an
investment destination. Gee! I'm sure that warning will send all those terrified women
searching for their relatives scurrying back to their homes in shame. What's a few
breadwinners when the image of India as an investment destination is at stake? That mindset
too, is symbolic of the new India. Remember those editorial writers whose horror over the
pogroms in Gujarat was roused not so much by the misery of the victims as by the damage to
India's image as an investment destination? They're back.

It's not all about Honda, either. Haryana has seen many brutal actions against workers in the
past decade. In 1996, over 18,000 safai karamcharis struck work across that State for 80
days. They were not seeking a paisa extra in wages or benefits. They had a single demand.
They wanted their wages paid on time. They sometimes went months without getting paid.

In response, the then Bansi Lal Government sacked 6,000 of them. Close to 700 women
found themselves jailed for up to 70 days under the Essential Services Maintenance Act
(ESMA). This had not happened even during the Emergency. This is the State of which an
editorial says approvingly: "Historically, Haryana has been a State without labour unrest.
This has made it a sought after destination for investment... " It has in fact been a region of
severe labour suppression. The editorial worries about finding "a more enlightened and less
brutal way" of "dispersing a crowd." Such kindness. It might also be enlightened to respect
the basic rights of people. Haryana is notorious for a labour department that will not register
trade unions formed by workers.

All such government actions were, of course, aimed at

Gurgaon was about the police and
privatising services like sanitation. In 2001, the
administration increasingly acting
Punjab & Haryana High Court ordered the
as enforcement agents of big
reinstatement of over 1,000 workers of the Faridabad
corporations. Not without
municipal corporation. The corporation had privatised
precedent in the past. But more
sanitation work - to an "NGO" - for "a monthly fee."
and more a symbol of the new
The then Mayor admitted the "experiment" had failed.
India.
The fate of the Rs.2.5 million monthly fee is best
guessed at. The court held the retrenchment to be
wrong. Some courts still do such things. That's why governments are so keen to change
labour laws. That too, reflects the new India.

Successive governments in Haryana have allowed companies to ride roughshod over

workers' rights. And though quite a few of new India's elite may not know it, trade unions are
still legal in the country. For now, anyway. It would be worth looking at how much media
coverage there has been of workers' problems here. (Or anywhere else.) In what depth have
the often illegal practices of managements been covered? How many working class families
have been rendered destitute in the town of the Great Mall?

How many channels or big newspapers even have full-time correspondents on the labour
beat? That too in a country where just the job seekers at the employment exchanges almost
equal the population of South Africa?

In Mumbai, the Mall itself has been built on the retrenched future of the workers. On mill
lands and on work they've been cheated off. And laws have been stretched or changed. You
can open a bowling alley and evade the rules by dubbing it "a workers' recreation centre."
You can see both new and old India cheek by jowl here.

When entities closely linked to two top Shiv Sena leaders buy former mill lands for Rs. 421
crore, you'd think there would be much curiosity. At least about where the money came from.
That too, when one of them happens to be a former Chief Minister and the other a Thackeray.
There's far more, though, about the "record" nature of the deal. And excitement over what
will come up. A grand mall? Or residential complexes?
The streets of Gurgaon gave us a glimpse of something larger than a single protest. Bigger
than a portrait of the Haryana police. Greater than Honda. Far more complex than the "image
of India" as an investment destination. It presented us a microcosm of the new and old Indias.
Of private cities and gated communities. Of different realities for different classes of society.
Of ever-growing inequality. Of the malls of the few and the chawls of the many.

Thirst for profit

People pay more for water than corporates do; in many parts of the country soft-drink giants
get it almost free. Whole communities lose out as heavyweights like Coke step in. The
corporate hijack of water is on and if the current trend continues, India's water sources will
be in private hands before long, writes P Sainath.

14 May 2006

2001: THE old man shuffled his feet, acutely embarrassed. No matter which part of India
you're in, the first thing you do is offer your guests a glass of water. And this was one part of
Nallamada in Andhra Pradesh blessed with that element. Things had changed, though.
"Please don't drink it," he said, finally. "See how it is?" he asked, showing us a tumbler. Tiny
blobs of thingummy floated atop a liquid more brown than transparent. But then he
brightened up. "Will you have Coca-Cola instead? That, this village has." And so it did. As in
the Aamir Khan ad. The smaller bottle for Rs. 5.

It's also there in countless other villages where a glass of clean water is now hard to find.
And Coca Cola's impact on both drinking and irrigation water sparks revolts across the
country. From Plachimada in Kerala to Kaladera in Rajasthan. From Gangaikondan in
Tamilnadu to Mehdiganj in Uttar Pradesh. From Thane in Maharashtra to Khammam in
Andhra Pradesh.

2002: M.P. Veerendrakumar, chairman of the Mathrubhumi group of publications, is startled

to discover that the Malapuzha river and dam in his native Kerala are "for lease or sale to
private parties. "I did not know you could sell and buy dams and rivers." He learns this from
a tender he sees in an American daily while on a trip overseas. "This had not appeared in any
of our local newspapers."

It had already begun in Andhra Pradesh There, two years earlier, farmers chased away the
World Bank's James Wolfensohn. He had come to unveil the confederation of "Water Users
Associations" in the state. "Water Users." Oh, what a lovely word! It denotes that special
group of folks who use water. The rest of us are non-users, a type of dryland bacteria. But
non-users, being a touchy, irritable lot, showed up in large numbers at the Koelsagar dam in
Mahbubnagar. Pitched battles were fought and hundreds arrested. The government shifted
the plaque of the dam to a safe haven miles away so the Bank Boss could cut his ribbon in
peace.

2003: Private theme and water parks in and around Mumbai are found to be using 50 billion
litres of water daily. This, while countless women in the slums and chawls of the city wait
hours in queues for 20 litres. Meanwhile, anti-Coke battles are hotting up again. Kerala's
pollution control board confirms the toxic nature of the sludge spewed out by Coke's plant in
Plachimada. The panchayat revokes the plant's licence.
2004: The polls to parliament -- and in some states -- see the rout of the biggest 'water
reformers.' Of course, there are many reasons for their defeat. But water is on that list. Sadly
for the World Bank, its puff job is already done. So its report "India's Water Economy:
Bracing for a Turbulent Future" appears as it is -- a year later. It sings the praises of Digvijay
Singh in Madhya Pradesh and N. Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra. And it claims they gained
politically from the reforms. It says the water users associations were particularly good for
Naidu. Because "farmers perceived this to be a reform which moved in the right direction."
That is in 2005, a year after farmers in both states hand out some of the worst electoral
defeats ever seen to the Bank's heroes.

2005: Bazargaon is a scarcity-hit Vidarbha village that has one sarkari well and gets tanker
water once in ten days. It is also host to the giant 'Fun & Food Village.' An elite park which
offers 18 kinds of water slides and uses millions of litres as a matter of course. All
Bazargaon's water flows towards this 'village.' It's a story repeated in different ways in many
places, across many states. Water as a commodity, flows from poor to rich areas.

In Yavatmal, a Maharashtra minister asks farmers at a meeting to "diversify into dairying."

The crowd jeers. (Vidarbha has seen over 425 farm suicides in ten months.) The problems of
water and irrigation loom large here. "You want us to take up milk production?" scoffs a
farmer, rising to his feet. 'When you pay us a price of Rs. 6 for a litre of milk, but pay Rs. 12
for a litre of your bottled water?" The meeting ends early.

People pay more for water than corporates do. The bottled water brigade got treated and
cleaned water in Hyderabad for 25 paise a litre for years. This goes into that bottle costing
Rs. 12. In many parts of the country soft-drink giants get it almost free. Whole communities
lose out as heavyweights like Coke step in. That company used 283 billion litres of water
worldwide in 2004. Enough, points out the India Resource Centre, to "meet the drinking
needs of the entire world's population for ten days." And the billions of litres it guzzles in
India could meet the needs of whole districts in Orissa or Rajasthan for a year.

Yet Coca Cola was the leading sponsor of the "World Water Forum" in Mexico this year. But
Coke is not alone in the devastation it inflicts in India. Meet the Real Thing. Central and state
governments in this country are privatising water. Coke is just one of the beneficiaries.
Oddly, those selling out India's water almost never use the word 'privatisation.' They know
how discredited that is. So the buzzword is 'efficiency.' Or 'public-private partnerships.' The
real questions are never raised. Should anyone own water? How must it be shared? Who gets
to decide? Is water a commodity to profiteer in or is it a human right? Is it more than a
'human' right? Countless other species also need it to survive.

The corporate hijack

The bazaar is large. And top water corporations figure in the Fortune 500 Global list. As
Maude Barlow, one of the world's leading water activists, points out, the business "is already
considered to be worth U.S. $400 billion annually". And there is lots more to be made. In her
stunning book, Blue Gold, Barlow cites the Bank's own estimate of the market size. "In 1998,
the World Bank predicted that the global trade in water would soon be a U.S. $800 billion
industry, and by 2001, this projection had been jacked up to one trillion dollars." And these
revenues are "based on the fact that only five per cent of the world's population are now
receiving their water supply from corporations". So as the corporate grip on water tightens,
"water could become a multi-trillion-dollar industry in the future. What if city after city
privatises its water services?"

Now you know why our planners, Ministers and bureaucrats are eager to privatise. There is
big bucks in it. Major `studies' and contracts are being awarded to private groups. As this
deepens, people and governments will suffer huge losses. But government officials and
private corporations will make giant gains.

The corporate hijack of water is on worldwide and one of the most important processes of
our time. The World Bank and the IMF help ram it through. Water privatisation has often
been shoved into their loan conditionalities in the past decade.

In few nations will the damage be as terrible and complex as in India. Here water use is
already very unequal. Most irrigation and drinking water in India, for instance, has a clear
caste geography. Even the layout of our villages reflects that. The dalit basti is always on the
outskirts, where there is least access to water. Barring dalits from the main water sources of
the village are not just about the 'social' horror of untouchability. It is also about curbing their
access to this vital resource.

It is also closely tied to the framework of class. About 118 million households -- 62 per cent
of the total -- do not have drinking water at home. As census household survey data analysed
by Dr. S. L. Rao show, 300 million Indians draw water from community taps or handpumps.
(Many World Bank and Asian Development Bank projects, by the way, will end up doing
away with those community taps.)

About five million Indian families (roughly the population of Canada) still draw water from
ponds, tanks, rivers and springs. This is a stratified society. The big dams that have displaced
millions of Indians in the past decades have also narrowed control and access to water. Atop
this structured inequity, we now install hyper-inequality.

A huge share of India's public health problems are linked to water-borne or water-related
diseases. Diarrhoea alone claims lakhs of lives each year. Further reducing the access of poor
people to clean water will sharply worsen matters. In State after State, the laws are being
rewritten. A prelude to handing over control of both drinking and irrigation water to
corporations. The Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority Act simply prices
farmers out of agriculture. If the rates implied in the act are actually imposed, irrigation costs
could be in thousands of rupees per acre. It would in fact be more than what most farmers
earn per acre.

At the same time as more and more fields run dry, golf courses dripping pesticides and
guzzling over a million litres of water a day come up in regions of high stress. Even in
Rajasthan. (In the Philippines, there have been shootouts between farmers affected by golf
courses and the hired goons of the course owners.)

India is a nation of subsistence farmers. When you privatise the rivers and the streams, the
canals and the dams, you privatise rainfall. And you ask for a social tsunami. This is also the
swiftest route to corporatisation of agriculture. In that sector, we are already forcing out
millions of small private owners called farmers. The task is to hand it all over to large
corporations. This policy-engineered agrarian crisis wracking rural India is also about the
greatest planned displacement ever in our history Water will be a major weapon used against
farmers in this process.

Noble terms serve to whitewash the theft of water from the poor. In Angul in Orissa, the
World Bank sought to hand over water to the rich. And called the process 'pani panchayats.'
There, the 'rotation' of canal water use saw to it that poor farmers could have a rabi crop only
once in two years. With people rebelling, this 'model' collapsed. But not before causing much
misery. In Andhra Pradesh, too, the Water Users Associations were mostly headed by the
biggest landlords and contractors of the region.

Just think of the trouble we're begging for. Almost every giant political headache in this
country is linked to water. The single most explosive issue in South India is the Cauvery
waters dispute between Tamilnadu and Karnataka. Then there is the Almatti problem vexing
Andhra Pradesh-Karnataka relations. There is the fight over the Kabini waters between
Karnataka and Kerala. Even the 'Khalistan problem' had a distinct link to the struggle over
the Ravi-Beas waters. Water conflicts in India also affect regions of the same state. The
Krishna-Godavari water disputes drive conflict within Andhra Pradesh. The list is endless.
Further, across the country, water conflicts of many kinds seep right down to intra-village
battles and bloodshed .

Some of our worst troubles with neighbours have also been about water. The Kosi barrage
with Nepal. The Farakka Barrage with Bangladesh. Indus waters with Pakistan. Over
decades, we've made things a lot worse. The unregulated spread of borewells was an early
form of privatisation. The richer you are, the more wells you can sink, the deeper you can go.
It has proved quite disastrous. Many poorer farmers have seen their dug wells sucked dry as
neighbours collar all the groundwater. In the end, it can destroy the entire village.
Mushampally village in Nalgonda in AP has more borewells than human beings. The damage
done to the aquifer has been terrible. Even the richest farmers also went bankrupt as water
stress peaked.

In his bid to privatise water when chief minister, Chandrababu Naidu wound up the irrigation
development corporation of Andhra Pradesh. Which meant it was now each farm for itself.
That led to lakhs of new borewells being sunk across the state. With disastrous results. Water
shortages in many states have also led to the emergence of 'water lords' who make a fortune
by selling the liquid. In Anantapur, some of these are former farmers who find this more
lucrative than agriculture ever was.

In the cities, millions dwell in slums where they might pay the same rates others do for water.
But they get far less and spend far more time in getting it. Against this deadly backdrop
comes water privatisation. If even the upper middle classes of Delhi loathe it, imagine the
plight of poor people in Chandrapur.

And get this. India could be the first nation in the world to nationalise its rivers and privatise
their waters. That is if we go ahead with the great river interlining project. Nationalise? And
privatise? The linking scheme would demand the former. The latter we are already deep into.
Of course you can, like in Chhattisgarh, sell or lease the river itself.
Those bringing it to you include some of the top corporations in the world. Some of the
companies now making a beeline for India have been turfed out of Latin America. Suez, one
of the Big Three of water, told the Guardian that "it was almost impossible for it to work in
Latin America or Africa. And so, instead, it would "be concentrating on China, India and
Eastern Europe." The company did not mention that it had been tossed out of Grenoble in its
native France as well. As Maude Barlow points out, that city also jailed its own mayor and a
senior Suez executive for bribery.

As she also shows, it's not just any racket. It's scale is stunning. "Bottled water costs up to
10,000 times more than tap water in local communities. For the same price as one bottle,
1,000 gallons of water could be delivered to a person's home."

In Bolivia, when the MNC Bechtel took control of the water supply in the city of
Cochabamba, it raised prices by 200 per cent. In cities in Peru, Chile and other nations too,
water was priced out of the reach of the poor. All of them saw widespread unrest and
political turmoil. Tiny Uruguay has set an example for the rest of the world. It amended its
constitution in 2004 to bar private control of water and to declare water "a fundamental
human right." This followed a referendum where close to two-thirds of the voters rejected
privatisation.

The U.S. Ambassador calls for 'Public-private partnerships' (read privatisation) in India. Yet,
as a report cited by Public Citizen points out: "About 85 per cent of all the water that comes
out of a tap in the U.S. is delivered by a publicly owned and publicly operated system." That
was and is the norm. Though the drive for profit will change things there, too.

Meanwhile, in India, the battles have begun. Protests across the country show that people
will not take it lying down. Still, with so much money to be made, the privatisers will not just
go away. The waters have just begun to get choppy. And we're in at the deep end.