The Hindu Business Line : Of farmer suicides and wheat situation

Can the increasing farmer suicides be explained away by attributing them to the increase in the population? And what of the bungling on the wheat front?

A BLEAK existence, made more difficult by the apathy and callousness of the political classes. — P.Sainath

Date: May 8. The place: Pune. The occasion: A seminar on the Mathadi Act, to mark the silver jubilee celebrations of the Pune Mathadi Workers Union. Participating in the seminar were representatives of some 30 Mathadi workers unions and a galaxy of labour leaders, notable among them Baba Adhao, Ganesh Naik and Baba Siddiqui.

It may be recalled that once the Mathadi workers were destitute farmer migrants. Understandably, they carry bitter memories about the village community, particularly the land-owning farmers. Recently, there was a violent conflict in Navi Mumbai between the local farmers and the Mathadi workers who have been settled in buildings constructed on the land forcibly acquired from the former.

Playing to the gallery

At Pune, the ambience was bitterly anti-farmer. The chief guest at the function was a celebrity leader of the agricultural cooperative movement who has a standing among the Mathadi workers as well. It would appear that the choice of the guests was influenced by the recent violence between the farmers and the Mathadi workers. The chief guest did full justice to the expectations of the Mathadi workers and their union leaders. His statements must have been music to the ears of those present.

"There is a lot of hullabaloo about the farmer suicides these days. The fact is that there has been no increase in the proportion of the farmers committing suicide in the last 20 years. The suicides of the farmers are not a recent phenomenon.

"A close look at the detailed statistics from the Home Ministry drives one to the conclusion that, in all the regions of the country where suicides are taking place, there is no change in the incidence of the suicides over the last 20 years.

The increase in the number of farmers suicides is merely on account of the increase in the population," he said.

He also referred to the procurement and import of wheat. He did not care to explain why the government, which only six months ago was confident that there would be no need to import any wheat this year, is now importing as much as three million tonnes. Nor did he care to explain why the government considered it proper to import the wheat at $178.75 a tonne, which works out to the cost of Rs 798.12 per quintal while the procurement price for the farmers is only Rs 650 per quintal.

He did not mention that in the open market, traders were prepared to purchase wheat from farmers at as much as Rs 700 per quintal with the result that the farmers preferred to sell their produce to the traders rather than to the Food Corporation of India leading to the failure of the FCI's procurement programme.

"The traders started purchasing wheat on a massive scale offering only Rs 25 more than the Minimum Support Price with a view to cornering the market, and the Government was not able to procure even 90 lakh tonnes of wheat against the normal procurement in the previous year's of 160 lakh tonnes.

"If the traders continued their activities of offering a price higher than the procurement price offered by the government the government will not hesitate to import wheat so as not to permit the plunder of the common man. The farmers are now turning to cash crops," the chief guest said in conclusion.

If his intention was to create a scare amongst the worker audience about the availability of foodgrains, he succeeded.

The real story

There is some truth to the observation that farmers' suicides are not an entirely recent phenomenon. For generations, the farmers have been committing suicides. But the circumstances were entirely different.

For generations, farmers' aged parents and grandparents who found themselves incapable of toiling in the fields and, hence, a burden to the family, talked of going to Kashi to die a blissful death there. But these deaths went on record, not as deaths, or as suicides but as "left for Kashi."

They could not have figured in the suicide statistics compiled by the Home Ministry. No honest statistics of population and of suicides would show that the ratio of the number of farmers committing suicide to the total population of farmers has remained constant.

In the State (Maharashtra) where the chief guest was speaking, the suicides have become a pandemic. The rate went up after the Chief Minister announced a package to bring relief to the farmers in districts where the suicides were particularly high.

The rate of farmer suicides increased further after the Union Minister for Agriculture held confabulations with the Chief Ministers of the suicide-affected States.

There has been a major outcry about the whole scam of wheat imports, about their justification, about the quality standards specified and obtained and the reasonableness of the price paid. Any guesses who the chief guest was? But no prizes for the correct guess!

(The author is Founder, Shetkari Sanghatana and Member of Rajya Sabha. Feedback may be sent to sharad.mah@nic.in)

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