Hopeless hamlets: as suicides rise in Punjab, families find no respite

Betrayed by the government and the media, families in the small hamlet of Punnawal, in Sangrur district, Punjab, distrust the powers that be.

“Suicides are termed as accidental deaths. The media reports suicides as ‘death due to accidental ingestion of pesticide’,” says an enraged elder in the village.

While the government has announced monetary compensation to help families of victims, few in the village have received help, the families say.

With just about 575 families and an official population of about 2,900 people, as per the census of 2011, almost everyone you speak to in Punnawal knows some indebted person who has committed suicide in the past few years — mostly men. And in just the last five years, at least 80 people have committed suicide, villagers claim.

One such family now has five women, of which two young girls are in school, and one is doing her graduation.

After losing two sons, Gurdeep Kaur, and her daughter-in-law Karamjeet Kaur, both of whom are daily wage workers who make dung cakes, find it hard to make ends meet and educate the three children.

Karamjeet, the widow of Gurdeep’s son Balwinder Singh, says: “We never got any compensation from the government. I got a widow pension card made in 2014. But till date, I have received only ₹1,000 as pension.”

Between themselves, the two women earn ₹400-500 per day for their work.

With an eye on elections, in early 2016, the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal had announced a scheme to pay ₹3 lakh as compensation to families of farmers who commit suicide. None of the families we met, however, have received this sum.

Kirpal Singh, a relatively big farmer in Punnawal, calls the announcement of compensation a gimmick. “They make many claims, but no one gets anything.”

For Makkar Singh, the memories of his deceased brother, Bhupender Singh, are so fresh that talking about him brings tears to his eyes.

“He killed himself six months ago and left behind three daughters,” he says. Bhupender was struggling under increasing farm debts, and consumed pesticide.

Another villager, Surinder Singh’s son, attempted suicide by jumping off his terrace, as he found himself unable to cope with debts, which were already high, and mounted further with expenses of two sisters’ weddings.

He survived, but the treatment of multiple fractures has pushed the family further under loans.

“Fertilisers and pesticides have become more expensive. And we need more and more of these every year,” Makkar says, explaining the rising expenses.

The latest figures from the National Crime Records Bureau show that across India, indebtedness is the leading cause of farmer suicides, accounting for 38.7 per cent deaths.

Suicides in the farm sector across India have increased 2 per cent between 2014 and 2015, with official figure standing at 12,602 in 2015. About 124 of those were in Punjab. The actual figures are likely to be much higher.

The district has been suffering from a pest attack (black hopper) this year, reducing output. This is not an isolated incident either, nor the only problem.

Depleting ground water tables, require deepening of borewells; the emergence of new pests, resulting in newer, more expensive pesticides; institutional corruption in which the State government has been implicated, including selling of spurious pesticides that ultimately let to ruin of entire crops; and many other such issues have left the farmers in deep pain.

The reduced purchasing power is reflected in the price of land, one of the assets these farmers can use in times of dire need. “Land that earlier used to sell for ₹7 lakh sells for about ₹2.5-3 lakh now. People just have no money to buy anything,” says Nishathar Singh, a farmer in Punnawal.

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