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Rasheeda Bhagat

There is immense distress among the farmers of rural Tamil Nadu due to long years of drought. Even though the TN farmer has not hit the headlines like the farmers of Andhra Pradesh, many of whom have committed suicide, they are in huge debt. It is a time bomb that is ticking away, as is evident from a visit to some villages in the Madurai/Theni belt.

The farmers of Andhra Pradesh (AP) have been in the news for suicide deaths. But in the drought-afflicted regions of Tamil Nadu too, the plight of the small farmers is terrible. Four years of drought and the continuous search for water — sometimes at a depth of 700 ft — has resulted in most families having debts ranging from Rs 50,000 to a couple of lakh rupees. Considering that the money has been borrowed at interest rates ranging from 36 to 120 per cent, it is a hopeless situation for most of the borrowers.

In Echampatti village, about 40 km from Madurai, 68-year-old Kuppusamy, a farmer who works with the NGO SIRD (Society for Integrated Rural Development), has borrowed Rs 1 lakh over the last four years from various sources. While the money from the co-operative or rural banks has come in at interest rates ranging from 12 to 18 per cent, the last 30,000 was taken from local moneylenders at 36 per cent interest. "I borrowed this money for a bore well but the search for water failed," he says.

That money has gone but not the moneylender. This farmer has three acres of land, which at the moment is giving him little beyond some vegetables. He knows he has no other option but to sell the land to repay his debt. But there are no buyers. "The cost of one acre is Rs 20,000 but with no water available for cultivation, who will buy this land? I told the moneylender you take the land, but even he doesn't want it," says the elderly man.

Even the thought of parting with the land is painful to the farmer who recalls happier times. "When I was a young man, this land used to give me three crops... after harvesting paddy, I used to get cholam, potatoes, groundnut and some millets. This was not the dry, brown village you see today... it used to be lush green," he says his eyes moist, and adds, "but today there is no food for the farmers and no fodder for their cattle."

Most families in the village, like his, have sent their sons to cities and towns like Coimbatore, Tirupur, even Chennai and some parts of Kerala, where they work as labourers. Every month, the Rs 200 or Rs 300 they send back home keeps the aged parents and children away from starvation.

In village after village in the Madurai belt, the story is the same. Parched land, impoverished farmers, wrinkled faces with eyes riveted to the sky for dark clouds. But compared to neighbouring Andhra, no farmers' suicides have yet been reported from this region.

Though you can't help feeling this is a time bomb ticking away, because sooner than later the moneylenders will pressurise them to return the capital and interest, there are several reasons why these farmers have not yet resorted to suicide. One of the major reasons is that unlike in Andhra villages, most of the families in rural Tamil Nadu, at least in the Madurai/theni/Usilampatti belt, have at least one person with a reasonable level of education — many families even have graduates — who've managed to get some form of employment in the urban areas of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and even Maharashtra or Gujarat.

Two, the resistance levels are higher and there is willingness to migrate and relocate with entire families to areas where some form of manual labour is available — be it working as loaders in the sand mining industry of Madurai or the construction industry elsewhere... building houses, digging trenches, laying roads, deepening wells, and the like.

As M.P. Vasimalai, Executive Director of the Madurai-based DHAN (Development of Humane Action) Foundation, points out, "The economy of Tamil Nadu is much more robust than that of AP and can sustain the rural poor even through the most distressful periods and without driving them to desperate acts like suicide."

Also, coming to the aid of the distressed farmers is the silent revolution that is taking place in Tamil Nadu's villages in the form of self-help groups (SHGs) and micro-credit. Whether it is the president of a farmer's federation or an impoverished small farmer like Muttunayaki in Pappavati village in Usilampatti Taluk, it is the milch cows, most of them acquired through the SHG route, that are sustaining these families during the toughest of the drought years.

Muttunayaki has less than one acre of land that she cannot cultivate for want of water. "I have no money to sink a bore well. In my village out of 400 families, 80 have migrated to places like Bangalore, Madurai, Coimbatore, Tirupur or Kerala. But I have three little children, so my husband and I cannot go. In Kerala, there is work in the brick kilns and you can get a daily wage of above Rs 60 when you get work, but we don't know the local language and feel insecure to go there," she says.

When her husband can find work for deepening wells, he gets a daily wage of Rs 50. "I'm prepared to work as a coolie too, but can't find work."

On the rare days she does find work, guess the wage she gets for five hours of strenuous work in the sun? A mere Rs 10, something that you and I pay for buying a litre of bottled water. Talking of water, the cost of bottled water is a pet subject in most villages. Thanks to SHGs, many families have cows that give between 6 and 10 litres of milk a day. "But for a litre of milk we get a mere Rs 7 from the private dairies and only Rs 8.20 from the government co-operatives, though we have read that the TN Government has announced that we should be getting Rs 10.50 to Rs 11 per litre. But announcements are one thing, and reality is another. When we are starving, can we argue with those who buy our milk? Please write that in Tamil Nadu villages, milk is cheaper than water," she says.

She adds that over the years the input cost for the cows — oil cakes, fodder, etc — has gone up steeply, but not the price that they get from the milk.

K. Perumal, a farmer in Periyasemmattupatti village, about 40 km from Madurai, has five acres of land on which he is trying to grow cotton. "But where is the water? I've spent nearly Rs 2 lakh in sinking four bore wells. But they all failed," he says. Devamani, another farmer from his villages, also has five acres of land where he had coconut trees. "But all the trees are almost dead as there is no water." The last search for this precious commodity was made at a depth of 700 ft. "But the attempt failed and I'm left with a debt of Rs 50,000 borrowed at 36 per cent interest."

It is not as though these farmers have had no access to bank credit. Almost all of them have got their initial loans at 12 to 15 per cent interest, but with no rains, they have all defaulted and ended up in the clutches of moneylenders. Considering that even the most successful business venture cannot borrow at this huge cost, the situation of these farmers seems hopeless.

But the farmers themselves do not think so, and their optimism in the face of such adversity and oppressive conditions is amazing. Says Kuppusamy, raising his two fingers, "Two good monsoons, and we will repay all or most of our debts. Even though over the years, the cost of seeds, fertilisers, etc, has been going up, we are confident we can meet this challenge. A third good monsoon, and it will be like earlier days."

There are smiles all around, as Lakshmi, another small farmer, says, "Salaried people like you look towards the 1st of every month. Farmers like us, look at the sky all the time. They say that after three or four bad years, there will be one or two very good monsoon years. I'm sure this year, we'll get lots of rain."

But the smiles vanish and expressions turn gloomy, as Prabha, the 22-year-old daughter of farmer Chitra, who is holding her two-year-old child, says, "Meanwhile, take me with you to Chennai. Give me any work... I'm prepared to clean your toilet... . but give me some work so I can send the money back home to my mother, who will look after my child. We just cannot go on like this forever."

It would be unfair to say there has been no government intervention, but it has not been effective. Most farmers admit that they have got some drought relief funds or the other, as also bank loans which they could not repay. "We know the banks can't keep lending to us. The other day I went to a nationalised bank and the manager was very kind. But he said, `when there is no water, even if I give you the money you will spend it on kanji rather than on farming. I'd like to help you, but I can't'," says Mookaiah in a village near Usilampatti.

Picture by Bijoy Ghosh

Response can be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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