Committing suicide is a world-wide problem. Men and women, young and old
irrespective of race, caste, religion or nationality commit suicide. It was in
1952 or so when I was a student in Intermediate (now class 12), I used to read
in newspaper about students who failed in final examinations committed suicide
by either consuming poison or by hanging from ceiling fans. To my young mind it
appeared something unusual and unwarranted. So I wrote a letter to the
newspaper – Dinamalar – about the ill-effects of suicides. Shockingly I found
my letter got published in the ‘Letter to the Editor’ column. Still I remember
that. So the suicide by people remained in my mind as a stain forever.
There are obvious reasons for people taking this drastic step in their
life. What are those reasons? As I mentioned, failing in examination is one of
the reasons. Helplessness in life, like poverty, lack of job, torture by
spouses, failure in business, unable to pay back loans, loss of dear ones,
anxiety and depression, incurable diseases are some of the reasons one can
think for committing suicide. The methods of suicide are many. Consumption of
poisons, over-doze of sleeping pills, jumping in front of running trains,
jumping from tall buildings, hanging, jumping into the well, shooting with gun
– are some of them. All of these are the means by which one decides to kill
oneself.
In India, some years ago we were shocked to hear about farmers’ suicide.
Everyone including the media talked about it, but no one came forward to find a
solution to this vulnerable problem. State governments and the Central
government tried their best by appointing committees to find out the causes of
farmers’ suicide. The report submitted remained as reports rather than actions
taken.
The reports concluded that the causes of farmers’ suicides were
bankruptcy or indebtedness, family problems or farming related issues. All of
us know that farming is a gamble with monsoon. If there is no rain there is no
agriculture in India. Thus farmers depend on rain; if rain fails they are
distressed and take the extreme step of suicide. Waiving of bank loans,
compensation for crop loss, crop insurance are some of the measures
various governments introduced over time. But the implementation of these
schemes did not work effectively. A recent report of the National Crime Records
Bureau (NCRB) showed in 2014 as many as 5650 farmers committed suicide.
It is interesting to note that some of the States like Jharkhand, Bihar,
Odisha and the North-East showed no suicides of farmers, whereas Maharashtra,
Telengana, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Chattisgarh showed higher number of
suicides. Male farmers were more who committed suicides than the women farmers.
According to NCRB the farmers are defined as those who own and work on field
(cultivators) as well as those who employ or hire workers for field work or
farming activities and exclude agricultural laborers. The statistics provided
for 2014 did not include the agricultural laborers as NCRB says. If those
suicides are also included the number will be more than 5650 as reported!
In order to
prevent farmers’ suicides, it is better to organize the farming and farmers.
Organized farming with scientific cropping pattern linking markets and crop
insurance will help the poor farmers not to think of suicide. Educating farmers
about the ways and means to come out of their distress is one another methods
to avoid suicides. Nowadays, there are experts to coach farmers about will
power to get over their difficult times. Such coachings have to be arranged by
the Departments of Agriculture at village level. I do not know how far we are
able to change the individualistic decision of committing suicide in our human
population. – NARA
