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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 , [a town in
the Vidharbha district in the north-eastern part of the Indian
state of Maharashtra] , 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 Vidharbha 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 [c 43 rupees to $1 US] 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 Vidharbha 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." Vidharbha'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 Vidharbha
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 Vidharbha 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 Vidharbha'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."
P. Sainath is the rural affairs editor of The
Hindu and the author of Everybody
Loves a Good Drought. This piece initially ran in the
Indian weekly Frontline. He can be reached at: psainath@vsnl.com.
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