A key manifestation of farm distress is rising rate at which farmers are committing suicides and its association with their inability to repay loans
Nearly four in ten of 8,007 Indian farmers who committed suicide in 2015 were in debt, compared to two in ten in 2014; more rural households went into debt over 11 years; and the average rural household had borrowed Rs 1.03 lakh, according to an IndiaSpendanalysis of government data.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost 16 seats in rural Gujarat–winning less than 40% of such constituencies–as unrest grew in a failing farm economy. As eight states, including the BJP-run, largely agrarian states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Rajasthan go to the polls this year, we investigate, in a two-part series, how rural debt, distress and death are growing nationwide.
In an era of increasingly uncertain weather and suicides on farms, attributed to climate change and likely to worsen, the rural economic downturn is likely to be an important issue in the general elections of 2019, and it is unlikely Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise that farmers will double their incomes by 2022 will be kept, as IndiaSpend reported in December 2016.
Chhattisgarh, MP and Rajasthan had a collective rural population of 123.6 million in 2011, equivalent to the current population of Mexico, the world’s 11th most populated country. Agricultural growth rates in all three states have declined, Hindustan Times reported in December 2017, while farmer unrest roiled MP and Rajasthan, as farmers struggling with falling crop prices demanded loan waivers and government guarantees for higher prices.
A key manifestation of the distress is rising rate at which farmers are committing suicides and its association with their inability to repay loans.
One in four farmers committing suicide are in debt
As many as 8,007 Indian farmers committed suicide in 2015, an increase of 41.7% from 5,650 in 2014, and 39% of farmers who died in this manner were in debt, according to 2015 National Crime Records Bureau data, the latest available. In 2014, 20.6% of farmers who killed themselves had borrowed money.
One in three Indian rural households were in debt in 2013, an increase from 26.5% in 2002. The average debt per indebted rural household in 2013 was Rs 1.03 lakh–almost equal to the price of a Royal Enfield Bullet 350 (Rs 1.09 lakh), more than a high end version of the iPhone X (Rs 1.02 lakh) and a Panasonic 55-inch flat screen TV (0.99 lakh). This is an indication of the gulf in urban and rural areas, where 833 million or 68.8% of Indians live, most of them poor………..read more
Rose James News 