Everyone loves a farmers’ scheme.

The country’s food providers spend their entire lives providing food to the countrymen and many other animals.

We have all been reading and hearing since childhood that India is a country of farmers. India is an agricultural country. When a leader gives a speech, he talks about the welfare of farmers and, since independence till today, only talks have been made. No one party or government department is guilty of this, because this is a collective crime of the fact that everyone is guilty of this who has filled their stomachs by doing corruption by talking about agriculture and farmers. Farmers are shown as the happiest farmers in films and stories. When we and you watch films, there the farmer has lush green fields, you great lifestyle, big tractors, all this is in his share, but the ground reality is quite different from this. The NCRB data that has come from the share of farmers till now is only about the increase in their deaths and suicides. The figures of increase in development in their lives are not seen anywhere.

 According to the provisional population totals of rural-urban distribution of 2011, about 70 percent of the country’s population lives in rural areas, some of these people do not have land and those who have land do not have basic facilities. Undoubtedly, everyone in this country has some land, but the most important thing for agriculture is water, which never comes to the farmers and, especially in the rural areas, have to face the most water problems. That is, drought is one of the most serious problems of this country. When a farmer and his family work hard to do farming and, due to lack of basic facilities or bad weather, the crop gets spoiled or does not grow, then the farmer is forced to work as a laborer to fill his stomach and is shedding his blood and sweat in some city far away from his village. The rest of the farmers who do farming by taking loans have to leave farming and do all kinds of labor, they are unable to collect money for the loan and commit suicide at the last stage.

The NCRB, which releases data every year, prepares the data based on what is recorded in the FIRs of police present in every corner of the country. What about the rest of the deaths that are not registered? In 2021, one agricultural laborer committed suicide every 2 hours. A total of 1,064,033 people committed suicide in India in 2021. This number is 5,563, which is an increase of 9% from 2020 and 29% from 2019. The highest numbers were recorded in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The three sources of income in any agricultural family are farming, livestock and daily wages. Farmer’s household income from farming decreased from 48% in 2013 to 38% in 2021. Daily wages are the largest contributor to household income. This is a fundamental change in the economy of these families. Apart from agricultural laborers, 5,318 farmers also committed suicide, taking the total number of suicide deaths in the agriculture sector to 10,881.

Climate change in the country is causing the most harm to farmers and the environment. All types of pollution include water, air, soil pollution, etc. Governments and private companies ignore the damage caused by problems like pollution for their share of profits. Nowadays, crop yields are decreasing due to unseasonal rain and heat.

Who is held responsible for farmers’ suicides?

Foremost, those who need basic facilities do not get them easily because they are weak and do not have money to bribe. The government often brings schemes in the name of farmers. But our constitution keeps everyone on equal footing, but if we talk about government schemes, then look at our village itself. In Majhgawan, those who have a mud house do not easily get a house. If they get it, then they have to give money to the Sarpanch, Panchayat Secretary or Ward member, That is between 20 thousand to 30 thousand, if you give a bribe to any one of them, they divide it among them. They have that much honesty that they divide the bribe money equally. If you are not able to give money (bribe), then you will be deprived of the basic facilities and the facility that you are supposed to get. You will never get it because here everyone is busy selling government facilities, whoever calls himself Sarpanch or leader of a big government department, all of them are guilty. Because everyone’s share is involved in it.

Call it a reality or saying, it is a bit old but the nature of people is still the same. In August 1995, an anti-drought project was inaugurated in Orissa. It involved spending Rs 4,557 crore (more than Rs 750 crore per year) over six years on some districts including Kalahandi, Balangir and Koraput. If this money was used properly to strengthen the infrastructure, it would have been worth it. However, this did not happen. This amount was lost to corruption and, in the meantime, if we look at the other hand, some farmer must have committed suicide and there would be mourning at his house.

Death is a reality for everyone. Those who really feel the pressure are the farmers. Water is in the hands of the rich and the powerful. Times are changing, honesty is still there and is very powerful, they are not afraid of death. 

#Nitish