The thing about traveling in Vidarbha – the districts of eastern Maharashtra – to learn about farmer suicides is this: very soon, the issue comes to dominate your thinking. Everything is shaded by those suicides. Take for example what happened to us when we entered the village of Barshi-Takli.
As we drive in, I see off to my left a long, straggly procession of men. My first thought is 'funeral', my second is 'farmer suicide'. So I leap out to inquire. Turns out it is a funeral, but not a farmer, not a suicide. It's just – and what do I mean, just? – an old man of the village.
There are ways to rationalise what's happening in Vidarbha. According to the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) in Pandharkawda, who have been tracking the suicides, about 550 farmers have killed themselves since June 2005. But that's 'just' 550, in a region that's home to tens of millions. After all, farmers are not killing themselves in the thousands. So why the alarm? Besides, how can you sympathise with a man who chooses this cowardly way to escape his problems? What's more, these guys got used to the old socialist ways, when the government bought cotton at a fixed price. That can't continue! When market forces begin dictating the economy, as they must, they will have to adapt or suffer, period.
In any debate about farmer suicides, you will hear arguments like these. There may be truth in them, too. Yet we do know that at least 550 families across Vidarbha have gone into mourning over the last year. What's to be done about that?