The reports came in late but when they started coming in, Haryana too found its place in the map of debt-related suicides. The pattern was the same: loans, interests, failed crops and finally death.Though the issue of suicides in central Haryana was raised by Shamsher Singh Surjewala in the Rajya Sabha, it was vehemently denied by the State government. Agriculture Minister, Karan Singh Dalal had in fact issued a statement saying that not a single farmer had committed suicide in the State due to crop failure.Surjewala's Krishak Samaj says 110 such suicides have taken place in nine villages in the past three years. The figures could be a bit off the mark with unrelated suicides also making the list but the fact is that such suicides are becoming an alarming rural reality.Investigations by The Indian Express in seven villages - Chattar, Belerekha, Badanpur, Farian Kalan, Amargarh, Dhakal and Karamgarh - revealed several cases of farmers taking refuge in cellphose tablets or pesticides. And it's notnew, they have been doing so for a few years. Sunil, 21, a farmer in Amargarh village, 15 km from Narwana, consumed cellphose tablets on May 15. Sunil's father Ramphal had taken loan of Rs 26,000 from a bank and village artiyas. ``The money was spent on buying a camel cart and a part of it on Sunil's marriage. Besides, my son had taken Rs 25,000 from a moneylender. I wish we could have paid back all that money,'' says Ramphal. On January 14, Dharampal, 30, in the same village committed suicide. His debt was around Rs 60,000. His brother, Kishan says that loans were taken from the Co-operative Bank to buy seeds, fertilizers and sheep. ``There is nothing more embarrassing and disgraceful than to be dragged in a vehicle by the moneylenders and kept in confinement,'' says Thambu Ram, the lambardar of Belerekha village.These are just two of the several cases in central Haryana. Surjewala says land holdings have shrunk and a majority of farmers in central Haryana have less than five acres.``Farming, in terms of yield and money has become a losing proposition,'' he says.This part of central Haryana has also seen the fury of floods in 1995. After the floods came sundi, a pest afflicting the cotton crop. There is also the problem of water-logging.Some of the deaths are not directly related to farm debts but have been due to its domino effect. The Sarpanch of Chattar village, Tek Chand, says: ``Suicides by village youths have become a phenomenon.'' He says that most of these deaths are due to the psychological pressure of the huge amounts of loans taken by their fathers and grandfathers.However, the local administration cites different reasons for these deaths. Bhupinder Singh, sub-divisional magistrate of Narwana, says that during verifications the peasants have been mentioning various reasons for the deaths and not just debts. And in most such cases in rural Haryana, the deaths are not reported as suicides.``Generally such deaths are not registered as suicides in the records of thevillage chowkidar. A suicide means police inquiry, post-mortem and legal hassles,'' says Birbal of Dhakal whose brother, Ram Chander, 50, consumed poison in March after he could not cope up with the mounting debt.Though the outside world has now come to hear about the debt-related deaths in Haryana, the villagers say they have been happening here for the last few years.
