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Journalism of Courage
Even by urban middle-class standards, the Boregowda family home is large and comfortable. A gas stove sits in the kitchen and a TV takes pride of place on a mantelpiece on the far wall.
On the other wall, besides a loudly ticking clock, is a garlanded photograph of 30-year-old Lakshmanna Boregowda who consumed pesticide on August 23, 2003. Lakshmanna was just one of more than 2,000 farmers who took their own lives in the past three years in Karnataka. Official figures say 650 farmers have committed suicide in the last 10 months alone.
Goravanahalli and Bidarahosahalli are in Mandya district in the Cauvery basin of what is still known as the 8216;Old Mysore8217; region of Karnataka 8212; less than 70 kilometres from Bangalore. The first farmers8217; suicides took place in Gulbarga and Bidar adjoining Andhra Pradesh but since then the 8216;8216;trend8217;8217; has moved south 8212; including the chief minister8217;s home district Mandya and the former PM Deve Gowda8217;s district Hassan.
The bulk of those who committed suicide, statistics show, were 8216;8216;middle peasants8217;8217;, with five to 10 acres of land, practising multiple-cropping, often growing cash crops.
The Boregowdas owned 10 acres but drought and crash in sugarcane prices forced them to sell four acres. Lakshmanna borrowed Rs 2 lakh from moneylenders. He could not repay the loan and committed suicide one night.
The government gave them Rs 1 lakh compensation but their debts remain. 8216;8216;Last year, we managed to grow some paddy. Or else, 50 per cent of the villagers would have killed themselves 8212; the government gives no help,8217;8217; his father tells us. Shankar, the panchayat-appointed waterman, points to the steel cupboard and says, 8216;8216;There is no jewellery inside that anymore, only pawnbrokers8217; certificates.8217;8217;
It is not abject poverty but fall in living standards and 8216;8216;the loss of face8217;8217; that has led to many suicides. The English-speaking Krishnegowda points out, 8216;8216;Here the traditional Mysore culture is to maintain standards. If we cannot keep up, we prefer to commit suicide.8217;8217;
The suicides, activists and scholars say, reflect a deeper agrarian crisis which the drought only accentuated. CPIM state secretary G.N. Nagraj says the flood of imports after the new WTO regime led to a sudden crash in prices of a range of crops, forcing middle peasants to take big loans at huge interests. Since they could neither repay loans nor leave their land, many resorted to suicide.
Former CM Veerappa Moily says it is rural credit policy that is a major factor. In the last five years, he says, no nationalised bank has opened rural branches, loans to farmers has declined, and the post of Rural Development Officers/Agricultural Officers in rural branches 8212; 8216;8216;who held out hope to farmers at the time of crisis and prosperity8217;8217; 8212; have been cancelled. Moneylenders, who are loansharks, have filled the vacuum.
The state government has adopted, what critics term, a very 8216;8216;callous8217;8217; approach. It has described the suicides as 8216;8216;media hype8217;8217;, 8216;8216;nothing unusual8217;8217;, and as a result more of 8216;8216;personal problems8217;8217; and 8216;8216;alcoholism8217;8217; than rural indebtedness.
Chief Minister S.M. Krishna told The Indian Express that fall in prices of agricultural commodities were a cause but his government has stepped in to stabilise the price 8216;8216;whenever there is a perceptible fall in prices8217;8217;. 8216;8216;It the suicidesis no longer an issue, people have to be reminded of it.8217;8217; Krishna8217;s complacency stems from the fact that rural Karnataka, reeling under drought and debts, has largely remained silent in the past four years.
It is a sullen silence that might find voice next month 8212; not through violence but via EVMs.
