India: Chhattisgarh has the highest rate of farmer suicides per one lakh population!

Chhattisgarh has the highest rate of farmer suicides per one lakh population in the country. This has not got the media attention it deserves. Such a serious issue, which is a matter of life and death for lakhs of poor farmers yet not caught up with the attention of local media in Chhattisgarh, which has been treating this issue as loyalty issue -- they do not want to present "their" state in a bad light at the national or international level.

I got in touch with Professor P Radhakrishnan of Madras Institute of Development Studies who has worked on the issue of Farmers'''' Suicides. He introduced me to Professor K. Nagraj who said, “It is true that Maharashtra has the biggest problem of Farmers' Suicides, but it is more important to initiate a study in Chhattisgarh. A large number of farmers are committing suicide in Chhattisgarh.”

According to a study conducted by one of my friends from the year of formation of Chhattisgarh till 2006, only 5 or 6 farmers have committed suicide, which meant one suicide per year. But when I came across a news article published some time back quoted the annual report of The National Crime Records Bureau (2006) which claimed that though Maharashtra continues to lead in the matter of Farmers' Suicides, but the combined figure for Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh ranks second. I was shocked.

The report further elaborated that in the year 2006 (the figures for 2007 shall be available only next year) a total of 17,060 Farmers' suicides were reported, of which the maximum i.e. 4453 were from Maharashtra . The second rank was held by Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh for which the figure was 2858. Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka were next with 2607 and 1720 Farmers' suicides reported in 2006. According to the same report, the figures for Andhra Pradesh have risen a little over the previous year, and in Karnataka they have gone down.

The first question on my mind was, Chhattisgarh State was created 7 years back. Why are the Chhattisgarh figures still clubbed with those of Madhya Pradesh? If Chhattisgarh farmers are not committing suicide then what is behind maligning the name of this State?

Subsequently, I found an article by Sushmita Malwiya on one of the websites. Sushmita also quoted combined figures for Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. In the same report, the Agriculture officer for Chhattisgarh has been thus quoted, “ We have no record of Farmers' suicides with us. We have not received this report, but the figures are baseless.”

Farmer Suicide Rate (FSR) per 1 lakh population

	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
Maharashtra	3.65	3.76	3.84	4.10	4.28	3.91
Andhra Pradesh	1.98	2.46	2.31	3.39	3.24	2.75
Karnataka	4.74	4.21	4.58	3.21	2.57	3.71
Madhya Pradesh	2.27	2.25	2.46	2.83	2.19	2.45
Chhattisgarh	6.97	5.83	4.93	6.33	6.29	6.49

Source: Analyzed by Yuvraj Gajpal on the basis of figures given by National Crime Records Bureau

I was getting really confused now. I contacted the editor of the newspaper “Chhattisgarh”. He told me, “The entire Chhattisgarh is not Dantewada that thousands of farmers commit suicide here, and no one write about it in the media.”

I wondered why the Prime Minister, in his package of 17000 crores for the Farmers who committed suicide, did not declare a package for farmers of Madhya Pradesh, if the figures of farmers' suicide in Madhya Pradesh was indeed higher than that of Andhra, Karnataka and Kerala?

I called up many journalists in Madhya Pradesh. They said that they did recall reports of Farmers' suicides, but when the government disputed the figures quoted, the issue went into cold storage.

Then I called up P. Sainath, who is the editor for rural matters with the newspaper “Hindu”. Mr Sainath said, “ I have been writing about Farmers' suicides from the year 2000. For a long time, I was ridiculed. In 2004, after Chandra Babu Naidu lost the elections, people started taking me seriously in Andhra Pradesh. But even then people of Vidarbha would say that this was happening only in Andhra Pradesh and not in Vidarbha. But the official figures show that from the decade of 90s, twice as many farmers are committing suicide in Vidarbha as compared to Andhra Pradesh.

I told him that the journalists in Chhattisgarh are doubtful about the authenticity of the figures. Mr Sainath queried, “Which newspaper in Chhattisgarh publishes the farmers’ news? Does any newspaper appoint a reporter for covering Agricultural issues? What all can I do singly? Where all can I visit? I have not been able to travel out of Vidarbha for the past many years. I will try and go to Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh after April. This subject needs to be researched and written about”

Prof K. Nagaraj said, “The figures of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are not clubbed. But my own study began in 1997, when the State of Chhattisgarh had not been created. And so, for my personal convenience I club the figures of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The journalists just quote me; they do not explore the source of my figures. But you are wrong in thinking that all the suicides are happening in Madhya Pradesh. In the last few years, more farmers have committed suicide in Chhattisgarh than in Madhya Pradesh. According to the figures of 2006, the figure for Farmers' suicides for Madhya Pradesh is 1375, and for Chhattisgarh the figure is 1483”

Mr Nagraj said, “ The figures for Chhattisgarh shocked me initially, I used to think that as farmers migrate from Chhattisgarh in the same way that they do from UP and Bihar, the number of farmers committing suicide would be small. But if you are claiming that the figures are fudged, then the figures for all the States are also fudged. Because the source for all figures is common. To the extent I understand the issue, these figures are probably less than the reality. e.g. a farmer who commits suicide but who does not have land registered in his name, would not be included here. The real figure for farmers' suicides is likely to be higher in reality.”

I contacted the National Crimes Records Bureau for the figures of Farmers' suicide in Chhattisgarh, and they gave me the figures (see box). The officers told me to contact the Chhattisgarh State Police Department if I doubted their figures- as these figures are actually conveyed by the State to the Centre.

P Sainath says, “Not only the journalists, but the activists are also responsible for the silence on the issue of farmers' Suicide in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.”

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