‘We are Like the Living Dead’: Farmer Suicides in Maharashtra, Western India

Abstract

Findings presented here about farmer suicides in Amravati and Yavatmal districts, Maharashtra, are evaluated in relation to Durkheimian theory, which attributes such acts to an historically specific combination of social and economic causes. Lower and middle caste peasant smallholders found themselves trapped between enhanced aspirations generated by land reform and other post-1947 measures, and the reality of neoliberalism (rising debt, declining income). Suicides among large and medium farmers belonging to the higher castes in Maharashtra were occasioned by failures in business, trade and politics. Such cases are consistent with the argument put forward by Durkheim, that suicide is an effect of individualization, a process of socio-economic ‘estrangement’ from agrarian communities experienced by rural producers in the context of rapid economic growth.

Notes

B.B. Mohanty is Reader in Sociology at the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune-411 004, India. E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]. The author is grateful to Tom Brass for valuable comments and suggestions which significantly improved the paper. He also thanks D N Dhanagare for useful observations on an earlier draft. The analysis was presented in a seminar held in September 2004 at the Department of Sociology, University of Pune, where comments by the participants, in particular Sujata Patel and S.M. Dahiwale, were helpful.

Two surveys carried out in Maharashtra (one jointly by the Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, Mumbai and Indian Agro-Economic Research Centre, New Delhi, and the other by Dash et al. [1998], also highlight crop loss and indebtedness as the main causal factors in farmer suicides.

Hence the view [ Durkheim, 1952: 245] that ‘… economic distress does not have the aggravating influence often attributed to it, … it tends rather to produce the opposite effect. There is very little suicide in Ireland, where the peasantry leads to wretched a life. Poverty-stricken Calabria has almost no suicides; Spain has a tenth as many as France. Poverty may even be considered a protection’.

This view has been very influential on all subsequent studies [ Miley, 1972].

This of course is the subject of much debate. For a discussion of Durkheim's objections to psychologistic reductionism where explanations of suicide are concerned, see MacIntyre [1971: 222ff.].

Farmer suicides are regularly reported in these districts. In 1999, they accounted for over 50 per cent of the total farmer suicides in the state, and by 2002 the figure had risen to 57 per cent. For details, see Mohanty [2001a] and Mohanty and Shroff [2003].

An example is the concept of the ‘suicide bomber’, as deployed by the Japanese during the 1939–45 war, and by the Palestinians (and others) currently in the Middle East.

It is a truism that largescale conflict between nations has a profound impact on the meaning not only of death but also of suicide. The latter is not used to classify soldiers in battle obeying military commands that they know will result in their death, as happened in the case of soldiers ‘going over the top’ in the trenches during the 1914–18 war. Even where this possibility is acknowledged, however, the act of suicide is invariably recast as one of self-sacrifice, in the process shifting the meaning from a negative to a positive one. This is true of most warfare.

Examples would include Ireland and Spain. It is important, however, to note a methodological caveat in this connection. Because in such contexts suicide is stigmatized, its true incidence remains hidden. Hence the observation by Brody [1973: 100] in his classic study of rural Ireland: ‘Suicides, though carefully concealed in a Roman Catholic society wherever possible, are not rare’.

On dowry death in India, see among others Kumari [1989].

When considering the incidence of suicide in relation to women, Durkheim [1933: 247] manages to invoke all the usual prelapsarian gender stereotypes. Females are less prone to suicide because, in his opinion, ‘[w]oman has had less part than man in the movement of civilization… She recalls, moreover, certain characteristics of primitive natures.’

As Lockwood [1982] has pointed out, Durkheim's conservative vision of society is underwritten by a concept of ‘fatalism’, a term which ascribes to its subject an inability to change his/her surroundings. This, as Lockwood also notes, is particularly true of his conceptualization of ‘suicide’, with its inference about wholesale resignation to the status quo, either in pre-industrial or indeed industrial contexts. This is ironic, since it is also possible to interpret self-inflicted death as the opposite kind of phenomenon: that is to say, as an act of resistance, or agency designed to change the status quo. The latter is a view which structures analyses of the slaves in plantation societies.

An illustration of this kind of interpretation is the case-study outlined by Malinowski [1926: 77–79] of a suicide in the Trobriands as a result of breaking the tribal rules of exogamy. Malinowski [1926: 80] qualified the Durkheimian approach by pointing out that it was only when scandal occurred that suicide resulted. In terms of causality, therefore, it was not so much the breaking of clan totemic exogamy as it becoming a topic of gossip that led to ostracism and eventually suicide.

Where social wants exceed the possible means for attaining them, the subject is confronted with a perpetual gap between aspirations and achievements. If the ends of action are contradictory, inaccessible or insignificant, a condition of anomie arises [ Powell, 1958].

Durkheim [1952: 259] also discussed the crises of widowhood and divorce as also their debilitating effects on the subject. These are among the domestic reasons giving rise to anomic suicides.

The theoretical connection between Durkheim's views about suicide and his work on the social division of labour have been noted by many previous writers, including Giddens [1971]. None, however, have placed his analysis of suicide in the wider context of agrarian transition, and linked it to his concerns about the impact of economic development in general – and that structured by a laissez-faire philosophy in particular – on rural communities.

As is clear from Besnard [1983], in France the leading Durkheimians – such as Mauss, Lévy-Bruhl and Bouglé – were anthropologists, or scholars whose theoretical concerns were precisely the ‘otherness’ of pre-industrial societies.

This key theoretical linkage is found in Book Two, Chapter 1, Pt. 2 of The Division of Labour (entitled ‘The Progress of the Division of Labour and of Happiness’). There, for example, one encounters the following explicit claim [ Durkheim, 1933: 247]: ‘In the interior of each [European] country, one observes the same relation. Everywhere suicide rages more fiercely in the cities than in the country. Civilization is concentrated in the great cities, suicide likewise… The classes of population furnish suicide a quota proportionate to their degree of civilization.’

Significantly, a target of the critique contained in The Division of Labour was Herbert Spencer, an enthusiastic advocate of laissez-faire economic policy [ Durkheim, 1933: 200ff.]. It is important to note that this attack came not from the political left but rather from the political right. What is often forgotten, therefore, is that there is a strong anti-capitalist tradition among conservatives, who decry the destruction of ‘natural’ rural communities. Like many conservatives, Durkheim objected to the erosion of ‘primitive’ society – the repository of virtue – by untrammelled market forces.

Rural society was based on a rigid caste structure, the main cultivators being the Kunbis, Malis and Baris [ Government of British India, 1911:180–81]. Agricultural production was mostly for local needs, the area under cultivation being adjusted to meet the requirements of a changing local population. Since peasant cultivators were not only undifferentiated economically but also prohibited from accumulating wealth, the major form of surplus extraction they faced was the land revenue demand [ Government of British India, 1910: 192].

The occupational distribution of selected castes is contained in the 1931 Census of India [ Government of British India, 1933: 265–69].

Significantly, improvements in productivity did not attract extra revenue demands.

Nagpur Settlement Record, as cited in Government of British India [1911: 131]. About Kunbi landownership, a Marathi proverb [ Russell, 1916:49] observes that: ‘Wherever it thunders, there the Kunbi is a landholder and tens of millions are dependent on the Kunbi but the Kunbi depends on no man’.

The percentage distribution of different Castes in the population of Amravati and Yavatmal districts according to the 1911 Census is set out below:

As long-stapled American cotton was preferred to short-stapled Indian cotton for use in Britain [ Benjamin, 1973; Borpujari, 1973; Desai et al., 1978], attempts were made to introduce the former variety.

Quoted in Government of British India [1911: 301].

For details on area under crops in these districts from 1891–92 to 1925–26, see Mohanty [2001a: 153].

The retail prices of jowar, wheat, paddy, cotton and gram from 1891–92 to 1925–26 broadly indicate a rising trend. The monthly wages of agricultural labourers were almost constant from 1891–92 to 1902–03, but lower during the famine years. For details, see Government of British India [1926a; 1926b].

To encourage the cultivation of cotton and other cash crops, the Colonial State advanced loans to substantial proprietors under the Land Improvement Act and the Agriculturists Loans Act, even in periods when harvests were poor [Government of British India, 1927a; 1927b]. Such credit facilities were of course not available to landless labourers.

For evidence of labour migration from rural areas to Bombay, Nagpur and other cities, see Government of British India [1911: 109] and Omvedt [1994: 8].

See Government of British India [1933: 341].

For Ambedkar's decision to embrace Buddhism, and how this embodied the aspirations of lower castes to achieve social equality, see Benjamin and Mohanty [2001].

Thus, for example, the Madhya Pradesh Abolition of Proprietary Rights Act (1950) abolished all the proprietary rights in estates, mahals and alienated lands, while the 1961 Maharashtra Agricultural Lands (Ceiling on Holdings) Act prescribed an upper limit to the amount of land owned. The Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Vidarbha Region and Kutch Area Act (1958) provided for the transfer of leased land into the ownership of the tenant. Other measures included the consolidation of holdings and the distribution of land to scheduled castes and tribes.

Up to 1995, ceiling surplus land amounting to 10,751 holdings consisting of 15,963 hectares in Amaravati and 4,635 holdings of 8,178 hectares in Yavatmal were distributed to landless families of various categories [ Rajasekaran, 1996]. A total of 4,018 holdings covering an area of 5,728 hectares were distributed to the scheduled castes in Amaravati, the corresponding figures for Yavatmal being 1,302 holdings with an area of 2,337 hectares.

Census data indicate that scheduled caste cultivators in relation to workers in rural Amaravati rose from 11 per cent in 1971 to 14 in 1981 [ Government of India, 1975: 92; 1983a: 158]. Although the 1991 Census suggests there was an apparent decline in the overall proportion of scheduled caste cultivators [ Government of India, 1993: 442], this was due to the inclusion of Nav-Buddhists in this group [ Government of India, 1993: 1213–1215]. The proportion of scheduled caste cultivators in Yavatmal increased from 8 per cent in 1971 to 14 per cent in 1981 and 17 per cent in 1991 [ Government of India, 1975: 92; 1983a: 160; 1993: 458].

Data from the Department of Agriculture in the Government of Maharashtra [various issues] covering the period 1980–81 to 1997–98 show that in both districts the area under HYVs increased over the years, to more than 90 per cent in the case of crops like wheat, bajra, jowar and cotton. The per hectare cost of cotton cultivation in Maharashtra increased from Rs. 2,1444 in 1981–82 to Rs. 6,341 in 1995–96 in real terms [ Government of India, 1991:127 and 1998: 279]. Similarly, the cost of cultivation of jowar rose from just Rs.716 in 1981–82 to Rs. 2,119 in 1995–96 [ Government of India, 1986: 70; 1998: 282].

There are also licensed moneylenders who advance loans under the provision of the Bombay Moneylenders Act (1946). Though their number has decreased owing to the expansion of formal credit network, the amount of loans advanced by them has increased over the years [Mohanty, 2001a]. The expanding importance of agricultural co-operative societies is evident from the information presented below:

Annual crop reports issued by the Government of Maharashtra [Various Issues] indicated that from 1970–71 to 1998–1999 harvest prices for all the major crops grown in the two districts have increased sharply throughout this period. The monopoly procurement scheme for cotton was introduced in Maharashtra during 1972, since when the price of cotton has gradually increased.

Estimates for the agricultural season 2000–2001 indicate that in Amravati district the irrigated area was only eight per cent of the sown area, the corresponding figure for Yavatmal district being six per cent. In the entire period from 1970–71 to 2000–2001 most of the major crops were cultivated almost without recourse to irrigation.

In 1997–98, for example, financial losses due to crop failure amounted to Rs. 324 million in Amravati and Rs. 16 million in Yavatmal [Mohanty, 2001a; Mohanty and Shroff, 2003].

A list containing 72 cases of farmer suicides was obtained from the Agriculture Department, Government of Maharashtra. Village level fieldwork revealed that four of these cases involved landless labourers, and a further two cases could not be investigated because of insufficient details.

Research methods employed in the course of fieldwork were as follows. Background information was gathered on villages where suicides were reported, covering a variety of socio-economic issues (patterns of agricultural production, other economic activities). This included discussions with the officials of the agricultural extension services, cooperative societies and other formal lending agencies, as well as moneylenders, local traders and businessmen. Detailed information was then collected from the adult family members of the suicide victims, a few cases being selected for more qualitative information. Friends, relatives and neighbouring households of farmer suicides were also interviewed. Information about production related to the agricultural year of 1997–98.

Suicide victims were categorized into three groups according to the amount of land operated. Those cultivating less than ten acres were classified as small farmers, those with holdings between ten and twenty acres as medium farmers, while those with land in excess of twenty acres were categorized as large farmers. Interviews conducted in villages where suicides were reported indicated that on average a small farmer household of five to six members, with three to four adults and two to three children, required an additional source of income for survival in a normal harvesting year. In bad harvesting years such smallholdings were unable to survive without recourse to other sources of income. Medium households, by contrast, were able to reproduce themselves economically without access to additional sources of income. Even in cases of a partial crop loss, these units were able to manage without much difficulty. Households with excess of twenty acres not only generated surpluses but were easily able to survive crop failures and – more generally – ride out most kinds of financial exigencies.

This different borrowing pattern stems from the fact that better-off producers generally have a privileged access to formal lending institutions. Loans from the latter are not regarded by producers as onerous, since both interest and repayment rates are less burdensome when compared with informal sources of credit. Significantly, many large farmers borrow from institutional sources without actually needing to do this, using the low cost credit for non-agricultural income generating ventures. Thus, for example, four farmers (two each from the medium and large categories) who borrowed from formal agencies were themselves moneylenders. Cooperative officials pointed out that rich farmers frequently default on loans, a problem that is encountered not just in Maharashtra but also in other parts of India [ Dhanagare, 1975; Sarap, 1991; Mohanty, 1999, 2000].

Around half of the large and medium producers who obtained loans from non-institutional sources in fact borrowed from their friends and relatives at either a nominal rate of interest or interest-free. Of the 24 medium and large farmers, 21 – or 88 per cent – borrowed money from informal sources without any collateral.

Three quarters of indebted small farmers were required to sell livestock, agricultural implements, land and household items amounting on average to Rs. 20,458, whereas only 40 and 44 per cent of medium and large farmers were forced into similar distress sales to liquidate debts of Rs. 47,750 and Rs. 36,342 respectively. Similarly, the value of assets sold by small farmers amounted to 31 per cent of their total, compared with the figures of 19 and 7 percent for medium and large farmers.

This study was based on a sample of thirty cases of farmer suicide, ten from each district. An equal number of control cases possessing a similar range of socio-economic characteristics (landholding, cropping pattern, etc.) was chosen from the villages to which suicide victims belonged. Like those who had committed suicide, the farmers in the control group were categorized into three groups (small, medium and large) on the basis of their landholding size.

A large number of suicides by lower caste farmers, who were mostly small and marginal landholders, has also been reported in the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh [ Nirmala, 2003].

Mahars were traditionally the village watchmen, who also undertook tasks such as cutting wood and fencing land, while Chamars were leather workers and Dhangars were the hereditary herdsmen. For details see Russell [1916].

Details about this began to emerge at the end of that decade. See, for example, ‘Down and out on the farm’, The Guardian (London), 12 March 1987.

See ‘China finally faces up to suicide crisis’, The Observer (London), 21 November 2004.

On this point see in particular the recent collection edited by Ho, Eyferth and Vermeer [2003].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

BB Mohanty

B.B. Mohanty is Reader in Sociology at the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune-411 004, India. E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]. The author is grateful to Tom Brass for valuable comments and suggestions which significantly improved the paper. He also thanks D N Dhanagare for useful observations on an earlier draft. The analysis was presented in a seminar held in September 2004 at the Department of Sociology, University of Pune, where comments by the participants, in particular Sujata Patel and S.M. Dahiwale, were helpful.