Introduction to part III

Abstract

Prabhakara Rao (Personal Communication 2008, see also http:// farmersharakiri.rediffblogs.com) confirmed earlier sad stories that VRK Murthy (Personal Communication 2004/2005/2006) told me. In the words of Devinder Sharma, more than 300 farmers committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh (India) alone in 1 month of June 2004. This was the official death toll in the suicides register. Unofficially, the death toll was estimated to be much higher. The situation in several other states, including the frontline agriculture states of Punjab and Haryana, and even in the left-ruled West Bengal and Kerala is no better. Thousands of farmers have ended their lives in the past few years. What has baffled the governments is that the spate of suicides showed no signs of ending even after it announced a series of routine packages - free electricity and more credit - aimed at relieving farmer's misery. The package also includes an ex-gratia payment to the next of kin of the deceased, and money for a one-time settlement of the loans of indebted farmers. The erstwhile government too had started paying an ex-gratia grant to the affected families after suicides were initially reported in 1997-1998. After giving the assistance to some 250 farmer families, the payments were stopped on the plea that such an ex-gratia would prompt more farmers to take their lives. Recently Mohan Reddy Vishwavaram (2009) of the Hyderabad Water Forum reported still continuing suicides. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.