Broken promises push farmers into deep waters

By Sarabjit Pandher

BANGAN (SANGRUR), AUG. 7. This village in the backwaters of Punjab is a typical example of a story of the compounding misery of the people due to a series of broken promises by political leaders and apathy by the Administration. The village lies on the southernmost extremity of Sangrur district, where despite recommendations by at least three recent studies, suicides in the agrarian community continue unabated.

In the run up to the February 1997 elections, the then Congress Chief Minister, Mrs. Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, promised to ensure that the Ghaggar river is tamed. The misery ridden villagers did not allow the Opposition candidates to even put up their booths. In the 1998 Lok Sabha polls, Mr. Prem Singh Chandumajra of the ruling Akali Dal, promised a major project to strengthen the banks of the river.

And recently the Chief Minister, Mr. Parkash Singh Badal pledged a regulator on a seasonal rivulet merging with Ghaggar, to deal with the fury of the monsoon floods, forcing the cultivators to survive on a single crop year after year, leading to extreme despondency.

While presenting the budget in April this year, the Finance Minister, Capt. Kanwaljit Singh, announced an ex-gratia relief of Rs 2.5 lakhs to the next of kin of the farmers who commit suicides due to the burden of debts. A provision of Rs 2 crores had been made in the annual plan as well.

However, like the Rs 50-crore Social Reconstruction Fund which was proposed in the first budget in 1997, the compensation proposal also seems to be still born. The Finance Secretary, Mr. K.R. Lakhanpal, who accepts that no notification has been issued so far on payment of compensation to the families of suicide victims, says the matter has yet to be processed by the departments of Agriculture and Planning.

The officials in these departments are at a loss to explain the fate of the controversial budgetary proposal. Dependents of nearly a dozen of those who committed suicides, contacted by `The Hindu', were not aware of the government's proposal to pay compensation, while the local authorities claimed to have not received any information in this regards.

However, the only silver lining seems to be the acceptance of the incidence of the suicides in Punjab's countryside, exploding numerous myths including those related to prosperity, the martial tradition and the hardiness of the State's farming community, which acted as an impediment in even identifying the crisis. Over the past few years -- the debate in political circles has not gone beyond mere rhetoric - political parties have changed their stance from outright negation of the incidence to accusing the opposite party of being responsible for the plight of the agriculturists of the State.

It is indeed pathetic that the authorities have preferred to put the recommendations by experts on the backburner. In 1998, the Institute for Development and Communication (IDC) in its study titled ``Suicides in Rural Punjab'' conducted on behalf of the State Government's Co- operative Department, derived the multiple causes related to stagnation of the agrarian economy for the malice.

The study, which was co-ordinated by seasoned social scientists, Dr. Pramod Kumar and Dr. S.L. Sharma, had established that the majority of those who committed suicides were landless agricultural labourers, small and marginal farmers, who were illiterate or had received education not beyond the primary levels.

The report made recommendations aimed at prevention of suicides rather than making subsequent compensations.

Another study, ``Indebtedness, Impoverishment and Suicides in Rural Punjab'' by Dr. Gopal Iyer of the Panjab University, which concentrated on Lehra and Andana blocks of this district, however, tended to hold indebtedness as the main cause of suicides.

Yet another team of the Association for Democratic Rights (AFDR) led by noted economist, Mr. Sucha Singh Gill, also came to similar conclusions.

Ironically, the State Government while almost refusing to acknowledge the wide ranging recommendations of top experts, preferred only one populist measure propounded by the convenor of a rights groups, Movement Against State Repression (MASR), Mr. Inderjit Singh Jaijee, in announcing a compensation package.

Meanwhile, irked by the inertia in the administration, Mr. Jaijee has written to the President, Mr. K.R. Narayanan, seeking immediate intervention. He has claimed that the debt burden on the farming community since he first brought out the cases has risen from Rs 5,700 to Rs 8,000 crores. He has sought directions to the Punjab Government to strictly enforce laws related to regulate private money lending, setting up of debt conciliation boards and scrutiny of the transfer of land from the cultivators to others.

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