A total of 10,881 persons involved in farming sector have committed suicides during 2021, accounting for 6.6 per cent of total suicides in the country, which included 5,318 farmers or cultivators and 5,563 agricultural labour. Among the farmers or cultivators who committed suicides, 5,107 were male and 211 were female, and among agricultural labour 5,121 were male and 442 were female.

For the year 2014, the year when Narendra Modi became the prime minister of India, NCRB had for the first time collected detailed data on farmers’ suicides, and brought out a detailed report on “Farmers Suicides in India”. The logic behind such an exercise was forwarded by NCRB itself, which said, “India is an agrarian country with around 48.9 per cent of its people depending directly or indirectly upon agriculture. Nowadays the problem of farmers’ suicides is one of the vital concerns that need to be addressed by the Government.”

That concern has been abandoned now as is seen in the Crime in India 2021 which has just jumbled up the data only to be deciphered by the researchers, and not to be understood categorically by common people. The NCRB’s report Accident Deaths & Suicides in India 2021, has a chapter “Suicides in India”, which sums up data relating to farm sector suicides in only three paragraphs, one of them is box item which mentions the name of the states where suicides of farmers, cultivators as well as agricultural labours were zero.

The States/UTs with zero farm sector suicides, according to the NCRB report, were West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh, Lakshadweep and Puducherry. However, this information is not reliable. For example, let us take West Bengal. NCRB reports zero farm sector death for entire state, while an RTI response for a single district named Paschim Medinipur out of 23, reveals 122 deaths in 2021. The incident has been widely reported in Indian media. The district has reported 34 deaths in 2022 so far, and we will see how much the NCRB will conceal when it comes with the data next year around this time.

It should also be noted that the Punjab Agriculture University study found 9,291 cases of suicides by farmers between 2000 and 2018 in only six districts of Punjab, but the Union Minister of Agriculture had cited NCRB report in the Parliament of India which has recorded only 1,805 farmers suicides. Thus, the reliability of the NCRB data is highly questionable.

Analysis of the NCRB data for 2021 reveals that around 15 farmers or cultivators and 15 farm labourers die by committing suicides every day. It comes to five farm sector death in every four hours. It is totally unacceptable, since agriculture was the sole economic sector that has been absorbing every shock to livelihood and GDP of the country, the latest being during the pandemic. However, suicides in the farm sector have increased 29 per cent in 2021 compared to 2019, and 9 per cent compared to 2020. It is a matter of serious concern, for the rates of suicides have been on the increase at a time which the country is on the path of economic revival after the pandemic, which is a growth without jobs and social security coverage.

Agricultural labours are committing more suicides that the farmers and cultivators in also a matter of great concern, it demands some detailed analysis. We cannot ignore it in the backdrop of reports that more and more farmers are becoming farm labours and many of the agricultural households are depending more on wages than their farm produces. This new phenomenon was prominently highlighted even in the 77th round of the National Sample Survey, Land and Livestock Holdings of Households and Situation Assessment of Agricultural Household 2021.

Among the farmers and cultivators who committed suicides, 4,806 were land owning cultivators or without the assistance of agricultural labours and 512 were those who cultivate on leased land or landless agricultural labours or sharecroppers or tenants. During the last five years, about 53,000 farmers, cultivators, or farm labours had committed suicides, NCRB’s data for every year reveals when added. Of these, about 28,600 constituting 55 per cent were farmers.

Farm sector suicides in 2017 were 10,655 which included 5,955 farmers or cultivators and 4,700 agricultural labours.
Maharshtra was the worst hit state with 4,064 farm sector suicides which included 2,640 farmers or cultivators, followed by Karnataka with 2,169 suicides which included 1,170 farmers. Andhra Pradesh recorded 1,065 suicides which included 481 farmers, Madhya Pradesh 671 suicides with 117 farmers, and Tamil Nadu 599 suicides with 61 suicides by farmers. These five states accounted for 80 per cent of all farm sector suicides and 85 per cent of farmers’ suicides.

Thus, farm sector suicides remain unacceptably high since 2014 when PM Modi became the prime minister of India who announced on February 28, 2016 that by the time India celebrated its 75th Independence Day on August 15, 2022, it’s farmers income would have doubled. Modi did not honoured his own promise, rather tried to bring corporates in the farm sector by getting three farm laws which had to be scraped due to stiff resistance by farmers. His assurance of doubling farmers’ income in now suspected as cover for the real intention of bringing farm sector reforms in favour of big business and corporates.

All these have resulted into dangerous level of neglect of farmers, cultivators and agricultural labours. No wonder the farm sector suicides continues at alarming level. In 2014, a total of 5,650 farmers had committed suicides which accounted for 4.3 per cent of total suicides in the country.

Politically speaking among the five states with highest incidents of suicide in 2014, the BJP ruled or supported Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Madhya Pradesh remains in this group, while the opposition ruled Telangana and Chhattisgarh has gone out of this group after significant improvement. Opposition ruled Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have now entered in the hardest hit five states recording farm sector suicides. Bankruptcy and farm related issues remain the major causes of farm sector suicides.