Gruesome tale of a Sikh farmer's suicide who could not pay the interest on his loan to the Bania(money-lender)
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, August 26, 1998 - A Sikh farmer, one Kuljit Singh in Sakraudi village, who committed suicide in Indian occupied Punjab's Sangrur district, is a symptomatic of the stark reality of rural indebtedness and has focused attention on the inattention of the Badal government to a major problem, which hovers over rural Sikh Punjab. This has caused over 500 suicides in the past few months.Heavily indebted, Kuljit Singh killed his wife and teenaged son with a machete and then committed suicide by consuming a poisonous fumigant recalls Baldev Singh, the Sarpanch (mayor) of Sakraudi village. According to press reports Kuljit Singh was at one time in charge of a large joint family and had sixty-five acres of land. But when the joint family split up circumstances led him to the Hindu Bania (artiya or money lender). As the indebtedness increased-4% per month (48% annually) compounded half yearly is the going rate - Kuljit could not take the humiliation, tension and the pressure of the money lender and found escape only in suicide.
Kuljit's suicide would have gone unnoticed were it not for a campaign by a Punjab-based human rights group Movement against State Repression (MASR) which blew the horn about the human tragedy. MASR has listed 98 similar suicides in just one Lehra assembly constituency and it is reported in the Indian press that the Punjab government has itself recorded 377 suicides in a period of a little over a dozen months.
Despite the fact that there is no grinding poverty in the Punjab, like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, UP and Karnataka, the stark reality of rural indebtedness (compounded every half year at the annual rate of 48%) has reared its ugly head in the Indian occupied portion of "The Land of the Five Rivers". Poor crops are not the only cause for the suicides although sometimes they are a contributing factor. They happen as a result of unseasonal rains, hailstorms or pest attacks. The peaking of the productivity of the land, rising aspirations, decline of the joint family system and new socio-economic customs, encouraged by the greedy money lenders, have put the Punjabi farmer on the road to growing indebtedness and despair.
When the "green revolution" began the Sikh farmers with the help of the hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers, farm machinery and water just below the surface coaxed more out of the land. The joint family system ensured economies of scale in agriculture and left a surplus. The cost of agriculture has increased since and returns have not kept pace. Productivity of agriculture in the Punjab has declined as wheat and rice have hit their productive peaks of six to seven tons a hectare. Beyond this yield increases happen only with increased inputs, which push up costs and reduce profit margins.
The New Delhi Institute of Economic Growth has noted that inflation has outpaced increase in procurement prices over the past seven years. It reported that; "One crop follows another. The soil is not rested. The government has increased fertilizer and diesel prices. A borewell costs over Rs. 100,000 (US $2,380). The money has to be borrowed. The tractor is another debt-trap as the breakdown of the joint family system has meant that more tractors are owned that can be profitably used."
Despite a well developed banking system in the Punjab, unfortunately dominated by Hindus, (mostly BJP cadre) loans for procuring farm inputs are limited for the Sikh farmer who after being refused at the bank is referred to the artiya (commission agent) who is usually also a Hindu and who has no qualms about charging a uproarious four percent per month compounded every half year.
Given the artiya's high interest rates a crop failure (or a loan for a wedding) can land the farmer very quickly in dire financial straits as an acre under rice or wheat only yields a small profit of about Rs. 15,000 (about US $357.00) a year which leaves very little surplus. As we reported last week, (in Khalistan Calling of August 20, 1998) Sikh farmers in Indian Occupied Punjab are under a debt of Rs. 5,700 crores (fifty seven billion rupees) for which they pay an annual compound interest of Rs. 1,102 crores according to a 1997 Punjab government financed study on Rural Credit.
Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal has a favorite one liner which he uses when anyone asks him about any issue that he wants to ignore or any promise that he wants to forget; "let bygones be bygones" he whispers! The Punjab government financed Study on Rural Credit is not a "bygone" and it never will be, as its findings effect the majority in Indian Occupied Punjab, who happen to be Sikhs, which fact has somehow, for some reason, escaped the notice of the BJP-loving "Sikh" Punjab Chief Minister. Mr. Badal & Company MUST, as a first step, pass legislation in the Punjab assembly where his party enjoys a majority, to declare a three years holiday on interest payments on outstanding loans in rural Punjab