'The Sickle' a poignant tale of farmers, migrant labourers

New Delhi, March 29 On March 19, 1986, Sahebrao Karpe, a graduate, killed his wife and four minor children the youngest 8-months-old before ending his own life at their home in the Chilgavhan village of Wardha district in eastern Maharashtra. It was the first officially-recorded suicide by a farmer in India.

The National Crime Records Bureau of India has reported that a staggering 2,96,438 Indian farmers had committed suicide since 1995, the year from which records are being maintained. Of these, 60,750 suicides were in Maharashtra and the remaining in Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh.

Karpe, in his late 30s, owned a plot of agricultural land and a house, but was driven to taking the extreme measure after suffering huge crop losses and consequently defaulting on his debt payments to local loan-sharks.

Sadly, in the past 35 years, the situation "has moved only in a negative direction" and got aggravated since the early 1990s thanks to the new-liberal agriculture and agri-finance policies which have barely benefitted the peasantry, Ashok Dhawale, President of the All India Kisan Sabha

( With inputs from IANS )