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NEWS & VIEWS
125
over the past decade in this very small village. The cause is again
economic distress and indebtedness. We enclose the data for your
perusal. This village is in Majha and it is a safe bet that a similar level
of rural suicide will be found no matter which corner of the state one
probes. It points to an already far advanced agrarian crisis. Punjab is
witnessing the total collapse of its rural economy and the state has
nothing to substitute for agriculture as a livelihood for the bulk of its
people.
The farmer is being dispossessed of his land at an alarming rate.
Without land he is forced into share-cropping or agricultural labour.
An investigation into the dispossession of Punjab’s traditional agrarian
class is required. More than a decade ago, the state’s economic statistical
abstract placed land holding of 94 per cent of the farmers at less than
four acres. Updated findings would place holdings more in the range
of one to two acres. For years, rural economists at agriculture
universities in Punjab and Haryana have been saying that given the
price structure, holdings below 14 acres are not economically viable.
Movement Against State Repression’s (MASR) investigations have
found that in addition to farmers, other village residents who commit
suicide are agricultural labourers and those dependent on income
generated by agriculture.
For the past ten years MASR has been reporting its findings to
the state and central government; we have no interest in either
exaggerating the number or minimizing it.
It is important for the state government to immediately begin
recording and investigating rural suicides for all Punjab’s 12,500
villages and we hope you will initiate this process. This would be
the first step in efforts to prevent the disappearance of the farmer
and the traditional village community from the state. We have learnt
that the task of investigating debt-related rural suicides was
transferred from the Revenue Department to the Agriculture
Department. While the Agriculture Department is familiar with
farm economy and institutional credit, it is not familiar with landless
labour, the workings of non-institutional finance and factors
underlying dispossession of farmland. Make investigation of rural
suicides dating back to 1988 the responsibility of the village