{"id":81,"date":"2016-06-11T06:16:03","date_gmt":"2016-06-11T06:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=81"},"modified":"2016-06-11T06:16:03","modified_gmt":"2016-06-11T06:16:03","slug":"maharashtra-farmers-suicide-loan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/?p=81","title":{"rendered":"He Lived to Die Another Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

R<\/span>amrao Chavan\u2019s story started with a small prayer, a tiny ambition.\n\nHe grew soya with the help of a motor and a pipeline to channel water from the well. It insured him against the temperamental rain gods of Latur. The pitiful kharif output of soyabean last year had yielded only three to four sacks from four-and-a-half acres of ancestral land and the rabi crop had been destroyed by a hailstorm. Soya was his hope. He took the brave step of taking a loan of \u20b91 lakh from IDBI Bank to set up the pipeline.\n\nThe family had been, until then, living in a small hut, built from tin scrap. Early last year, they had the chance to get better shelter through a \u20b960,000 grant from the government\u2019s Gharkul Yojana scheme. Ramrao gathered courage and used that amount to secure a loan of \u20b92.5 lakh from the local moneylender, and built a two-room pucca RCC house. He was certain the soya would help repay the dues.\n\nAnd then came the drought \u2013 so severe and so intense that the borewell dried up. The machine was rendered useless and the precarious house of cards Ramrao had so bravely built, began to collapse. He could neither repay the bank nor the moneylender. Father and sons began to work part-time on other farmers\u2019 land to scrape through. Even this did not help.\n\nDesperate, they turned to the family cow. A villager had offered to buy the bovine, which was pregnant at the time. That would fetch them \u20b928,000 \u2013 not enough to repay the debt, but enough to provide some sustenance for a couple of months. But Ramrao did not want to sell it. If the family didn\u2019t have enough grain to eat, at least there would be milk to drink.\n<\/p>

Ramrao Chavan was done with life. But life wasn\u2019t quite done with him.<\/blockquote>\nAnd then, the cow died.\n\nCreditors began circling the Chavans\u2019 house like vultures, ready to snatch his meagre possessions. The bank, the moneylenders, old creditors who had loaned him money for his daughter and sons\u2019 weddings in 2011 and 2012, all of them came calling.\n\nOn August 22<\/span>, 2015 the soyabean farmer left for the farm on an empty stomach. He slaved in the field all day. At 8 pm<\/span>, he returned home. The seeds and fertiliser he had bought for the soyabean mocked him from the corner. Ramrao looked at the can of fertiliser that had failed to live up to its promise of producing a healthy, green field. He picked it up and drank its contents.\n\nRamrao Chavan was done with life. But life wasn\u2019t quite done with him.\n

***<\/p>\nI could sense the dry, scorching despair as I neared Kolpa, a tiny hamlet eight kilometres from Latur. One rattletrap ST bus touched the edges of this remote village once a day.\n\nAs I visited the Chavan family, I couldn\u2019t help but feel like I was shouldering the collective guilt of a people who are so removed from this reality, that the news of Chavan\u2019s desperation registers little impact. Maharashtra witnesses the highest number of farmer suicides, reports The Indian Express<\/em><\/a>. Between 2014 and 2015, the state saw an 18 per cent jump — from 2,568 to 3030. Last year,\u00a0between 1 January and 31 October, 2414 suicides were reported<\/a> in the state. This, despite the Rs 34,022-crore farm loan waiver announced by the Devendra Fadnavis government.\n

***<\/p>\nIt was Vikas, the elder of Ramrao\u2019s two sons, who found him unconscious on the farm and rushed him to the Latur government hospital. On September 9<\/span>, Ramrao opened his eyes to see the ceiling of the hospital room. The man who was unsuccessful at fighting life had successfully beaten death. Except now, he could barely speak about his agony \u2013 his speech was slurred, and he couldn\u2019t walk more than a few steps without losing his balance.\n\nThe incident has shaken the Chavans. In their two-room house, crammed with bodies and a paltry few possessions, they tell me Ramrao is a hard-working man, a scrupulous manager of money. He has never taken to alcohol; he does not smoke or have any guilty pleasures. All he has struggled with is keeping his family\u2019s head above water. Still, no one expected him to choose the extreme \u2013 yet frighteningly common \u2013 path out of the cycle of misery. He has always been a brave and responsible man.\n\nHis younger son Chandrashekhar, who has a diploma in agriculture, and is chasing a degree at an open university, couldn\u2019t recall a single year when the farm\u2019s produce had touched \u20b950,000. \u201cSometimes there is a drought, sometimes it is a cloudburst, and sometimes hailstorms \u2013 the problems never stop,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes crops are destroyed by disease and sometimes they are sold at a throwaway price in the market.\u201d I could hear the despair in Chandrashekhar\u2019s voice. Mother Nature seems to be working hard to ensure that farmers like Ramrao can\u2019t catch a break.\n\nDays after his failed suicide bid, politicians flocked to Ramrao\u2019s bedside. Short on real, lasting solutions, they flooded him with good wishes and solicitude. Latur MLA Amit Deshmukh paid a visit and BJP MP Sunil Gaikwad declared that he would pay all the hospital bills.\n\nBut these politicians, just like the monsoon, failed to deliver. Ramrao\u2019s relatives were turned away by the assistants of the elected representatives, and it was only after local newspaper Divya Marathi published a story about the MP\u2019s empty assurances that Gaikwad visited the hospital and doled out \u20b91.1 lakh in hospital expenses.\n\nBut the medical bills at the Latur hospital were much higher. The family had to borrow nearly \u20b93.5 lakh from the moneylender, raising their debt to a staggering \u20b96 lakh, an amount that they will take years to pay back.\n\nNow Ramrao spends most of his days in silence. No one can tell what he is thinking or feeling. But everyone is sure he knows that he is even deeper in debt than he was last year. The \u20b96,000 that he received as compensation from an indifferent government feels like a slap on the face.\n\nIn this Kafkaesque tale of desperation, there is a long line of sinners who can be brought to trial \u2013 the rain gods, the elected representatives, the skewed agricultural system and even the avaricious moneylender. But nobody will be declared guilty. Meanwhile, Ramrao lies on his narrow bed, continuing to hope that he had been more successful at death than he has been at life.\n\nThis is an updated version of an earlier published story<\/em>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You normally hear about farmers like Ramrao Chavan only after they\u2019ve become a statistic. But Chavan\u2019s story of debt and deprivation is different. He failed to die.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":82,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people"],"yoast_head":"\nHe Lived to Die Another Day<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You normally hear about farmers like Ramrao Chavan only after they\u2019ve become a statistic. But Chavan\u2019s story of debt and deprivation is different. 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