Farmer suicides are govt murders: Activists

Say anti-farmer governments have no right to rule the country

Hyderabad: Deshabhakti Prajatantra Udyamam (PDM) has said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are alone responsible for the suicide of a Rajasthani farmer Gajendra Singh in New Delhi on Wednesday. Speaking to the media here on Saturday, PDM president M Raju alleged that suicides of all farmers in the country were nothing but murders by the governments. The pro-imperialist policies of the governments drove the toiling farmers to suicides in the country.

Right from the PV Narasimha Rao government at the Centre in 1991, all the successive governments had neglected agriculture leading to crisis, he added. Withdrawal of subsidies, slashing of budget for agriculture every year at the instance of imperialist World Bank conditions, governments’ failure to improve irrigation facilities, spurious pesticides, exploitation of farmers in the market yards by the middlemen, lack of remunerative price and corporatisation of agriculture made the farmers debt-ridden, he said, adding that under the unbearable debt burden, farmers were ending their lives.

Stating that such anti-farmer governments had no right to rule the country, Raju stressed the need of people and democratic advocates bring pressure on the governments to prevent suicides by farmers. He also stressed the need to launch a movement to make India to snap ties with the World Bank.Pointing out that farmers in Telangana were also taking extreme steps of suicide, N Narayana Rao of CLC said ‘Bangaru Telangana’ would become ‘Shavala Telangana’ with the police manipulating the cause of farmers’ death as severe stomach pain.

He also recalled the comment of National Human Rights Commission chairman K G Balakrishnan that debt was the main cause of suicides of farmers and the governments should announce Rs 5 lakh ex gratia each to the family of suicide victims. Former retired professor of agriculture K R Chowdhary said the banks were bypassing the loan rule that 18 percent of the total should be allocated to the farmers.

“While the media was putting the number of suicides of farmers in Telangana at 680 to 790, the government claimed only 79 people committed suicide,” he said. He demanded that the government announce Rs 5 lakh ex gratia each to the kin of farmers who committed suicide. He also pointed out that National Sample Survey Organisation claimed that 50 per cent of farmers were in the clutches of financial debt.