India
National Documents/ReportsIndia/States
Human Development Reportsand State Data
Farmers' suicides
KEY TRENDS
• In Wayanad, since suicide statistics are directly linked to the payment of compensation through the Revenue Department, the number of farmers’ suicides stagnated during the years 2006 to 2008. ‘Safe Farmers Campaign’ (SFC), a consortium of eight, mostly Catholic, NGOs (including Shreyas), in 2007 began a large-scale investigation into farmers’ suicides that ran parallel to the state’s efforts of enumeration and classification. Taking police reports of suicides as a starting point and following up all cases from 2000 to March 2008 they have come up with a total number of 1,690 farmers’ suicides (Kerala Social Service Forum 2009). That is nearly four times the figure of 435 officially recognised farmers’ suicides. The latter number is also the number of beneficiaries of the Chief Minister’s (CM) relief fund @
• Farmers' suicide as a percentage of total suicides at the national level stood at 15.6% in 1996, 16.3% in 2002, 14.4% in 2006, 13.7% in 2009, 11.9% in 2010 and 10.3% in 2011#
• Of the total number of suicides committed in India during 2011, 18.1 percent were committed by Housewives, 10.3 percent by farmers, 1.2 percent by government servants, 8.2 percent by those in private service, 2.0 percent by those employed in PSUs, 5.7 percent by students, 7.7 percent by unemployed, 5.3 percent by those engaged in Self employed business, 3.1 percent by Self employed professionals, 19.5 percent by Self employed others, 0.6 percent by Retired persons and 18.2 percent by others #
• Total number of suicides committed by farmers in India was 13729 in 1996, 17971 in 2002, 17060 in 2006, 17368 in 2009, 15964 in 2010 and 14027 in 2011#
• Out of a total of 135585 suicide victims in 2011, 38.28 percent (i.e. 51901) are self-employed#
• Total no. of suicide committed by the self-employed in 2010 is 51901 out of which 27.03 percent are farmers (i.e. 14027)#
• During the ten-year period spanning 1997 to 2006 as many as 1,66,304 farmers committed suicide in India*
• Farm suicides have increased at annual compound growth rate of around 2.5 per cent per annum over the period 1997-2006*
• Farmers, who committed suicides, were growing cash crops in dry regions such as: cotton (particularly in Maharashtra), sunflower, groundnut, and sugarcane (especially in Karnataka) **
• Farm suicides took place in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh including Chhattisgarh*
• Poor health conditions, family disputes over property, domestic problems, and heavy social burden of marrying daughters coupled with alcoholism have pushed farmers towards committing suicides**
@ Farmers' suicides and the state in India: Conceptual and ethnographic notes from Wayanad, Kerala by Daniel Münster, Contributions to Indian Sociology 2012 46: 181, http://cis.sagepub.com/content/46/1-2/181
# National Crime Records Bureau, http://ncrb.nic.in/
http://ncrb.nic.in/CD-ADSI2011/table-2.11.pdf
http://ncrb.nic.in/ADSI2010/table-2.11.pdf
http://ncrb.nic.in/CD-ADSI2009/table-2.11.pdf
http://ncrb.nic.in/adsi/data/ADSI2006/Table-2.11.pdf
http://ncrb.nic.in/adsi/data/ADSI2002/atable%202.11.pdf
http://ncrb.nic.in/adsi/data/ADSI1996/table-5s.pdf
* Nagaraj, K (2008): Farmers’ Suicides in India, Magnitudes, Trends and Spatial Patterns, Macroscan, http://www.macroscan.com/anl/mar08/pdf/Farmers_Suicides.pdf
** Hebber, Dr. Ritambhara (2007): ‘Human Security and the Case of Farmers’ Suicides in India: An Exploration’, Centre for Development Studies, School of Social Sciences, TISS, Paper presented in a panel on Rethinking Development in a Conference on ‘Mainstreaming Human Security- an Asian Perspective’ (October 3-4, 2007) organised by Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok
http://humansecurityconf.polsci.chula.ac.th/Documents/Pres
entations/Ritambhara.pdf
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