MANDYA, KARNATAKA: Karnataka has not traditionally been seen as a state with a large number of farmer suicides. But this year has been unusual, and the month of July saw 188 deaths in the state. Many were in debt as sugar factories stopped payments, fall in prices and exorbitant interest rates by moneylenders have forced farmers to take the extreme step.
NDTV travelled to Machanahalli village in Mandya district, the day after 41-year-old Siddaraju was buried, after hanging himself in his home. There was no power in their house, his wife, Nagarathnamma, sat in the darkness crying. “He didn’t tell me anything. He said there was a debt. I said I would also work and help pay the debt,” she said.
Siddaraju and his wife worked as farm labourers to try and make ends meet and provide education for their two daughters.
Nagarathnamma said, “We only studied a bit and worked as coolies. We wanted our children at least to have a future and go ahead and felt they had to study. I will work as a labourer but I will make my children study.”
Though Mandya region has fertile and irrigated land, 90 per cent of the land holdings are small. Siddaraju also owned less than one acre, which wasn’t even transferred to his name, as the paperwork was taking too long. This land is where he is now buried.
Their younger daughter, Arpita had found her father hanging in the bathroom, and she was still shuddering from the shock. A student of 10th standard, she said, “I want to be a teacher.”
Her sister, Harshita, is in the 12th standard, studying commerce. She said, “I like to study and want to work in a bank… People should find a solution… Across the country, farmers are dying. There must be as solution.”
But the girls are determined to put the past behind them, they are now going back to college and school to get the education there father had wanted for them.
