Farmers don’t commit suicide, they make sacrifice
▻http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/farmers-don-t-commit-suicide-they-make-a-sacrifice-58067
By the time the Madhya Pradesh Government admitted that eight protesting farmers were indeed shot by police, 24 hours had passed by. And by that time, 34 farmers must have committed suicide in the country due to high debt and other agriculture-related issues. Is there any difference between farmers getting killed while demanding loan waiver or committing suicide to escape the burden of increasing debt?
Notwithstanding the wild public statements by ministers in charge of agriculture that attribute suicides to dominantly personal reasons, the fact remains that between 2014 and 2015 there has been a 42 per cent increase in the number of suicide by cultivators, according to the recently released report, State of India’s Environment 2017: In Figures. And 91 per cent of farmer suicides in India are recorded in six states that include Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. This date is sourced from the National Crimes Records Bureau.