In November 1997 reports began appearing that some peasants in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh had begun committing suicide because of their inability to repay their debts to moneylenders and traders. Although this phenomenon was disturbing, it was not unprecedented: In 1987, too, there had been a wave of suicides by cotton-growing peasants from coastal Andhra, for similar reasons — spurious pesticides, crop failure, and indebtedness. And in 1991-92, several handloom weavers in A.P., hit by rising prices of cotton yarn, dyes, and food, committed suicide rather than starve slowly to death (as many other weavers had done).
However, in 1997-98 the scale of the phenomenon was much greater than earlier: by June 1998, the toll was unofficially estimated at over 377 in A.P. alone. And this time, the phenomenon was noted in other states as well — in Karnataka, Maharashtra, and even Punjab. The series of suicides has now continued for almost a year: In October 1998 a series of suicides is reported of indebted peasants in Punjab, and in November a fresh series is beginning in Maharashtra. What does the phenomenon of peasant suicides tell us about the condition of Indian agriculture and the poor peasants who work it?
The answer emerges, in part, from the actual cases. We present below some cases that we could gather from the press. We know that many more have been covered, particularly in the various Indian language papers; however, this list does not aim to be comprehensive, but merely to give us a picture of the circumstances that led to these peasants taking their own lives.
Suicide by persons of good health and otherwise of sound mind is a terrible act of desperation; but it is not an isolated act. We need to trace the history of that desperation. The peasant suicides of 1997-98 were not merely the outcome of a single failure, but of a series of setbacks, which convinced the victims that the economy left them no other option, no way out. Once industrial and other urban employment had drawn in a moderate number of under-employed sons of peasant families; now retrenchments and closures are sending waves of workers back to the villages. Many of the peasants caught in the debt trap had little experience in raising commercial crops, but had taken to them in the last-ditch hope that that would lift them out of deepening poverty.
35-year-old Chittadi Madhav Reddy was once a worker in a sportsgoods manufacturing company in Hyderabad. Three years ago, the company declared a lock-out, and Madhav Reddy was forced to shift to his village, Pathipaka, Warangal district, A.P., with his wife and children. He was desperate to earn, but he had too little land — just one acre. So he took another two acres on lease and borrowed heavily.
Unfortunately, like so many others in Telangana, he found his entire crop wiped out by pests. He attempted to commit suicide on December 18, 1997. His neighbours quickly detected the attempt and rushed him to a hospital. He survived, to his regret. Death was the only escape from the grip of the moneylenders to whom he owed a lakh of rupees, a debt that continued to mount. In addition to that, he had now incurred medical expenses amounting to Rs 40,000. The Government, while firmly refusing to give him any financial assistance, booked a case of attempted suicide against him [1].
In a large number of cases from A.P., Karnataka, and Maharashtra, we find that the peasants had very little land of their own, and so had taken some more land on lease. Their willingness to take such large risks (cotton is an input-intensive crop, even more so in A.P., and it is also particularly vulnerable to pests) cannot be assumed to be merely an irrational hankering to get rich quick, as some press reports have suggested. (Most of these farmers appear to have cultivated in all 1-2 hectares. With a good crop, and a price of about Rs 2,000/qtl, the returns reportedly would be Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000 a hectare [2]. This still hardly constitutes riches.) Rather than being swayed by dreams of riches, it appears that these peasants were simply unable to make ends meet growing their traditional crops on the little land they owned.
Shayamala Mallaiah, 35, for example, was an agricultural labourer who owned just one acre. He took on lease (for Rs 6,000) an additional two acres of fallow land — without an irrigation well. Mallaiah borrowed Rs 70,000 at a monthly interest rate of three per cent for purchasing a pair of bullocks, a cart, pesticides, fertilisers, and payment of the lease amount. However, 90 per cent of his crop was lost. After his suicide, the children, aged 12, 7, and 5, were separated from their destituted mother and sent to the social welfare hostel as part of the Government’s ‘relief’ package [3].
Lakkarasu Mogili of Kamaram village, Warangal, owned three acres, but that was not enough to make ends meet, and he took another two acres on lease. The well in his field had dried up. He borrowed some Rs 50,000 from private moneylenders to raise a cotton crop. However, the standing crop was badly hit by bad weather and pests. Mogili committed suicide on December 19, 1997 [4].
The cumulative sum owed to the moneylender in many cases was far greater than the peasant could pay even in good years; and so it frequently became a tool of the moneylender appropriating his means of production itself. A. Narsoji, 45, of Kadavendi village, Warangal, A.P., owed moneylenders about Rs 1.3 lakhs. This was equal to two-and-a-half years’ earnings in good harvests. But his cotton crop had failed, he had already sold his two oxen to repay one loan and had nothing more to offer moneylenders who were hounding him. Larger and larger doses of pesticide failed to kill the pests that ravaged his cotton crop. Finally, Narsoji himself consumed the pesticide on January 25, 1998, and killed himself [5]. Similarly, Kaselte Sammiah, a poor cotton farmer of Sitarampur village, Warangal, owed moneylenders Rs 1.4 lakh. He committed suicide on February 2, 1998, after consuming half-a-litre of monocrotophos (a pesticide that failed to protect his cotton crop from the pest ladde paguru, or Spodoptera litura) [6].
Another such case is that of Komulamalliah of Peddapur village, Warangal, who committed suicide on December 12, 1997. He had leased just two acres (0.82 hectares) of land at Rs 2,025 per hectare. He had borrowed from the local moneylender, and he got pesticides from a shop on credit. Yet his total debt was reportedly Rs 60,000 — considerably higher than one would expect for cultivating such a small piece of land. (Perhaps part of the amount was from earlier years.) When pests destroyed his cotton crop, he killed himself. The main beneficiaries of the compensation paid to his family will apparently be his creditors: It is reportedly likely that his wife, K. Laxmi, will have to use much of the amount to repay his loans [7].
Ijagiri Rambhadraiah, 30, of Papaiahpalle village, Venkatapur mandal, Mulug sub-division, 54 km from Warangal city, raised cotton on two acres after reportedly incurring a debt of Rs 50,000. If this estimate of his debt is correct, it is clear that even if he had had a good crop the entire sum would have gone towards servicing his debt. Anyway, the crop, far from being good, withered; Rambhadraiah took his life by consuming the pesticide endosulfan. His wife Mamata, too, attempted suicide after seeing him consume the poison, but survived after being hospitalised [8].
It was argued by the Government authorities that many of the suicides were not the result of indebtedness or crop failure, but of other family and social problems. This is a rather cynical stand. Of course, all the other social oppressions and economic expropriations of our society intertwine with indebtedness, so that it is difficult and indeed meaningless to attempt to see them in isolation from one another. That does not diminish at all the role of indebtedness.
Take the case of Kakumanu Veeraraghava, 45, of Medikonduru, Guntur, who grew cotton on four acres and chilli on one acre. Of this, three acres were taken on lease at the rate of Rs 2,500 an acre. For the purpose of cultivation, he took loans of Rs 75,000. His situation was already difficult. He had paid Rs 25,000 to get his son into the army. One of his two daughters had committed suicide a year ago as her in-laws were harassing her for dowry; a second had been abandoned by her husband. A third was now to be married. Veeraraghava approached his relatives and friends for loans, but without success. When he saw that his cotton crop was succumbing to the white fly pest, he gave up hope and consumed pesticide on January 15, 1998. He left a letter for his son asking him to clear the debts [9].
In all, 20 cases were reported from Karnataka. The first case from Karnataka was that of a peasant, Shivaraj Revanappa Mainhalli, 42, of Siddeshwara village, Bhalki taluk, Bidar district. According to an investigation by the CPI(M), Shivaraj had two acres of land, but this was not sufficient to maintain his family, so he took 16 acres on lease on a fifty-fifty share-cropping basis, and took a loan to purchase cotton and tur dal seeds. As soon as the crops came up in 18 acres, they were attacked by pests. Needing money to purchase pesticides to save the crops, he handed over his two children as bonded labour with a landlord in exchange for a loan. But the pesticides in fact ruined his crop over 18 acres. Unable to repay the debt of Rs 60,000, he committed suicide on December 12, 1997 [9a].
Shivaraj’s case turned out to be only the first in a series. Most of the deaths were concentrated in Bidar and Gulbarga districts of north Karnataka, a region which has negligible irrigation, despite the two rivers and two canals that pass through Bidar. Hence when rains last year fell short (in Bidar, 62 cm as compared to the normal 94 cm; in Gulbarga, 59.5 cm as compared to the normal 76.9 cm), crops withered. Later, unseasonal December rains led to the proliferation of pests on the surviving crops [10]. According to an official statement, 90 per cent of crops in 2.84 lakh hectares in Bidar and 2.95 lakh hectares in Gulbarga were lost due to "erratic rainfall and bad weather".
In several of the cases, peasants appear to have leased in lands. Bhojraj, a 30-year-old peasant of Bhalki taluka, Bidar district, owned four acres, and took an additional 12 acres on share-cropping lease. After his crop failed, he was left with a debt of Rs 1.7 lakhs, as a result of which he committed suicide on February 14, 1998 [10a].
The suicides in Karnataka included cases of women, too. Lakshmi Bai, 38, of Soldabhka village, Bidar district, Karnataka, and her husband, Eknath, borrowed Rs 10,000 to cultivate crops on a part of their five-acre plot. The crop failed. After Eknath left home to sell the family’s pair of bullocks to pay off the loan, Lakshmi Bai committed suicide [11]. Jeeja Bai, 42, of Morambi village, Karnataka, had fixed the marriage of her daughter, and taken a loan on a fixed deposit of Rs 60,000. The family owned 15 acres, but grew just tur dal on a one-acre plot. The crop failed; Jeeja Bai committed suicide on February 6, 1998 [12].
So much depended on just the supply of water. Veerabhadrappa Kurbar, 40, of Veerapapur village, Sindhanoor taluk, Raichur district, Karnataka, reportedly owed money to landlords and fertiliser dealers. He lost his groundnut and jowar crops because sufficient water was not available from the Tungabhadra left bank canal. He too took his own life [13]. The land of Veeranna of Gundahalli, Raichur district, came under distribution number 40 of Tungabhadra left bank canal. But the canal water "failed him in the recent years. In the last kharif season there was not enough water to save his crops. This time also water was not released sufficiently and thus (crops) withered. Veeranna couldn’t sustain himself with these losses and the pressure by the moneylenders egged him on to end his life."[14]
Deccan Herald (22/3/98) reports: "In 1996, Yellappa Gundankar of Kadapatti village in Dharwad district borrowed some money from the bank thinking that the yield would be good and he would clear all the dues. But his calculations went wrong and the next year also the crop failed. Last year again he borrowed money from local moneylenders at a high rate of interest thinking that the crop would fetch a handsome price. Again nature played truant and the crops were ravaged. This year he could get just 4.5 quintals of chilli from 10 acres. Yellappa took the extreme step after he came to know that his debts had touched Rs 70,000-80,000. Although his relatives tried to dissuade him against taking any extreme step, Yellappa ended his life."[15]
Vaman Rao Inchure, 55, of Ghatboral village, Karnataka, grew bajra on two acres and tur on one acre. For the inputs he had borrowed Rs 30,000 from a private "finance company" (moneylenders). The tur crop failed completely, and the bajra failed partially. Unable to repay the loan, Vaman hanged himself [16].
Basappa Hosalli, 45, of Habalgatti village, Kustagi taluk, Koppal district, Karnataka, lost his groundnut and jowar crops; his wife alleges that the pesticides he used on his crops were spurious [17].
In Maharashtra, as in A.P., the majority of the suicides were associated with the failure of the cotton crop. Maharashtra has the largest area under cotton — 3.08 million hectares out of a nationwide 9.12 million hectares in 1996-97; but its yields are the lowest, at 170 kg of cotton lint/hectare as compared to the national average of 270 kg (three kg of kapas equals one kg of cotton lint). Just 3.7 per cent of the gross cropped area under cotton in Maharashtra is irrigated [18]. In Maharashtra, the Maharashtra State Cooperative Cotton Growers’ Marketing Federation is the monopoly procurer of cotton. Its purchases in Vidarbha fell from 82 lakh quintals in 1996-97 to 40 lakh quintals in 1997-98 [19]. In October 1998, with the prospects of another bad harvest, the string of suicides has started again. A peasant from Buldhana told a reporter at a rally in November 1998: "Most farmers are heavily in debt with moneylenders charging a monthly interest of five to 10 per cent."[19a].
In all, according to the statement of the Union minister for agriculture, there were 82 cases of suicide by indebted peasants in Maharashtra during 1997-98. The state government contests this and claims there were only 19, a claim belied by press reports of individual cases. The large majority of the cases were from Vidarbha. Press reports put the total for the first half of 1998 at 100.
A typical case is that of Purshottam Banagdwar, a peasant of Dhamangaon-Wathoda village, ten km from Wardha town, Maharashtra, who left behind a wife and three school-going children. With just 2.5 acres of land, Purshottam had incurred heavy debts from moneylenders. When his crop was destroyed due to unseasonal rains and hailstorms, he found no way out but suicide [20].
Two of the cases reported in the press concerned peasants who had taken institutional sector loans. Dunaji Baburao Sawant was a 40-year-old cotton grower in Bhorib village, Parbhani district. He had a wife and five children — one boy and four girls. He had borrowed heavily, and when the crop failed due to the unseasonal rain and fog, he was unable to repay his debts. Reportedly, two recovery officers of the District Central Cooperative Bank confronted him at the weekly bazaar in Basmat tehsil. Thrusting a notice in his hand in full view of the other farmers, the officers demanded that he immediately repay the Rs 25,000 borrowed from them as well as Rs 16,000 as interest, failing which they warned they would take possession of his property. Sawant returned to his village, consumed insecticide, and went to bed. His wife found him dead in the morning [21]. Uddhav Gulabrao Bhose of Dawasa, Nagpur district, 32 years old, had a wife and three daughters, aged six, four and two. They owned just 1.75 acres of land, on which they planted soyabean. However, with no irrigation they depended on the rains, and poor rains meant that they got no crop. They re-sowed chana (gram), but that, too, was lost. Cooperative bank loans and unpaid power bills for the pump came to Rs 10,000. Uddhav fell into a deep depression. His brothers took him to a doctor in Amravati, but to no avail, since Uddhav finally hanged himself on May 13. The Superintendent of Police declared: "This case has nothing to do with the agricultural situation. Uddhav was suffering from mental illness and was getting treatment from a doctor in Amravati. His illness drove him to suicide."[22]
An unusual case is that of Gulab Dhote, who owned 27 acres of land in Panchgavan village, Yavatmal district. He had four cows and about 12 bulls. However, he had borrowed heavily for cotton cultivation, and was unable to service his debts. He could not sell his cotton to the state cotton federation for the past three years as the entire crop was taken by his creditors. He also sold seven acres of his land to repay moneylenders. The last straw was that the jowar he had sown for his family’s consumption was struck by bad weather just when the crop was ready for harvesting. He consumed pesticide in May 1998, leaving his family to a cluster of moneylenders [23].
The details of these cases give us a sense of the fragility of the economy of the small peasant, how close it is to actual starvation. Dhondba Bhoyar of Dhotara, Yavatmal, borrowed money from a moneylender in the village. When he could not repay the loans, he was hounded by his creditors and he finally consumed insecticide, leaving behind a wife, two school-going children and an aged mother. Now the survivors are borrowing to meet their consumption needs [24].
Lakshman Gadwe, 65, of Januna village, Nandgaon taluka, Amravati district, spent almost Rs 70,000 on inputs for his cotton crop. But as his crop was ravaged by pests, his yield was less than 20 per cent of the normal. His returns were less than Rs 30,000. According to his son, "Since the cooperative bank loan did not cover the costs, he had borrowed from moneylenders and relatives. To repay the debts, he was forced to sell the land he had worked so hard to buy." Finally Lakshman Gadwe swallowed pesticides and killed himself [25].
Manjurabai Thakur, also of Januna village, found her husband Hari, 60, lying dead in the fields two days after he drank pesticide. She told a reporter that "For days he wouldn’t eat or talk. We don’t even know how much money he borrowed. After his death, moneylenders came here asking for Rs 10,000." Manjurabai was forced thereafter to lease out her tiny plot. "I try to find work in the fields to run the house. When the school term begins, I will request the schoolmaster to give my grandchildren note-books. There is not enough food in the house and we wait for the khichdi that the younger one brings back from his balwadi."[26]
As in A.P., traders encouraged rampant overuse of pesticide. Vithal Krishnarao Kamble, 26, owned 18 acres of land, on which he planted cotton. Anxious to rid his crop of the American bol worm, he sprayed it again and again — in all, 15 times, purchasing in all Rs 34,000 worth of pesticide from the local pesticide dealer. To no avail: unseasonal rains increased the humidity, aiding the pest; moreover, the bol worm has built up resistance thanks to continuous cultivation of cotton. The crop was destroyed. Even the sale of his mandap decoration business did not suffice to settle his debts with moneylenders. After Vithal committed suicide, his father did not know the size of the debt [27].
The cases also bring out how the recent crop failure was only the last straw; even in ‘normal’ times the small peasant’s condition is tenuous. Mahadeorao Kinnekar of Veni Kotha, Kalamb taluka, Yavatmal, was found in a well. He left a wife and five children. His wife Indirabai told a reporter: "We are never able to pay back all the money even if the crop is good. But if there is a natural calamity and the crop along with fodder for cattle is destroyed, we can’t recover from its after-effects for at least three years. It was this fear and the constant hounding by moneylenders that made my husband commit suicide."[28]
How meagre the options are for the peasant outside agriculture is illustrated by the case of Vithuji Irbhan Vasukar of Malkapur village, Amravati. He sowed 4.5 acres of land with cotton. Unseasonal rains destroyed the entire crop, leaving him with just 7.5 kg of cotton and a heavy burden of debt. Only last year, Vasukar had borrowed heavily for his daughter’s wedding. To make ends meet he sold his bullock cart and took another loan from Mahatma Phule Vikas Mandal to buy an autorickshaw. But he was unable to make payments on this loan in time, either, and the rickshaw was sold. Still he was unable to clear his debts. Finally he worked as a farm labourer in a nearby village, but was still unable to make ends meet. On March 14, 1998, he killed himself [29].
Here are three more cases from the same news report: Bhagwan Singh Thakur from Bamni-Tata Nagar in Daryapur tehsil hanged himself at dawn from a tree on the banks of the Bhuleshwar river. The local police records state that his "family life was disturbed due to debt". Local sources state that Thakur had received only a pittance from the aid announced by the Government following unseasonal rains in December last year. On April 3, Prataprao Patil hanged himself from a tree overhanging the terrace of his house in Yerla village of Maurshi tehsil. Villagers say that Patil was deep in debt and had suffered a crop failure. And on March 25, a woman from Veni village walked into Kalamb police station and complained that her husband, Sakharam Patil, had killed himself for fear of the moneylender. The moneylender had threatened to seize her husband’s bullock as he had defaulted on a loan he had taken six months ago.
The second series of suicides in Maharashtra has begun in the second half of 1998. The state government admits only one suicide, in Beed district, but a Kisan Sabha activist has charged that six farmers in Beed and one in Amravati have committed suicide in October [29a]; and Kishor Tiwari of the Vidarbha Shetkari Janandolan Samiti charges that five farmers in Yavatmal have committed suicide in November: Prabhakar Mokhadkar of Rampur village, Narayan Kisan Gawande of Badhumari, Ganpat Pendore of Karegaon, Ashok Kawadu Kochare of Dongarkharda, and Digambar Dambhare of Wedashi. Hariram Patil of Waghbet in Marathwada too committed suicide on November 24. All the cases are allegedly the result of inability to repay debts to moneylenders after unseasonal rains ruined their crops. Tiwari also alleges that the state government's meagre cotton procurement price of Rs 2,100/quintal, which has not been revised since 1995, has aggravated the situation [29b].
A report prepared by Inderjit Singh Jaijee, former Akali Dal MLA and now leader of the "Movement Against State Repression" claimed to have documented a large number of peasant suicides that had occurred between 1994 and 1997 in the Munak-Lehra Gaga region of Sangrur district: 23 in Chotian, 15 in Bangan, 26 in Balleran, 12 in Bakhora Kalan, and 10 in Chulad Kalan. While these claims were contested by Frontline (24/4/98), fresh reports of peasant suicides began appearing in the Punjabi press.
The issue was highlighted by the shocking case of Kuljit Singh, a seemingly better-off peasant and former village sarpanch of Sakrodi, Patiala district, whom villagers considered "incapable of even hurting a fly". Kuljit had accumulated debts of around Rs seven lakh, and had decided to sell off some of his 15 acres to pay off the debt. However, a number of peasants had recently been selling land, and the price of land had fallen, so Kuljit had trouble finding buyers. (An elder of the village remarked to the press that "Those with four to five acres of land are already finished and are being forced to sell their land due to debts. Now even those with slightly bigger land holdings are feeling the pinch.") Snapping under the mental strain caused by his indebtedness, Kuljit killed his wife and son with an axe and a sharp-edged weapon, and then killed himself by swallowing celphos tablets [30].
A team of journalists carried out a survey of villages in Barnala tehsil of Sangrur district and printed the results in the Punjabi paper Ajit [31]. The team visited Chananwal, Ghunam, Aspal Kalan, Tajoke, Chauhanke, Barnala, Hamidi, Dhaula, Pindi Bilaspur, Talwandi Majhuki, Sukhpura, Kutba, Mahilkalan, Alakada and other villages. It gathered evidence that some dozens of peasants had committed suicide. In Alakada village alone, over the last three years, the number of suicides was over 25. According to the report, among the reasons for most of the suicides was the debt burden. As a result of not being able to repay the loans there would be domestic clashes too. Among the older peasants who committed suicide, many had daughters whom they would have to get married, but they saw no hope of their own large debts getting repaid. The report concluded on the basis of the cases it had gathered that for small peasants, with little land, agriculture was no longer profitable. It claimed that in this sub-division alone, there were at least 75 suicides a year directly related to economic difficulties.
After Jaijee’s report and letter to Parkash Singh Badal, the Chief Minister of Punjab, and the ensuing controversy, the state government appointed a five-member expert group from the Institute for Development and Communication (IDC), Chandigarh, including the economist G.S. Bhalla, to investigate the phenomenon of peasant suicides following Jaijee’s letter. Unfortunately, we were already finalising the matter for this issue when the report came out, and so have been unable to get a copy in time. Nevertheless, a detailed article on the IDC’s study findings has appeared in Frontline (4/12/98). The study, titled Suicides in Rural Punjab, has been seized upon by the Frontline correspondent as showing that not indebtedness, but a breakdown in agrarian social life, is the cause of such peasant suicides as take place in the state.
Indeed, the IDC report’s main conclusion, as headlined by the press, is that the primary cause of rural suicides in Punjab is not debt. Nevertheless the following facts also emerge: (1) There is a growing number of officially recorded suicides in Punjab overall, rising steadily from 95 in 1988 to 128 in 1992, 193 in 1994, 220 in 1995, 345 in 1996, and 418 in 1997. (2) The IDC study is based on only 53 "verifiable" cases of suicide, of which apparently only 13 were cultivators with holdings of upto five acres. So, in order to study specifically the causes of suicides of small peasants, which was the point of controversy, we have a pretty small sample. [Of the remaining 40 cases, 24 were of landless labourers. The large proportion of landless labourers and small peasants together in the total would suggest that economic distress was a factor in their suicides. Apparently a large proportion of the landless labour too owe debts to the informal sector.] (3) The report shows that the area covered by Jaijee’s claims, namely, Sangrur, indeed does have a particularly high concentration of suicides. The southern districts of Mansa, Bathinda, and Sangrur together accounted for 61 per cent of such deaths since 1991. Mysteriously, the study does not confirm or deny Jaijee’s claims regarding individual cases, despite having looked into 93 of them. (4) Indebtedness is certainly listed by the IDC as one of the causes of suicides, and it is admitted that borrowings per operated acre in Sangrur — with the highest rate of suicide — are the highest statewide. The group does not rule out the factor of indebtedness, but concludes that "no single factor could explain the suicide cases; in most of the cases multiple causes were reported — domestic discord, alcohol and drug abuse and indebtedness emerged as the leading factors of suicide" (Tribune, 11/10/98). Frontline quotes the study as saying that "68 per cent of suicide victims’ families have a debt on them because of unproductive expenditure, compared to 20 per cent of general households." Suicide-hit households generally "used loans for meeting daily household needs, marriages and family celebrations and events, buying of consumer goods, alcohol, and drugs." These statements are open to interpretation in different ways: if households are turning to consumption loans for "daily household needs", it may mean that their farm operations do not generate enough to meet even that. Domestic discord, alcoholism and drug abuse may also grow with economic pressures.
What is not clear from the press reports is: taking the suicide cases of peasants alone, is the incidence of peasant suicide rising? And is indebtedness a major cause in that? After all, it was the IDC itself which concluded, in a study reviewed elsewhere in this issue, that rising input prices and stagnant yields (particularly in southern Punjab) have resulted in nearly nine out of ten Punjabi farmers being routinely indebted; that the burden of debt on them is serious; that the bulk of the burden of debt is for cultivation, and only a minor share for non-productive purposes; that the burden is particularly heavy on small peasants; and that upto a-third of the short-term debt of farmers is left outstanding at the end of the year — indicating the debt burden is rising.
The series of peasant suicides in Punjab is not over. On September 29 Mohinder Singh, a 30-year-old small peasant of Nat Bhager village in Bathinda district consumed poison after his cotton crop was devastated by pests and recent rains. He and his brother owned four acres, and he had leased in an additional nine acres of land at Rs 7,000 an acre. However, the crop on seven acres was destroyed by pests, and unseasonal rains destroyed much of the crop on the remaining six acres. Mohinder had apparently borrowed heavily from commission agents (arhatiyas), and was unable to repay after his crop failed. The Tribune (4/1/98) informs us that "According to agriculture experts, about 90 per cent of the farmers of the Malwa (southern Punjab) region are caught in a debt trap as repeated crop failures have ruined the economy. So far about 133 suicides have been reported in Punjab.... Finding it difficult to pay their debts farmers have started selling their land at throwaway prices." In many cases, they are unable to find buyers. Desh Sevak (13/10/98) and Punjabi Tribune (14/10/98) quote numerous instances of peasants in the cotton belt of Punjab (in the southern part of the state) being forced to sell off their farm animals at 55-65 per cent of their value in order to pay moneylenders. Punjabi Tribune (21/10/98) reports similar sales of farm machinery at depressed prices by indebted peasants.
Baldev Singh, a peasant owning four acres in Bir Khurd village near Bhikhi in Mansa district, had reportedly borrowed Rs 1.5 lakh from moneylenders as well as the Land Mortgage Bank, and was unable to service the debt. His paddy crop had already been ruined by unseasonal rains. Even combine harvester operators refused to harvest his crop. On October 16, 1998, when he found that rains had come again and would further destroy his crop, he consumed pesticide [32].
Bikkar Singh, also of Bir Khurd village, had three grown-up daughters of marriageable age, and his wife had cancer. The family was unable to make ends meet. Bikkar had already mortgaged half his eight acres of land to a private party, and had taken huge loans from a commission agent for the treatment of his wife. He was finding it difficult to arrange the marriages of his daughters. Finally, on October 19, he committed suicide [33].
Teja Singh at one point owned 10 acres of land, but had sold off about six acres gradually to pay debts, and he was left with only four acres; yet his debt continued to grow. He had one son and two unmarried daughters. He attempted to supplement his meagre farm income by starting trading in buffalos, but he did not succeed. His accumulated debt was now Rs 3.5 lakhs. When, on October 15, heavy rain damaged his paddy crop, he fell into a severe depression and finally consumed poison [34].
Sukhmandar Singh, of Kothe Nathasinghwala village, owned just 1.5 acres of land, out of which he was forced by economic difficulties to mortgage a large portion. He was a widower with five daughters, of whom four were of marriageable age. In the last four years he had borrowed Rs three lakh from banks and moneylenders, which put him under great mental strain. Due to his failure to pay his debts, the Land Mortgage Bank, Bathinda, had him arrested and kept in custody for 60 days. This, given his self-respecting nature, he found impossible to bear. In the third week of October 1998 he swallowed insecticide and killed himself [35].
Apart from the above cases, press reports mention that suicides have occurred in Bihar, U.P., Madhya Pradesh, and Haryana, but we have not been able to gather details of these cases. A press report (Tribune 24/9/98) claims, apparently on the basis of Government sources, that "Nearly 1,000 cases of farmers’ suicides have been reported so far."
The major reasons for indebtedness that emerge from the press reports were as follows.
First, to state the obvious, poor peasants do not have enough land to make ends meet. No press report puts it in these terms, since land relations are taken as a fact of nature; but one cannot help being struck by the fact that almost all the suicides were by small and marginal farmers, with an acre or a few acres of land. Hardly ever does one find those with ample land committing suicide. Many marginal peasants were compelled to lease in more land in the hope of making enough to survive: It is estimated by a recent survey that a third of the land cultivated by the suicide victims in A.P. had been taken on lease. Some of the reports we have cited above indicate the same would hold true for Karnataka, Maharashtra and even Punjab.
Secondly, there were serious crop failures in all the regions from which suicides were reported. There were a number of reasons for the poor crop last year. An important one was bad weather: drought in some areas, unseasonal rains or hailstorm in others. In June-September 1997, rainfall was 25 per cent below normal in Telangana, nine per cent in north Karnataka and 25.5 per cent in Vidarbha — the three areas from which the bulk of these cases came. Unseasonal rains in October 1998 have added to the crisis of cotton farmers there.
But just as important as nature were man-made causes, or natural causes aggravated by human action. First among these was the peasants’ helpless dependence on rainfall, due to the lack of irrigation. A survey of the A.P. suicide cases showed that 83 per cent of their land holdings were unirrigated. Just 12.8 per cent of gross cropped area under cotton in A.P. was irrigated by 1992-93, and just 3.7 per cent in Maharashtra. Irrigated area in Warangal (A.P.) has actually been declining. Only 10 per cent of the land in Vidarbha is under irrigation [36].
The next important cause of crop failure was the devastation caused by pests, to which several factors contributed. First, the anxiety of peasants to earn quickly and repay a part of their debts led them to continuously cultivate cotton. Whereas cotton used to be cultivated in rotation with other crops, breaking the pest cycle; once it began to be cultivated as the only crop, the pests survived from crop to crop [37]. Secondly, many of the pesticides were spurious: so much so that there are numerous cases of peasants who attempted suicide by drinking pesticide, but survived. Thirdly, there was an abysmal lack of agricultural extension staff and services by the Government to check the quality of inputs (out of the samples sent of seeds, pesticides, and chemicals by the A.P. Agriculture Department, only 0.01 per cent were found spurious! [38]), educate the peasant on scientific practices, and warn him of impending dangers. M.R.M. Chalapati Rao, Warangal’s top agriculture official, blamed small farmers’ "bad habits" — poor crop choice, misuse of fertiliser, overspraying of pesticide, and so on — for the crop losses. But it was his job to advise and educate the peasantry. Admittedly, even given sincere intent, it would have been difficult to do this with a staff of just 39 field officers to cover 1,100 villages [39]. As a result of their lack of information, many peasants, anxious to ensure the survival of their crop, and egged on by unscrupulous traders, sprayed their crop 12, 13, or even 20-25 times — many multiples of the maximum that would be effective. In Warangal district alone, there are 13,000 retailers of pesticides, selling 93 companies’ products. One dealer, T. Venkata Reddy of Medical India, is quoted as saying his sales doubled last year, with 70 per cent of his sales on credit. "This caterpillar is uncontrollable. Farmers would have been better off abandoning the crop." Did he inform them? "No one would sacrifice his own business. Why tell them not to buy?" [40] In dirt-poor Bidar and Gulbarga of north Karnataka, Rs 60 crore of pesticides are sold a year [41]. Many of the pests had already built up resistance to the pesticides in use, and so the effort would have been in vain. The pesticides on the contrary killed many of the natural predators of the pests, worsening the problem.
Thirdly, the already high input prices have been rising further. Under IMF-dictated ‘structural adjustment’, prices of fertilisers, irrigation, and electricity have been rising steeply. So have the prices of pesticides and seeds. In the words of the Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) in its report on price policy for rabi crops of 1996-97:
"In connection with the price environment for the farmers, it needs to be pointed out that there has been a considerable increase in the prices of important farm inputs during the last five years. Between 1990-91 and 1995-96, while the prices of wheat, as measured by the average of wholesale price indices, increased by 58 per cent, that of fertilisers increased by 113 per cent, that of irrigation 62 per cent and insecticides by 90 per cent. With the recent revision in the administered prices of petroleum products, the prices of diesel would be higher by 75 per cent than their level during 1990-91. It may be mentioned here that these account for about three-fourths of the expenditure on inputs purchased by the farmers from the non-farm sector. Continued increases in the prices of such critical farm inputs are bound to dampen the enthusiasm of the farmers to use modern farm inputs and invest in yield-raising infrastructure. In connection with the suggestions being made in certain quarters to withdraw the subsidies on fertilisers and electricity, it needs to be recognised that supply of these inputs at relatively low rates has been part of a deliberate strategy of keeping the prices of cereals and other essential commodities at reasonable levels while at the same time inducing the farmers to adopt modern inputs and increase the production."
"So far as compensating the farmers for increases in the prices of inputs by raising the product prices is concerned, it needs to be pointed out that the marginal and small farmers, with negligible marketable surplus, have considerable share in the use of these inputs. The available data from the All-India Agricultural Census, 1985-86 indicate that the share of marginal and small farmers is 40 per cent in the total area irrigated by canals and 38 per cent by tubewells. These farmers account for 42 per cent of the wells with electric pumpsets and 35 per cent of the tubewells with electric pumpsets. As a consequence of increase in the user charges, the cost of production for these farmers would also increase and as this would not get fully compensated by the product prices, their cost of living would go up. As regards compensating the farmers who produce primarily for the market, it needs to be pointed out that except for paddy and wheat growers in surplus producing regions, the prices realised by them are generally not the administered prices. The adjustments in floor prices may not help much in compensating the farmers for increases in the inputs prices."(Reports of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices for Crops Grown in the 1995-96 Season and 1996-97, pp. 459, 75)
Moreover, the quantity of fertilisers and pesticides used per hectare has been rising even more sharply as peasants find yields per hectare tapering off or even falling. India has trebled it pesticide consumption in the last eight years — growing 20 per cent a year since 1989. Its total consumption of nitrogenous fertilisers has grown 29 per cent between 1990-91 and 1996-97 — from eight million tonnes to 10.3 million tonnes. Yet the index of agricultural production grew more slowly, by just 11.4 per cent, in the same period. This trend was even more striking in areas such as Punjab.
Fourthly, peasants have been receiving depressed prices for their crops. Apart from purchases of wheat and rice in Punjab and Haryana (regarding which, too, peasants have many complaints of shortfall), Government intervention in agricultural markets is negligible. Traders exercise a stranglehold on the market. The CACP reports consistently point out that prices actually paid to the peasant do not correspond to the support prices declared by the Government, that the Government agencies do not intervene in the market (except for paddy and wheat in the main surplus-producing areas; there too, inadequately), and that even in years of scarcity traders are able to manipulate prices downward at the time of harvest. (The CACP plays its own role in this by frequently declaring "minimum support prices" which are too low to lend any support: for example, in A.P. last year, the minimum support price at which the Cotton Corporation of India and Markfed were making purchases was just Rs 1,530 per quintal — 25 per cent lower than the market price in earlier years. The A.P. Chief Minister repeatedly assured peasants that CCI and Markfed would purchase 30 per cent of the crop at Rs 2100/quintal of kapas. But CCI and Markfed refused to do so, saying that they were commercial organisations, not charitable ones. The beneficiaries of depressed cotton prices are the local traders, the cotton mills and the foreign purchasers of cotton. Prices of kapas fell from Rs 2300/quintal in 1996-97 to Rs 1800/quintal this year.) Peasants lack holding capacity: they have no storage or transport facilities; they have to pay off debts and cannot afford to wait; and the crop is in danger of spoiling. Hence they sell off their crop at prices often as low as 25-50 per cent of the price the traders get. Even in the case of monopoly procurement of cotton in Maharashtra by the MSCCGMF, what actually happens is that peasants, unable to afford the transport costs to the distant procurement centres, and anyway under compulsion of their debts, sell their crop to agents at depressed prices. These agents then sell to the MSCCGMF. The story of peasant helplessness is similar for most other crops.
Fifthly, all the suicides were by peasants engaged in commercial cropping (even in the case of the few growing foodgrains, they were growing them for the market). Deepening poverty and indebtedness has driven increasing numbers of peasants to abandon food crops (much of which they would retain for their own consumption) in favour of commercial crops. The percentage of non-foodgrains in gross cropped area grew from 26.6 per cent in 1980-81 to 33.6 per cent in 1992-93 (in A.P., the corresponding figures were 28.7 and 45.1 per cent, respectively). In Warangal district, there were just 6,000 hectares under cotton in 1986, as compared to over a lakh in 1997-98.
The consequences of this fact are several. First, most commercial crops, unlike the coarse cereals and pulses these peasants earlier grew, require heavy inputs, increasing the need for borrowing. Cotton reportedly consumes half the entire pesticide consumption of India. Secondly, the prices of these crops fluctuate sharply as a result of national or even international developments and the manipulations of the trader cartel. Thirdly, the peasant has to purchase his consumption needs from the market, and is thus doubly vulnerable to swings in market prices.
It is rather common to read that farmers are "lured" to plant commercial crops by dreams of "getting rich quick". This description is insulting and misleading. It is not that small peasants growing commercial crops entertain hopes of wealth, but rather that they are frequently under some compulsion to generate substantial sums of cash: for example, marriage of daughters, or repayment of earlier debts. Such are the compulsions of debt and commercial crops that, even after the disastrous year of 1997-98, peasants in Telangana are increasing further their planting of cotton — the area under cotton is set to grow by at least 35,000 hectares, according to news reports; even Warangal will see an increase. Ironically, the reason that peasants are growing more cotton is probably the fact that they faced disaster last year, and have got to generate cash to service their accumulated debts. A scientist at the Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University revealingly says: "The farmers still consider cotton as white gold, and firmly believe that one good cotton crop will make them rich, so that they can pay their old debts."[42] The definition of "riches" is merely to be able to pay old debts.
While we have presented the above headings as a list of causes, such as one finds in textbooks, they are actually intertwined, and can be traced back to production relations. The continuing paucity of land with the mass of peasantry; the lack of options for employment outside agriculture, as a result of which peasants take on even the most unfavourable odds in agriculture in an effort to clamber out of poverty; the tight grip of traders over the peasants’ purchases and output; the peasants’ exploitation by big manufacturers and even by international traders, both of whom must operate through the local traders; the abysmal lack of surplus left with the peasants to use as working capital for the following year (let alone to invest in improving the productivity of their land) — all these factors force them to borrow. In other words, usury has roots deep in the political economy of our country.
And borrowing in turn actually sharpens most of these factors: the peasants lose even more of their land; they are even further pinned to the village till they have repaid their debts; they are forced to purchase from, and sell to, the person from whom they have borrowed, thus paying even higher prices and getting lower prices than they would otherwise have done; they are driven yet further to cultivate commercial crops in an effort to earn enough to service the existing debts; and the interest payments eat further into their meagre surplus, heightening the need for further borrowing. The point is that the need for borrowing itself arises largely as a result of the multiple exploitation of the peasant — which thus indicates that the fundamental way to resolve the credit crisis of the peasant is to remove these sources of exploitation.
To change these circumstances then requires not only a declaration of the cancellation of the rural debts of the poor and landless peasantry, but a redistribution of land and other rural assets (also ending land rents), cooperative/collective development of farm modernisation, planned investment in irrigation and democratic control of water resources, State control of agricultural trade, and national development of industry in a fashion that would reduce the price of agricultural inputs as well as provide growing industrial employment. In other words, a fundamental change in production relations.
At least one myth has now been exploded by the peasant suicides and all the reportage around them: the myth that the expansion in rural banking, through commercial bank branches, regional rural banks, and cooperative societies has dealt a serious blow to usury. According to an official study (All-India Debt and Investment Survey, 1981-82 — AIDIS), "There was a spurt in the share of institutional credit in the total cash debt of rural households from 29 per cent in 1971 to 61 per cent in 1981.... The control by moneylenders, as a class, also got diluted from 37 per cent to 17 per cent." In fact, in recent times the World Bank could be found arguing that since this survey had revealed that the power of moneylenders had been "broken", there was a need to stop further expansion of rural banking, and focus on improving the profitability of banks: "Rural banking needs consolidation rather than expansion." (see Aspects no. 19, p. 11) The Bank recommended the speedy phasing-out of directed credit (that is, the stipulation by the Government that commercial banks must make a specified percentage of their loans to agriculture, small-scale industries, weaker sections, and so on.) Recently, several Government committees (Narasimham Committee I and II, R.V. Gupta Committee) have lent their voices to the World Bank views.
Since, in the AIDIS’ fanciful version, moneylenders made up just 17 per cent of the rural debt, the survey was able to give the following comforting break-up of interest rates paid: on 11.2 per cent of the cash dues, the interest rate was nil; on 8.9 per cent, the rate was between 0 and 10 per cent; on 44.6 per cent, the rate was between 10 and 15 per cent; on 13.6 per cent, the rate was between 15 and 20 per cent. On just over a fifth of the dues was the interest rate over 20 per cent. This meant that only a moderate proportion of the surplus generated in agriculture was being drained away by usury.
The AIDIS calculations of course made little sense because the credit actually extended by the institutional sector (banks and cooperatives) came nowhere near the actual credit needs of agriculture, indicating that peasants were getting their loans from somewhere, even if that did not show up in their answers to questionnaires. But the issue of indebtedness received hardly any attention till the recent suicides.
With the recent suicides some information has appeared in the press about the actual state of affairs in various regions. What do these news items tell us about (i) the percentage of working capital needs met by the institutional sector as opposed to the moneylenders/traders/landlords, and (ii) the rates of interest charged by the latter?
In A.P., according to Business Standard (13/7/98), "the farmers of the state... depend, according to official estimates, on private moneylenders for almost 80 per cent of their credit needs for farm operations, especially for commercial crops like tobacco, cotton and chilly." (The source of the official estimate is not cited, and we were unable to trace it. An article in People’s Resistance, January-June 1998, mentions that "even the state government admits that the institutional credit served only 15 per cent of the requirement.")
A three-member study team of the Andhra Pradesh Rytu Sangam, a CPI(M)-affiliated peasant organisation, estimated that institutional sources provided only 10-20 per cent of the credit in the areas affected by suicides. In Warangal, it observed that banks and cooperative institutions disbursed only Rs 62 crore, whereas the requirement was Rs 315 crores. (Even the figure of Rs 62 crore is an overstatement, since local farmers claimed that most of the credit by the cooperatives were "book adjustments" without actual cash outflows — presumably the farmers already had outstanding debts.)
A survey conducted by the Deccan Chronicle (20/1/98) in a pocket of Warangal "revealed that there are over 400 unauthorised finance companies operating in Parakala town and the surrounding villages with an estimated turnover of Rs 25 crore. About 25 per cent of such companies belong to local leaders of the Telugu Desam Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party.... According to a rough estimate, more than 15,000 poor farmers of Regonda, Chithyal, Mogullapalli, Bhoopalapalli and Shayampet have fallen prey to the moneylenders. Farmers allege that some officials of the revenue and income tax departments, who are bribed by the illegal finance companies, extend support to the business." The Hindu (10/1/98) reports that "A single dealer (in Warangal) is said to have given credit to the tune of Rs four crore for farmers."
In Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region, charges the Vidarbha Shetkari Janandolan Samiti, banks lend only 10 per cent of the region’s credit requirements [43]. Kishor Tiwari of the Samiti points out that institutional credit is a mere Rs 256 crore, whereas he puts Vidarbha’s total credit requirement at Rs 2,456 crore [44]. Reporting on the condition of cotton farmers in Maharashtra, Outlook (27/4/98) states that "while the cash input per acre per year is Rs 6,000 for dry farming and Rs 10,000 per acre per year for irrigated farming, the farmer is allowed Rs 1,000 and Rs 2,000 per acre per year, respectively, at 18 per cent interest by way of bank loans." While cotton researchers point out that the cost of cultivation of cotton in Maharashtra went up by 85 per cent between 1994 and 1997, the ceilings on cooperative bank loans for cotton remained virtually the same [45].
The situation in Punjab has been more thoroughly documented by a study commissioned by the Punjab Department of Cooperation (covered elsewhere in this issue). This reveals that even in this relatively commercialised state, with 5,574 cooperative credit societies and 1,325 branches of commercial banks and regional rural banks and a relatively better-informed peasantry, 64 per cent of the farmers went to commission agents (arhatiyas) for short-term loans. Such loans constituted 61 per cent of the short-term debt of the farmers of Punjab (in the case of farmers with less than 10 acres, the proportion was 70 per cent).
Interestingly, some official sources too now confess the gross inadequacy of bank credit to agriculture: "NABARD’s executive director, S.B. Sharma, admits that nationally, banks cover a mere 20 per cent of the cost of agricultural production. He explains, `Since agriculture is considered an unstable business heavily dependent on the monsoon, commercial banks are reluctant to lend. Moreover, with liberalisation, they are cutting costs by restricting the number of small borrowers in order to compete with foreign banks."[46]
The implications of this non-availability of institutional credit, and of the peasantry’s dependence on credit from moneylenders, traders, and landlords, is evident if we look at the rates of interest charged by the latter.
For Andhra Pradesh, various items in the press put the range of prevailing interest rates among moneylenders at 36 to 60 per cent [47]. Other reports are even higher: The A.P. Rytu Sangam puts the rate at 36 to 120 per cent, and the A.P. Rytu Cooli Sangam (APRCS) led by Gade Diwakar puts it at 60 to 200 per cent. The APRCS study found that a farmer who raised cotton regularly ran up an average debt of Rs 90,884 an acre since 1990-91 — the principal increased from Rs 1,500 in the first year to Rs 18,000, and the interest component rose from Rs 900 to Rs 72,884 [48]. Deccan Chronicle (20/1/98) writes that "According to a moneylender, one who starts a finance company with an initial investment of Rs one lakh could double the amount in just 20 months as the rate of interest ranges from 4.5 to seven per cent per month."
In Maharashtra, Outlook (27/4/98) puts the range at 25 to 125 per cent. Times of India (1/7/98) quotes a marginal farmer saying that the rates are 60 to 120 per cent, the same range mentioned by a leader of the Kisan Sabha in Maharashtra [49]. Frontline reports that in Vidarbha moneylenders lend at interest rates between 60 and 200 per cent.
Most revealing is the fact that hardly a single press report mentions the moneylenders by name. Midday (30/5/98) writes of the suicide cases in Yavatmal that "It is curious that despite repeated questioning nobody comes forward with the names of moneylenders who charged such hefty interest that the farmers were left with no option but to kill themselves." Frontline (3/7/98) reports that "Many of the farmers whom this correspondent met in Vidarbha replied to questions about their sources of finance by speaking of `friendly loans’ or loans from relatives. The ubiquitous presence of the moneylender is well-known, but as most moneylenders have no licence to carry on the business, there seems to be a conspiracy of silence about their identities."
And yet these invisible men wield great power. They are able to achieve loan recovery by taking away the harvested crop, farm implements, bullock-carts, gold, and even roof thatches. Ultimately, of course, they can acquire the land itself. No social sanction appears to trammel them. One report tells of an old peasant, Sheikh Bhura Sheikh Ramzan of Dhanora Fasi village, Amravati, who has sold a-third of his three-acre plot, as well as his house itself, to pay the moneylender. He and his family now live under a tree, and sleep in the village school when it rains heavily. And even so he still owes the moneylender another Rs 10,000 [50].
It is worth remembering that in 1987-88, about 100 cotton farmers of Guntur and Prakasam districts, facing similar problems to those of the Telangana farmers today, committed suicide. The Ojha committee, headed by a deputy governor of the RBI, made a series of recommendations on how to prevent the recurrence of such situations — none of which has been implemented. Perhaps the best indicator of the power of the usurer class is that, despite the suicides and the publicity they generated — with deaths in A.P. rising to three a day in January and February 1998—, not for a moment did any of the state governments concerned contemplate the cancellation or even reduction of peasants’ debts to moneylenders/traders/landlords. Nor did they even mention the possibility of criminal action against moneylenders and traders for fraud or having abetted suicide (this would be particularly appropriate in the case of pesticide traders who, despite knowing better, encouraged peasants to use many times more pesticide than was necessary). Even extremely moderate proposals — for example, a plea made by some persons in A.P. to set a ceiling on accumulated indebtedness of peasants to private parties at twice the principal amount — were studiously ignored.
1. S. Nagesh Kumar, FL 20/2/98; also, Hindu,
10/1/98.
4. DC, 21/2/98; Hindu,
23/1/98.
5. IE, from J. Karp, WSJ,
19/2/98.
7. DTE, 28/2/98; S. Ramakrishna, P.R.K.
Prasad, IE, 21/1/98.
9a. N.K. Upadhyay, PD, 19/4/98.
14. IE, 23/3/98, quoted in Muzaffar
Assadi, EPW, 4/4/98.
18. Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy,
Agriculture, Sept. 1998.
19. R. Padmanabhan, FL, 3/7/98.
20. K.S. Manojkumar, IE, 6/5/98.
28. Saira Menezes, P.V. Krishna, M.S. Shanker,
Outlook, 27/4/98.
29b. P.K. Maitra, IE, 27/11/98.
30. J. Singh, Tribune, 15/5/98.
32. Tribune, 25/10/98; IE,
25/10/98.
35. Punjabi Tribune, 23/10/98.
42. ET, 6/7/98; emphasis added.
47. FL, 20/2/98; G. Parthasarathy,
Shameem, EPW 28/3/98; Osmania and Kakatiya University teachers’
fact-finding team, reported in IE, 25/1/98.
48. Dasu Kesav Rao, FL, 3/7/98.
DC — Deccan Chronicle; DTE — Down to Earth; EPW
— Economic and Political Weekly; FL — Frontline; IE — Indian
Express; MD — Midday; PD — People’s Democracy; TOI —
Times of India; WSJ — Wall Street Journal.
Formatted by the Maoist Documentation Project