Drought trip : Tale of a farmer's suicide told for the people of Manipur
Source: The Sangai Express / Satyajit Usham *

Imphal, November 16 2009: Clutching on to the framed photograph of his late father, 6-year old Mukendra stood near the doorstep, unperturbed, by the presence of the camera flashing news hunter team around him, even as his grandmother wept silently recounting once again how her son Hanumanthu (36) ended his life.

Hanumanthu of Settipalli village in Penukonda Mandal was among the many faceless farmers who committed suicide in different part of Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh following successive failure of crops due to recurring drought and the loan taken from local money lender could not be paid.

In June and August this year alone, 24 farmers committed suicide in Anantapur.

6 year old Mukendra stands with his grandma : Picture-Samom

Hanumanthu was studying in class VII, when he lost his father, who like any others in their Boya community used to lived on fishing activities until all the ponds and other water bodies dried up.

With the responsibility of looking after the family fallen solely on his young shoulder, Hanumanthu gave up his study and had been toiling on his 2 acres of 'assigned' but unproductive land, that he was fortunate enough to own under a special scheme of the Government for landless farmers, to meet both ends.

In the meantime, the loan amount that Hanumanth has taken in piecemeal from the local money lender for the purpose of marrying his four sisters and other family needs at the monthly interest rate of 2 percent accumulated upto Rs 1 lakh.

Under tremendous pressure from the money lender who insisted on paying atleast the accrued monthly interest on time even if he could not repay the whole loan amount, Hanumanthu had been worried and depressed for quite sometime as his crop failed repeatedly due to shortage of rainfall.

It was within a year of fulfilling his brotherly responsibility of marrying off his last and fourth sister that Hanumanthu took the extreme step of ending his own life in the morning of August 6, this year by holding on to a high-voltage electric wire that, ironically, criss-crossed over his parched plot of land.

Hanumanthu left behind his aged mother Nadimamidamme, his wife Chandrama, 6-year old son Mukendra and a 3month old baby girl, and a bleak future for all of them.

Though the bereaved family has applied for relief compensation under the Apadh Bandhu Scheme, they are yet to receive any assistance from the side of the Government.

As to the loan amount that Hanumanthu had taken from the local money lender, the mother who looks more older and wrinkled than her actual age of 60, informed that the money lender has been pressuring them for repayment.

But with a meagre monthly income of Rs 600 that she could earn from husking groundnuts at the rate of Rs 15 per can of 50 kg, it is beyond the means of the family to repay the loan.

'Neither could I expect any help from my four married daughters as they themselves are very poor', Nadimamidamme said dejectedly, as she showed her fingers harden from the daily gruelling job of husking groundnuts reaped in the field of some prosperous farmers.

Intriguing as to why the hard pressed farmers have to borrow money at such high interest from the local money lender inspite of banks extending loans of every kind for their benefit, Hanumanth Raidu, the programme co-ordinator of Anantha Paryavarana Parirakshana Samithi (APPS), a collective of 13 NGOs working to address the issues of poverty and hunger through interventions in regeneration of natural resources and livelihoods in Anantapur, pointed that it is the complicated official channel of releasing the loan that dissuades these ignorant and innocent farmers from approaching the bank for loan.

In the process, they also lost the opportunity of debt waiver scheme announced by the Govt as the banks could nothing for the farmers who are neck-deep in debt from the money borrowed from unscrupulous money lenders.

As the media team of four Indian journalists from different part of the country and two Norwegian reporters, who were sponsored by Oxfam India on a four-day long field trip to Anantapur district came out, Mukendra was seen still clutching on to his late father's framed photograph.

But this time, his eyes were animated and following the media team as they leave, perhaps, imploring to know how regular visitation of news hunters would help in improving the lot of the family already in the grip of mounting debt with no way out.

* Satyajit Usham can be reached at [email protected] .