Farm Unions Call BRS Farmer Suicide Data a Bluff

 Hyderabad: With elections round the corner the issues of farmers have taken the centrestage in the state.With the state staring at drought and groundwater levels plummeting, the opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), which was recent;y trounced in the Assembly elections, is trying champion the cause of farmers by alleging a spike in farmer suicides due to the four-month-old Revanth Reddy government.

While the BRS claim 209 farmers have ended their lives by suicide, several farmer unions maintain that the opposition party has included the number of farmers who died by electric shock to the list of the farmers who had died by suicide to exaggerate the number and score political points over the incumbent government.

Commenting on the situation, Pakala Srihari Rao, the member of Telangana State Commission for Debt Relief (for small farmers, agriculture labourers and rural artisans) formed during the BRS, and currently the state president of Telangana Rythu Rakshana Samithi, says, “A farmer ends his life owing to piled up debts over the years. So the onus for deaths now is on the BRS government.”

“The debt relief tribunal, which was formed after I filed a public interest litigation in the High Court seeking its formation, was neglected by the BRS. After the communist parties and Prof. Kodandaram joined my PIL seeking a debt relief tribunal on the lines of the one set up by the Kerala government, the court heeded to the request and ordered its formation. The BRS government constituted a three member committee in place of the mandated five members as per the law.”

“The tribunal functioned without any judicial powers to arbitrate between a moneylender and a farmer, who approached us. Rules and regulations were not framed despite repeated reminders to the government. If the rules were framed, we could have settled debts of farmers by arbitrating between the farmer and lender. The tribunal could have provided the relief by extending the time to pay, reducing interest or the principal amount. The commission should have been allowed to declare a mandal, one or more districts drought-hit and distressed, which would have helped the farmers to get his bank loans rescheduled,” he said.

A writ petition filed by me (WP 34951/2023) is still pending in the High Court seeking the formation of such rules. The Congress, which promised the formation of a farmer’s commission in its manifesto, should honour it. “The debt relief tribunal itself is dysfunctional now with no members to function. It should be reconstituted with new members,” he added.

The Rythu Swarajya Vedika (RSV) which has been collating data on the suicides of farmers in both the Telugu states has alleged that farmers who died owing to electric shocks, thunderbolt among other accidents, were included in the list of 209 farmers who the BRS claimed have died by suicide.

“There have been 63 farmer suicides after the formation of the Congress government. As an organisation closely working on farmer suicides, it will be useful if correct data is released by the BRS. Such data will come in handy to meet such families and see that they receive ex-gratia as per GO 194 from the present government. During his regime, the BRS had systematically under-reported farmer suicides and announced only 179 deaths while we recorded 421 deaths in just 2023,” said B. Kondal Reddy, an activist from RSV.

A quick check of the BRS farmer suicide list by RSV revealed that Chelmeti Malla Reddy, Jaipal, N. Lakshmaiah, Pittala Sampath have died of electric shock, while another farmer Amarvadi Narasimha Reddy had breathed his last in a freak accident involving his tractor.

Sarampally Malla Reddy, vice-president, All India Kisan Sabha, said, “The KCR government amended Section 26 of the 1971 Passbook Act to remove the requirement of recording the status of the person who tilled the land. This left 75 per cent of the real cultivators out of the records. This should be brought back to enumerate tenant farmers who constitute 50 per cent of those who end their lives. The Congress government has not taken any measures to halt farmer suicides so far. Compensation should be paid for crop losses. The debt relief tribunal should be revived with full powers.”

He also observed that Chandrashekar Rao who never cared to visit a farmer’s family facing distress is now blaming a 100-day old government for the suicides of farmers.

Over 7,000 farmers ended their lives in nearly 10 years of the BRS rule, official data released by the then BRS govt shows.

In the first year of the BRS government, 1,347 farmers died by suicide.

In the four months of the Congress rule, BRS claims 209 farmers have died by suicide.

Claiming that suicide is the last resort for the farmer, farmer unions blame BRS policies for driving them to take such a decision.

Farmer suicide data as provided by the BRS government.

Year No of suicides

2014 1,347

2015 1,400

2016 645

2017 851

2018 908

2019 499

2020 471

2021 352

2022 408

2023 179

Total 7,060