Driven by despair

Tales of misery from Maharasthra's cotton belt.

ARUN DEVRAO LABDE of Dhanaudi village in Wardha was found dead in his field on July 18, 2000; he had consumed pesticide. His wife Pushpa, five daughters and father were left to cope with the loss of the family's only income earner and the shock of having to repay a loan of Rs.2 lakhs. Pushpa said that the day before her husband died, he had a phone call from the bank. He told her that they were pressuring him to settle his debt. As she found out later, he owed about Rs.60,000 to the bank, and the rest to moneylenders. "I don't know what they said, but he must have been very scared to take such a drastic step."

Last year, the family had to sell six of the 18 acres it owned to repay loans. "We can't afford to sell any more land. Even if I want to, there is nobody to buy," says Pushpa. Saddled with a huge debt and five children to educate and marry, Pushpa cannot afford to hire too many labourers. She leaves for the fields at the crack of dawn and returns only after dark. This year's cotton crop is miserable. "We thought our orange trees would save us, but the yield is minimal. The soybean crop is also bad," she says.

Although she is waiting for the Maharashtra State Cooperative Cotton Growers Marketing Federation Limited (MSCC-GMFL) to begin buying cotton, Pushpa says she will have to give a large percentage of the cotton crop to money lenders. "They have been waiting for the harvest season to claim the amount due to them." She has harvested about 10 quintals of cotton until now, and approximately six quintals will go to the creditors. She knows she is trapped in a vicious cycle; she will have to borrow again to survive.

THE situation is not very different for Pushpa Sawai of Jagona village of Hinghanghat district. Her husband, Balkrishna Ajabrao Sawai, died on October 30, 2002, preferring to swallow pesticide rather than face another day of penury. He left his wife and three children a debt of Rs.50,000. "Five kilos of rice is all we have left," says Pushpa. She has been struggling to feed the family and has no clue how she will pay back the debt. Their cotton crop failed for two successive years and she has had to sell whatever remained of this year's crop to private traders to pay a part of the debt. There is absolutely no sign of where the rest of the money will come from.

A few days before Balkrishna's death "some people" , says Pushpa, came home and demanded their money. "He did not tell me who they were but he seemed very worried," she says. After his death Pushpa had to face several moneylenders her husband had borrowed from. "The bank refused him a loan last year, so he was dependent on these people," she says. Pushpa now works on the eight acres the family owns and has little time to worry about whether the government is going to increase the procurement price of cotton. In fact, she has contempt for the government. "Recently officials came all the way to our village to judge it for the clean-village competition, but they couldn't come to my house and meet my family."

BAPURAO NIKUDE was given 2.5 acres of land at Malegaon Theka in Wardha district under Vinoba Bhave's Bhoodan scheme for landless people. Bapurao and his eldest son Vijay grew cotton and toor and doubled their holding in 1995. For a few years they had good crop yields and prosperity. But from 1999 onwards the times changed. Poor cotton yields and delayed payments by the government for the cotton it procured, forced Vijay to turn to moneylenders to try and save his crop and feed his family. He purchased all sorts of fertilizers and pesticides, but nothing helped, said Vijay's brother Maruthi. He ran up huge credits with shopowners on account of this. To add to his woes, wild animals frequently destroyed his crop. Malegaon Theka, being on the edge of the forest, was vulnerable to such attacks.

In June 2001, Vijay sank into a depression. "He was under treatment in a hospital in Wardha for six months," says Maruthi. "Most of our earnings went to paying his medical bills." Vijay came home in December. After a few days, his wife found him dead in the fields. He had swallowed pesticide, says Maruthi. His debt to the bank was just Rs.10,000, which was later settled by selling his oxen and cart.

"I think when he came home he realised that he would be facing a third consecutive year of crop failure. The disappointment must have been too much," says Maruthi.

Vijay's wife, two children and parents have moved to Jamta village, where Maruthi works as a farm labourer. "I earn about Rs.60 a day and we manage on that. But I only get work for three or four days in a week," he says. A cousin, Motiram Nikude, looks after the property in Malegaon Theka. He has leased the land for Rs.2,500 a year to another farmer.

GANGADHAR SURKUR was the Sarpanch of Vadner village in Wardha district in 1998. On November 3, 2002, he committed suicide by drinking pesticide. He had a bank debt of Rs.60,000 and was ashamed of it, says his brother Laxman Vishwanath. "He kept talking about it, and kept saying that as a prominent person in the village, it was his responsibility to pay it back." Gangadhar was waiting for the government's final payment on last year's procurement in order to repay the bank. "But the notice from the bank reached him before the payment did, and I think Gangadhar could not take it," says Laxman.

The family owns 12 acres, on which they grow cotton and toor. The cotton yield this year has been hardly 15 quintals. "It won't cover even half our loan," he says. "We pay 16 per cent interest on the bank loans and we have taken another Rs.20,000 from a private trader. On that we pay Rs.1,000 per Rs.10,000 every month. My sister-in-law and I have decided to sell cotton to anyone who is willing to buy. Even if the government buys, there is no guarantee that it will raise the prices. Besides, we need money soon or our families will starve."

LAST year Bandu Katkar of Dahegoan village in Yavatmal district took a bank loan of Rs.65,000 to buy seeds, pesticide and fertilizer. His wife Rama said the seeds did not germinate because of insufficient rain. This year, Bandu borrowed Rs.40,000 more from a moneylender for their 25-acre farm. "The rains failed yet again and the already depressed Bandu sank further into depression," says Rama. "In late June, we found him in the fields, dead. He had consumed pesticide."

The family is reeling under the huge loans that Bandu took. The government has not yet paid the final instalment of the bonus for the 12 quintals of cotton it procured last year. That money is their only hope. Rama is the only one who works in their fields.

Rama has sold three quintals of the current harvest to a private trader at Rs.1,900 a quintal. "The money is not anywhere near the amount needed. I am forced to work as a daily-wage labourer in others' fields. From this I earn about Rs.30 a day," says Rama. Four bags of jowar is all they are left with. "We will sell whatever little crop we have at whatever price," she says. "I cannot let my family starve."

UNLIKE most farmers in Vidarbha, Keshav and Suman Jadav faced a problem of abundant water; their eight-acre farm is located near a nullah. "On October 8, my wife and I went to work in the fields as usual, only to find it flooded. The makeshift bund in the nullah had burst and our entire ready-to-be-harvested cotton crop was destroyed," says Keshav Jadav.

Those who own property near the nullah had been begging the district administration to construct a concrete bund.

"That night I woke up on hearing the cries of my wife and children. In a fit of depression, she had consumed pesticide. After swallowing it, she had woken up the children and told them that she was committing suicide because she could not bear to see them suffer. She told me just before dying that after she saw the crop this morning, she felt there was no hope left for the family," says Jadav.

Jadav owes Rs.40,000 to moneylenders. He has to repay Rs.7,000 to the bank and he has several small credits with shopkeepers to be cleared. He has three daughters and a son to educate. "I want them all to study," Jadav says. "That is the only way they can escape from farming and this miserable place." Whatever meagre earnings he had from last year's crop have been spent. The government does not owe him anything. With a destroyed crop on his hands, Jadav says he has no idea what to do.