From 2013 to 2014, farmer suicides in India have halved, but farmers’ groups and activists are not rejoicing. Severely criticizing the government, they say that the authorities have merely come up with disingenuous categories which are designed to move the deaths from the columns that record farmers’ suicides to ones that rule them out.
In its Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India report for 2014, the National Crime Records Bureau’s said 5,650 farmers killed themselves, which is less than half of what it was the previous year – 11,744. In 2012, the number was 13,754.
This drastic reduction in the figure, farmers’ groups and activists say, is not because fewer people are killing themselves. Convener of the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture Kavita Kuruganti told The News Minute that the government’s categorization was designed to obfuscate the figures, starting with its definition of who a farmer is.
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