Farmer suicides, agrarian crisis largely ignored in election season

Leaders of almost all political parties, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are blithely ignoring this stark reality in their campaign speeches.

Karnataka, which had witnessed a major farmers’ movement in the 1980s that eventually fizzled out, is also reeling under this drought. The government has declared 223 out of 236 taluks as drought-hit.

Farmer suicides

Severely hit by the drought and heavy loan burdens, many farmers have also taken their lives in despair. There were 456 farmer suicides between April and November 2023 in the state. A third of all farmer suicides was reported from three districts – Haveri, Belagavi and Chikkamagaluru.

Haveri, from where former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai is contesting the Lok Sabha polls, has recorded the highest number of farmer suicides at 62, followed by Belagavi (56) and Chikkamagaluru (49).

The kin of farmers who die by suicide due to mounting debt get ₹5 lakh per head in compensation, and the deceased’s spouse gets a monthly pension of ₹2,000. Of the 456 suicides reported so far, authorities have disbursed compensation in 354 cases.

But the thumbrule while deciding to pay compensation is that the farmer must have taken a bank loan and the death must be due to suicide.

Quicksand situation

It is a quicksand kind of situation for Karnataka farmers, as the government continues to be taking a long time for granting loan waivers. According to figures made available in January 2024, as many as 30,733 farmers who were eligible for loan waiver through the 2017-2018 scheme are still running from pillar to post to get their waiver amount sanctioned.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is under pressure from farmers’ groups to waive crop loans. However, fiscal pressure due to his government's 'guarantee' schemes, introduced as a poll promise last year, renders the loan waiver difficult.

"Elections are coming and going, but the woes of Karnataka farmers remain unresolved. There is a possibility of the agrarian crisis having an impact on the fate of candidates in agriculture belts of both northern and southern part of Karnataka,” said Kurubur Shanthakumar, president of Karnataka Sugarcane Growers Association (KSGA).

However, Rajashekara Gowda of Alakere village in Mandya district has a different view. Though there is discontent among farmers, political parties in Karnataka will not be threatened by agrarian distress, he said.

He felt that farmers are worrying about the green policies of the BJP government at the Centre, which according to him, will curb their yields and their incomes.

Agriculture-related concerns

Some farmers in Karnataka, however, felt that in more than 10 districts in the state, agriculture-related concerns have emerged as pivotal factors that will shape the rural voting trend.

Other troubling issues for the farm sector, especially over the cultivation of commercial crops such as coconut, areca and grapes, are also poised to significantly influence poll outcomes, felt the farmers.

According to environmentalist and farmers' rights activist Chukki Nanjundaswamy of Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS), farmers in the state are unhappy that despite the state’s substantial contribution to the national output, heavy imports have precipitated financial losses aggravating their already precarious situation.

Local cultivators feel unrewarded for their toil and worse, burdened by debt.

Commercial crops

This appears to be more true in the case of commercial crops. Recent protests including a tractor rally in Mangaluru sought to draw the government’s attention to the precarious situation farmers are facing.

In Malnad and the semi-Malnad region, small-scale areca growers are in serious trouble because of the Centre's decision to import green areca nuts from Bhutan. They are pressurising the Union government to increase the import duties on areca to protect local growers, said HS Mahesh of Malnad Arecanut Market Cooperative Society.

Further, he pointed out that the ‘unconditional’ import of areca nuts will bring down prices in the local market. KRRS had called for a protest in Shivamogga recently against the liberal import policy of the Centre.

Plummeting prices

In south interior Karnataka, coconut growers are suffering because of plummeting prices. This price drop has been attributed to increased imports of coconut products and palm oil.

In Vijayapura district, the Karnataka Grape Growers Association is worried about the grape market situation. Grape growers are forced to transport their produce to Maharashtra because North Karnataka, which accounts for 90 per cent of the state’s grape production, lacks adequate cold storage facilities. A wine park established a few years ago failed to develop into a functional asset.

In a political blame game, AS Patil Nadahalli, president the BJP Raitha Morcha, held the Congress government responsible for issues being faced by the farmers in Karnataka.

Not part of political discourse

However, in this election season, which has coincided with unprecedented heat and water stress due to monsoon failure, farmers across the board are angry that their problems are conspicuously missing in the political discourse.

“It is a fact that on the ground the farmers are struggling to save whatever they can of the drying crops, with no rain and no water in irrigation canals,” said K T Gangadhar of KRRS.

Shanthakumar said: “Politicians cutting across party lines are engrossed in the election campaign, and completely ignoring the plight of farmers.”

According to Shanthakumar, issues such as abrogation of the amendment to the APMC Act, enacting a law to make Minimum Support Price (MSP) for agriculture produce mandatory, loan waiver in a year of unprecedented drought and higher compensation for crop losses suffered are some of the demands by farmers.

This is not being addressed by political parties at all, he complained.

Disunity among farmers' unions

Leaders of farmers' unions, including farmer rights activists Chukki Nanjundaswamy, Kurubur Shanthakumar, Badagalapura Nagendra and others maintained that the ‘disunity’ among unions had reduced the farmers to this plight.

“My father Prof Nanjundaswamy had a clear vision about solutions for the agrarian crisis in India. Never did he compromise with politicians,” said Chukki Nanjundaswamy.

“Farmers are now directionless in the absence of able leadership and they associate themselves with political parties basically on caste lines,” pointed out Shanthakumar.

Farmers manifesto

Chukki Nanjundaswamy told The Federal that a committee comprising agricultural experts, farmers organisations and academicians drafted a farmers manifesto and the same will be released shortly. “The manifesto seeks response from all the political parties in Karnataka for all its queries,” he added.

Nanjundaswamy said that though farmers' issues may sway rural voting in 10 districts of Karnataka, the leaders of farmers groups are not so confident about it.

“Even today farmers of Karnataka miserably failed in understanding the seriousness of farmers’ protest against the three laws at Delhi borders. Farmers as a class identity is slowly emerging unlike the situation in North and South America. Here the major setback for farmers to possess their own class identity is undoubtedly caste. It will take time, a decade or two, for the farmers in India, especially in Karnataka, to acquire a joint class identity,” said Kesari Haravoo, environmentalist activist and filmmaker.

Haravoo made Kisan Satyagraha: Tremors of Change, a film on the historic farmers’ agitation in Delhi. The Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting stopped the screening of the film at the recent Bengaluru International Film Festival.

'Conscience vote'

In this election, the Congress has been appealing to the 'conscience' of farmers. Siddaramaiah, at his rallies, asked farmers ‘whether their conscience will allow them to vote for the BJP’.

The saffron party has meted out “injustice” in irrigation projects, drought relief and in not increasing man days under MGNREGA, he said.

Further, he said at a rally: "The BJP in its manifesto in 2018 had promised to waive loans of farmers in nationalised banks up to ₹1 lakh. After coming to power, former CM Yediyurappa had asked for a note printing machine to fund the waiver. When farmers sought fertilizers he had ordered police firing, in which farmers died." “Will your conscience allow you to vote for BJP?" he asked.

Siddaramaiah also brought up the issue of the state being denied drought relief by the Centre. "Why are BJP MPs not asking for drought relief from the Centre? I have written several letters to the Centre to release ₹18,177-crore as drought relief. I have met Union home minister Amit Shah, but not a paisa has been released,” said the Karnataka CM at an election rally in Shivamogga.

Farmers' angst as a political factor has is yet to go beyond this.