Women who are victims of farm suicides during a meeting in Mansa. (Express photo/Gurmeet Singh)
It is not a sisterhood that any woman would like to be part of. If anything, it is a stark reminder of a past that most of the members would give an arm and leg to forget. It is also a constant reminder of the tense present in which they live and the uncertain future staring at them.
Yet, Kisan Mazdoor Khudkushi Peerat Parivar Committee has come up as a hope and a reason to live for the widows of the farmers and farm labourers who killed themselves over reasons ranging from mounting debt to bad crop.
Ask Shinder Kaur, and she will agree. The 30 year old from village Upali in Punjab’s Barnala district had got married in 2010. A year later she became mother to a daughter and the year after that her farmer husband committed suicide. He was under debt. With an uncertain future staring at her, Shinder, a class X dropout, returned to her parental house.
“I could not study after class 10 as my father could not afford to send me for further eduction. However, I had learnt sewing and stitching, which is helping me now. With the money I make sewing clothes and weaving cots, I am sending my daughter to a nearby English medium school. I want to provide her the best education. I want her to be capable of taking up a good job. I am not focussing on her marriage. What did marriage give me? I became a widow at the age of 22,” says Shinder, wiping tears.
While she never got any help from the government, Shinder came to know about the Kisan Mazdoor Khudkushi Peerat Parivar Committee, which was formed by one Kiranjit Kaur in September 2017. Kiranjit’s father had committed suicide in 2016.
“The committee organizes monthly meetings and I have attended every meeting in the past two years. I have met so many women like me. When they tell their stories in the meeting, I can’t help stop thinking what Guru Nanak said. Nanak dukhiya sab sansaar (no one in the world is entirely happy),” says Shinder, who refused remarriage because she wanted to give a better life to her daughter.
The only help that she has got is from her father, who is a a private bus conductor.
Kiranjit, the founder of the committee, is 25 years old and pursuing post graduation in political science. “My father committed suicide in 2016 over mounting debt. It was Rs 8 lakh at the time, which has has now piled up to Rs 12.5 lakh. We are a marginal farming family with around 3 acres land in village Jhunir in Mansa. After my father’s suicide, I discontinued my studies and sat at home for an year before I realized that zindagi ro ke vi nikal jani hai…koi na ladai ladi jawe (I can keep crying all life or I can put up a fight),” Kiranjit says while talking about how she hit upon the idea to create a group for women and families of the farm suicide victims.
“I started meeting families where somebody had committed suicide over farm loans. By September 2017, I had already met 550 such families in Mansa district alone. We gathered in Mansa town and held our first seminar after forming the committee. In the seminar, women shared the problems they faced after their family members committed suicide. Soon, more such women and families joined us. Today nearly 2,700 such women from Bathinda, Mansa, Barnala, Faridkot, Moga, Patiala and Sangrur are part of this committee. Now, women have also formed district level committees and hold monthly meetings”.
Kiranjit, who resumed her studies and is final year student of MA in political science says in the meetings, women are informed on how to apply for compensation from Punjab Government.
“The government offers Rs 3 lakh in compensation to farm suicide victims. There are women who were turned out by their in-laws after husband’s death. For them it is a bigger challenge as mpost of them have kids that they have to bring up. For them, the seminar focuses on ‘the missing dialogue’ where they share their feelings. Now, many have started earning independently”.
Veerpal Kaur, who has been witness to two suicides over farm loans in her family, says the focus of the committee meetings is not on how to get the Rs 3-lakh compensation from the government. “That money won’t last lifelong. “Instead, we focus on how to keep moving and give a meaning to our lives,” says Veerpal who contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Bathinda with an aim to make her as well as other farm widows’ voice heard in the Parliament.
Though she lost — Veerpal secured 2078 votes of the total 12 lakh polled — to Shiromani Akali Dal’s Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the Anganwadi worker was happy that the issue of farmer suicides was finally highlighted in an election campaign.
Veerpal’s father had committed suicide over farm loans in 1995. She got married in 1997 to man whose father had killed himself over the same reason in 1990. “My husband inherited the debt that his father owed. In 2003, my husband too consumed poison. I had two minor children. My in-laws didn’t want me so I returned to my paternal house,” recalls Veerpal who makes Rs 2,800 as Anganwadi worker and has also set up a venture selling and delivering cosmetics in villages.
“I was an introvert, but the election campaign changed me. It gave me the courage to speak in public, meet people and discuss this issue. In January, I went to Delhi to attend a seminar where I spoke from the dais on farmer suicides,” she adds.
Veerpal says the committee meets every month, normally after 20th. “The idea is to make the women come out of their houses, shun their fear, and move ahead in their lives rather than feeling depressed and sad all the time,” she adds.
In Punjab, the compensation is awarded only after a district-level committee headed by senior officials investigates the reported farmer or farm labourers’ suicide based on a set of government rules. Once the suicide is confirmed, the victim’s family has to file for compensation within three months. In many cases, families fail to submit the claim within the stipulated deadline and hence their case is rejected.
As per a study conducted by three universities — Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjabi University, Patiala; and Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar — Punjab saw 16,606 farm suicide cases from 2000-2015. Out of these, 87 per suicides were due to debt while 76 per cent victims were small farmers with landholdings less than 3 acres.
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