Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Economic and Political Weekly is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Economic and Political Weekly.
http://www.jstor.org
he summerof 2004 was an unprecedentedone for rural there had been no attempt- either by the English language press
AndhraPradesh,even by the dubious standardsestab- or the local media - to collate and analyse the information at
lishedin thelasttwo decadeswhenthenumberof suicides a broader level to highlight the issues at stake.
by peasantshad risen alarmingly.In a short span of less than However, the most plausible reason for the spate of suicides
twomonths,betweenMayandJuly2004, morethan400 peasants appears to be related to the fact that farmers were at that time
in the statecommittedsuicide. Althoughpeasantsuicideshave engaged in the task of planning their next crop. May and June
repeatedlyoccurredin the state in the past, the significanceof are months when they prepare for sowing the kharif crop in late
this roundof deathslay in the fact thatthey were reportedfrom June and July, when the monsoon arrives in most parts of the
every single districtin the state, barringHyd-rabad. state. Those sympathetic to the plight of the farmers argued that
Blaming"drought",the favouriteexplanationof do-nothing small and marginal farmers across the state had reached the end
politicians,simplyfailedto explainthe tragicphenomenon.The of the road. Unable to clear their existing loans or to get fresh
fact that suicjdeswere reportedliterallyfrom every corer of loans for the next season, and seeing no hope on the horizon
the state (Table 1), in particular,from even the betterirrigated they took their lives, they say.
districts,exposedtheargumentthatthescarcityof water,depicted What explains the phenomenon of a sharp increase in thlf
in a vague and generallydeceptivesense, was responsiblefor incidence of suicide among the peasantry?The consensus among
farmerscommittingsuicide.Instead,thestunningsweepof death psychiatrists and social scientists who have explored the phe-
acrossthe statebroughtto the fore all thatis wrongin the lives nomenon is that a substantial "dislocation" of livelihoods drives
of the peasantry. a community to despair and eventually suicide. Although the
Deathhit farmersin varyingagro-climaticzones. Unlike the phenomenon of suicide is a deeply personal and individual act,
roundsof suicidesin 1987-88,1997-98and2000, whenpeasants suicidal behaviouris determinedby a confluence of factors. These
.growingparticularcrops such as tobacco, cotton, chillies and are basically in two domains. One, the internal domain, relates
groundnutdied,in 2004 deathstalkedeverywhere.No cropwas to factors which operate at the level of the individual. The other
exemptedand no sectionof the small peasantryappearedinsu- is external, which suggests that larger social processes determine
lated.Theoverwhelmingproportionof the deathtoll was among suicidal behaviour. It places emphasis on broader society-level
small and marginalfarmersand tenantcultivators,who had no changes, as being responsible for deaths by suicide. The reasoning
claim on the landthey cultivatedand who paidexorbitantrents is that individuals, unable to cope with the social chur in which
to landlords. they find themselves, resort to suicide. Of course, this is accen-
Whatexplainsthe unprecedentednumberof suicidesin such tuated when such a churn is also accompanied by widespread
a short duration?Several theories floated in Hyderabad.The economic distress.
theorypopularamong sections of bureaucrats,politiciansand The evolution of the modern understanding of suicides and
theintelligentsiawasthatthepeasantscommittedsuicidebecause suicidal behaviour has been to marry the externalised and the
of the assistancepackageannouncedon the eve of electionsby internalised views. Diego De Leo, psychiatrist and former presi-
the then chief ministerN ChandrababuNaidu, who hitherto dent of the International Association for Suicide Prevention
steadfastlyclung to the notionthata relief packagefor victims (IASP), explains that this understanding has come a long way
would spurmore farmersto their death. On June 2, 2004 the from the early 19th century view that equated suicidal behaviour
previouschief ministerremarkedthatthe "unusualspurt"in the with insanity. Two concomitant revolutions in the late 19th
numberof suicidesafterRajasekhara Reddyassumedoffice was century - one in the field of sociology, associated with Emile
becauseof the package. Durkheim (1951), and the other, the psychoanalytical movement
Anotherexplanationwas thatit was simplybecausethemedia, led by Sigmund Freud, have been synthesised in the modern view
particularlytheTelugulanguagepress,wasreportingsuchdeaths of suicide and suicidal behaviour.
in a much more systematicmannerthanbefore. Some Telugu The phenomenon of suicide is therefore widely regarded to
paperslisted the numberof suicides in their districteditions. be a result of individuals' inability to cope with sudden and
Media observerspointedout that the coverage by the Telugu cataclysmic changes in socio-economic conditions. It is not
mediawas muchbetterwhencomparedto earlierroundsof such without significance that the highest suicide rates are those
deaths. In fact, observersnoted that even the English dailies prevailing in the countries of the erstwhile Soviet Union, where
publishedfrom state reportedthe deathsin a more systematic calamitous changes in living conditions have occurred in the last
fashionthanin the past. However,mediacriticsalso notedthat decade and more.