R.S. Deshpande and Saroj Arora’s methodically analysed the causes of Farmers suicides areas:
1. Events,
2. Stressors,
3. Actors,
4. Triggers
1. Events: Among the ‘events’, crop loss, failure of a bore well, price crash, daughter’s marriage, family problems, and property disputes are included.
2. Stressors: These become ‘stressors’ (stress creators) when two or more such ‘events’ cluster together: Specifically, illness of the individual or any of the family members, heavy borrowings, continued disputes in the family or land-related problems usually act as ‘stressors’.
These become lethal in combination with the ‘events’ but further ignition comes through the ‘actors/catalysts’ and ‘trigger’ incidence.
3. Actors: Actors/catalysts create a sense of ‘insecurity’ or ‘insult’ to the potential victim. These include the moneylender, banker, spouse, relatives and close friends.
4. Triggers: On the background of the ‘events’ and ‘stressors’, the ‘actors/catalysts’ fire the final act by forcing an occasion to be the ‘Trigger’ for the unfortunate incident. Given this complex nature of the phenomena, it certainly becomes difficult to pinpoint one particular reason for the suicide.
Emile Durkheim’s monograph on Suicide indicates growing alienation of individual from the family, society and religion as a factor responsible for suicide. According to Durkheim suicides indicate social disintegration. Among the reasons cited in various studies associated with suicides, indebtedness is one of the reasons but it is not the only risk factor.
Multiple risk factors feed into each other and reinforce each other. In addition to the weather-related uncertainties, the farmer is also faced with market (increasing costs and output price shocks), technology, spurious inputs, and credit-related vulnerabilities. In the absence of risk mitigation strategies, the farmer is at the receiving end. Under stress, some farmers end up committing suicide.
Studies indicate that suicides are occurring in the high and medium growth states and are conspicuously absent in the backward states like BIMARU (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh). Scholars have articulated ‘High Aspirations’ or the thrust for upward mobility in the absence of public policy support, as a major, causation for suicides in the backward areas of medium growth states.
