The last eight years have however, seen a litany of broken promises and a zero score on the BJP government’s progress report would be an understatement. Farm incomes have dwindled as costs of cultivation have spiralled and output prices have plummeted or have not risen commensurately. Promises of subsidised inputs and credit at low interest rates have fallen flat as have claims of insurance from crop losses. As per the National Sample Survey 77th Round on “Situation Assessment of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India, 2019” published by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on September 10, 2021 the average income from cultivation per person in a day is merely Rs 27 or a monthly average of Rs 816.5 only (net incomes, implying receipts less expenses). On an average a family makes only Rs 3,798 from cultivation of different crops, Rs 1582 from animal husbandry, Rs 641 from business and Rs 4,063 from wages or salaries and Rs 134 by leasing out land. The income from agriculture is a little over a third of the income of an agrarian family. Clearly, cultivation leaves very little surplus, let alone any for long-term investment. Never before has marginalisation of farmers within the Indian economy taken such a proportion. Such decline in share of income from crop production is also unprecedented.

In comparison with the results of the earlier survey in 2013, farm incomes have in real terms shrunk. The BJP government claims that in six years since the last survey in 2013 the average farm family income has increased from Rs 6,442 to Rs 10,218 in 2019. As per a report a farmer in 2013 earned Rs 3,081 from cultivation of crops or equivalent to Rs 2,770 on the 2012 price which was the base year. Keeping 2012 as the base year, the monthly income of farmers from cultivation of crops in 2019 i.e., Rs 3,798 will be equivalent to Rs 2,645 i.e., a decline of about 5 per cent.  The truth is that these figures are based on a survey prior to the pandemic and lockdown. The harvesting and marketing crisis due to the arbitrary manner of implementation of the lockdown has led to income losses to all sections of the peasantry. Farmers and agricultural labour have been suffering huge losses in income from the time of demonetisation and that problem further aggravated under the pandemic. The increasing costs of cultivation and falling incomes has only pushed farmers into indebtedness. According to the latest survey 50 per cent of farm households are indebted with the average outstanding debt per agricultural household standing at Rs 74,121. Rural indebtedness and destitution has only increased in the period of the pandemic. Crores of workers have lost their jobs; food security is threatened with millions falling into extreme hunger and malnutrition.

Clearly, behind the facade of Sab Ka Saath Sab Ka Vikas (the claim that it is a government that stands with everyone and brings development for all) lay many inconvenient truths that the authoritarian regime is seeking to cover-up with its lies and strategic silence of convenience even as the corporate media go about their shrill campaign about Rising India. Farm suicides have been continuing unabated with the conservative figures of the NCRB itself indicating about one lakh suicides in the last eight years. The figures are quite stark. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) the farm suicides in two decades from 1995-2014 was around 2,96,438. In the years from 2014-2022 it could be well over one lakh having crossed 89,184 by 2021. This figure excludes thousands of suicides by tenant farmers/share-croppers, adivasis and dalits without pattas, women peasants, forest land cultivators and landless agricultural workers because state governments are unwilling to recognise them as farmers’ suicides. It also excludes the farm suicides in states like Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Punjab and West Bengal which have of late been either denying the existence of such a phenomenon in their states or under-reporting suicides by the peasantry despite facts to the contrary. Notably, a survey in six districts of Punjab reported 16,594 farm suicides from 2000 to 2018 that is an average of more than 900 every year. However, the NCRB figures for the whole state average only about 200 suicides a year. An RTI inquiry found 122 farm suicides in 2021 in Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal, a state which ironically reports zero farm suicides.

A new facet of the overall crisis of the economy is the increasing number of suicides by daily wage workers. In the years 2014-21 more than 2,35,799 daily wage workers have been forced to commit suicide. Taken in combination with farmers and agricultural workers, the suicides from 2014-21 touch nearly 3,25,000.  This is also a reflection of the acute agrarian crisis and overall economic crisis. The Periodic Labour Force Survey Data released for the year 2019-20 by National Sample Survey Office is quite revealing. The relative share of the farm dependent population in India (agricultural labour and cultivators) increased from 42.5 per cent in 2017-18 to 45.6 per cent in 2019-20. This trend is bound to have further accelerated during the pandemic. The note-ban/demonetisation began a process of reverse migration from urban areas to the villages which is reflected in this increase. This trend showing a reversal of the decline in farm dependent population for the last many years is indicative of the overall crisis in the economy, shrinking opportunities in non-farm employment, retrenchment from companies and closure of many companies, particularly in the MSME sector. However, even after the pandemic no avenues for gainful employment to absorb farm-dependent population is available; workers employed in non-farm sectors have been shunted out both from urban centres as well as in the rural areas. This scenario also indicates that a wider section of the rural population have been hit by neoliberal economic policies affected by falling incomes, unemployment, hunger and malnutrition. The systematic dismantling of the MGNREGA by cutting allocations and not enhancing days of work even during the pandemic has led to pushing agricultural labourers into a precarious position.

Rural footloose migrants who reach urban centres looking for jobs for a living in the unorganised sector are being pushed into a precarious, insecure situation and to commit suicide. The denial of workers’ rights, unpaid or underpaid work, back-breaking price rise have all resulted in the increase in suicides by daily-wage workers. The historic united struggle of the peasantry that emerged victorious has lessons for the working class and the peasantry. In a fluid situation where today’s peasant is tomorrow a footloose migrant worker looking for any kind of work to feed his/her family whom the State has abandoned and who is increasingly exploited in the race for maximising corporate profits, the lesson before us is to build rock-solid unity of workers and peasants and launch incessant struggles against corporate companies as well as the BJP government. It is time to rise up, expose the lies peddled by the ruling classes and shatter their silence of convenience. Let us loudly proclaim – “No to Suicides; Unite and Fight” through united struggles we shall script an alternative- where workers’ and peasants’ rights will be guaranteed.