Blood Harvest
A novel powered by the politics and tragedy of farmers’ suicides
This disturbing book exposes the horrific nexus between the netas in their Lutyens’ bungalows and the village suicide committees comprising the sarpanch, the doctor at the primary health centre, the local bank manager, the police chief and yes, the district money lender— automatically included as the richest man around— who adjudicate in the grisly matter of farmer suicides. It is up to these worthies to decide whether or not the families of debt- loaded farmers who commit suicide are eligible to receive the paltry government compensation of Rs 1 lakh, eligibility depending on their validation that the suicide is indeed debt- related and not the result of other causes.
It is well known that farmers often take the extreme step of ending their lives precisely so that their families may receive this compensation. This book makes clear that the dice is loaded against the farmers’ families. The suicide committees view debt- distress suicides as “an act of deception against the state”, and more often than not the suicides are attributed to other causes picked out at random—“land fragmentation, technological stagnation, lack of follow up on welfare schemes”— any excuse to deny compensation.
The chief beneficiaries of this chicanery are the netas, who find debt- related farmer suicides an embarrassment and, of course, the local money lender who is the driving force on the committee by virtue of the hold he has over most of the other members on it. For him, the equation is simple: “On the rare occasions he voted in favour… it was with the understanding that debts would be cleared by the widow with the compensation….” But mostly he voted against “so that the farmer’s family was denied compensation and eventually lost the land, house or jewellery pledged with him”.
The central characters in this macabre game of Catch22 are union minister Keyur Kashinath who has “inherited” his political legacy from his father; Nazar, the journalist who is bent on nailing his lies; Videhi, wife of a rich industrialist and assistant director of the Centre for Contemporary Societies who comes up with a bizarre solution to combat farmer suicides: Withdraw subsidies to “dissuade people from agriculture” altogether; and the villagers led in their struggle for compensation by Gangagiri, brother of a dead farmer, who abandons a school- teaching job in the city to fight for justice. Kota Neelima has written a timely story that tells the truth behind the headlines that dismay us daily.