Hope keeps afloat family of state’s first farmer suicide victim
16 years on, a struggling Ambarwar family hopes a change in leadership can turn around their fortunes
in 1998, he became the first distressed Vidarbha farmer to take his own life, triggering a spate of suicides over a decade-and-ahalf in the drought-prone region.
Sixteen years and four governments since Ramdas’s death, little has changed. Saraswati says things have only gotten worse.
With the state going to polls and each party making taller promises than the other, the Ambarwars are clear: all the four major parties have failed their family. That said, they have put their faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Ironically, Ramdas’ suicide took place when the Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party were ruling the state. Then chief minister Narayan Rane paid the Ambarwars a visit, but none of his promises ever materialised.
Today, 55-year-old Saraswati can’t afford to run a farm – she had to sell some of the land she owned and has been forced to work as a labourer.
According to the village’s former sarpanch Ravindra Bommenwar, Saraswati’s husband was a progressive farmer. He had taken a loan to buy a tractor. The monsoon failed him for three years and so his debt kept mounting. The government didn’t provide sufficient water for irrigation and the situation is the same today. Ramdas left behind a debt of Rs3 lakh.
The suicide has had a lasting impact on the family.
“My daughter, Meenakshi, was so mentally disturbed by her father’s death that she never recovered,” said Saraswati. “We even got her married after asking her husband beforehand whether he was ready to accept her. He agreed, fathered two kids with her and abandoned her.”
According to Saraswati, her situation worsened further during the last 15 years of the Congress-ncp rule.
“Back then, I would get a bag of fertiliser for Rs100. Now, it’s Rs1200, she says. “But, the cost that the cotton farmer here gets for one quintal remains the same: Rs3000.”
The family’s pitiable state means her younger daughter Manjusha, whose education in journalism was being supported by private donations, had to drop out of her masters course. The donations, she said, had dried up, forcing her to return home
Despite the many trou bles that the family has seen Saraswati says that she sees hope in Modi. “Even though he hasn’t done anything for us yet he seems like a nice man, who will work for us. At least, that’s what I hope for,” she said.
Hope, as she has realised keeps her going.