Stunned, Speechless or disoriented? I have no clue what to feel about a suicide I saw unfolding on the computer screen in front of me 3 oceans away from where it happened. Gajendra Singh, a farmer from Rajasthan, hanged himself from a tree during an Aam Aadmi Party rally at Jantar Mantar in the heart of New Delhi.
No, I was not in denial like, I knew that more than 600 farmers have killed themselves in Vidarbha, a part of BJP ruled Maharashtra alone. Being in denial was a prerogative of top bureaucrats and their political masters after all, of Alok Ranjan, Chief Secretary of Uttar Pradesh, a state ruled by opposition Samajvadi Party. Mr. Ranjan while admitting that farmers were in fact committing suicide in Uttar Pradesh claimed that there was no conclusive proof “yet, that any of the suicides that have been reported have anything to do with unseasonal, heavy rains.” That was despite at least 73 recorded suicides from Bundelkhand region alone.
Farmers are committing suicide all around the country. India where 70 % of its population are small time farmers who are desperately trying to keep their to heads up the flooding waters of debt and crop loss are dying like flies around a lighted lamp. Now, India’s farmer’s suicide epidemic has come to the nation’s capital. Now nobody can deny it. Now nobody can ignore it. This is a nation’s death.