In a recent debate on TimesNow, Gaurav Bhatia, Spokesperson, Samajwadi Party, said that “maximum farmer suicides happened during BJP’s regime in the past one and half years, especially in BJP ruled states”. Maharashtra has always seen the highest number of farm suicides every year, but it was ruled by the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) coalition for 15 consecutive years, until the BJP came to power in 2014.
The top five states for farmer suicides in 2014 included two other BJP ruled states, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, where BJP has been in power for 12 years in each state and one Congress ruled state- Karnataka with 321 suicides. These three BJP-ruled states accounted for 68% of all farmer suicides in 2014, so technically Bhatia’s allegation is right in context of BJP ruled states.
Source: NCRB
However, Bhatia’s broader accusation of overall farmer suicides under BJP’s rule being the highest is wrong. As many as 5,650 farmers committed suicide in 2014, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). NCRB’s new definition of classifying farm suicides into different categories—farmers and agricultural labourers raised many questions, which IndiaSpend has previously reported.
Even if labourers (6710 committed suicides) are included, the number comes out to be 12,360 which is the second lowest figure after 11,744 in 2013. There were more suicides during the UPA-1 term than NDA-1–the only five-year term under the prime ministership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, from 1998 to 2004.
As many as 84,214 farmers committed suicides from 1999 to 2003. While the tenure of NDA-1 started in October 1999, it ruled at the Centre earlier as well, from 10 March 1998 to 26 April 1999.
Source: NCRB
As many as 85,260 farmers committed suicide between 2004 and 2008-09, during the UPA’s first tenure.
Source: NCRB
Though the second term of the UPA saw fewer suicides, 72,857, but this can be attributed to the zero-reporting contagion—many states refused to acknowledge suicides—as IndiaSpend reported.
Source: NCRB
(Devanik Saha is a freelance journalist based in New Delhi.)
