http://www.centralchronicle.com/20081217/1712101.htm
Bhopal, Dec 16: Though Maharashtra has once against toped the list of suicides by farmers in the country with the state recording 4,238 such cases last year, the situation in Madhya Pradesh on this front is also turning out to be grim with the state recording 1,232 cases of suicides by farmers last year, as per the latest report of the National Crimes Record Bureau.
In terms of suicides by farmers in the country, Madhya Pradesh ranks fifth. The states which are ahead of Madhya Pradesh in this regard include Maharashtra (4,238), Karnataka (2,135), Andhra Pradesh (1,797) and Chhattisgarh with 1,593 cases of suicides by farmers. However, if the figures of Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh are clubbed together, the total number of suicide cases by farmers in both these states will only be next to Maharashtra.
A study by the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS), as quoted in The Hindu last year, also puts the number of farmer suicides in the two states at well over 2,000 a year from 1997 onwards when the Institute began documenting suicide figures. According to its data, 2,390 farmers committed suicide in the two states in 1997; 2,278 in 1998; 2,654 in 1999; 2,660 in 2000; 2,824 in 2001; 2,578 in 2002; 2,511 in 2003; 3,033 in 2004; and 2,660 in 2005 respectively.
On the other hand, the state has ranked third in terms of statistics of family members committing suicides jointly under a common suicide pact. As per the National Crimes Records Bureau report, out of 264 deaths (which included 118 males and 146 females) reported under this category last year, Madhya Pradesh ranked third with a total of 12 persons committing suicides under a common pact. In this category, Kerala attained top position with 39 such cases followed by Andhra Pradesh (34).
Among 35 Indian cities, Bhopal has turned out to be family suicide capital of the country from where the highest number family suicides (8) were reported. It was followed by Surat (6) and Rajkot with 5 family suicide cases respectively. The suicide rate in cities (13.3) was higher as compared to All-India suicide rate (10.8). As per the NCRB report, while Bangalore and Chennai recorded the highest suicide rates of 42.7 and 36 respectively, the same was found to be the lowest in Indore (the commercial capital of Madhya Pradesh) and Kolkata with the suicide rates of 2.0 and 1.5 respectively.
As far as reasons of suicides in Indian cities are concerned, Allahabad has taken the lead with almost 50% of the people committing suicide due to family reasons. It was followed by Indore and Amritsar with 43.8% and 42.3% of the people committing suicides for the same reasons. `Dowry dispute’ took lives of 37.5% of suicide victims in Indore. Of total suicides in Indore, 56.3% suicides were committed by house wives, while 68.8% of the victims committed suicides by consuming insecticides.
In Bhopal, `death of a dear person’ drove 8.3% victims towards suicide, while 11.4% suicide victims were engaged in farming/agriculture activity.
Krishna K Jha
Indian Agrarian Crisis now moved to www.agrariancrisis.in 