A Comparative Analysis of Farmers' Suicides in Andhra Pradesh, India

Abstract

The agrarian distress in the Indian countryside has become a subject of major policy concern in view of the recent spate of suicides by farmers in a number of states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. Most literature surrounding the analysis of farmers' suicides has been restricted to the immediate causes. However, to dismiss the agrarian crisis as being a result of purely economic factors would oversimplify the complex scenario. ”Suicide is an individual phenomenon the causes of which are essentially social in nature” Durkheim (1952:13). There are many factors at the micro level such as the class and caste system, and gender relations in a rural set-up. The aim of this paper is thus twofold. First, it reviews the literature on farmers' suicides in Andhra Pradesh. I offer a socialized and a more holistic approach to involve the farmer as the 'self' to explore the socio-cultural factors. This is illustrated using a transdisciplinaryMandala analysis tool. And second, the paper brings in a critical realist approach to understanding farmers' suicides by considering how “comparative case-oriented analysis” would view the suicide cases. A switch from economics for the men's suicides to psychology for the women's suicides is observed in the empirical data collected in one in-depth qualitative research project about the suicides. It should be noted that this empirical data was sourced from the National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD), Hyderabad, India, and no direct field study was conducted. The aim therefore is to use an interdisciplinary analytical framework which would encompass the macro and micro factors in understanding social phenomena and enable in doing a more nuanced analysis of the NIRD data from a livelihoods and gendered perspective. Using a mixed-methods approach I categorize the cases into a typology on the basis of gender, caste, cause of suicide, age and the mode used for committing suicide. This provides a greater understanding of the causes behind the suicides. A critical realist exploration of men's and women's suicides, and the „reasons‟ for them as well as their real causes thus helps in bringing out the direct (economic, political and ecological) as well as the proximate (socio-cultural) causes behind the farmers' suicides.