Harvest Of Discontent

A farmer suicide puts focus on Maharashtra’s callous state machinery, and on shady land deals involving a long-pending power project

- Dnyanesh Jathar

Death can do strange things. In Dharma Patil’s case, it made him famous.

On January 22, the 84-year-old farmer of Vikhran village in Maharashtra’s Dhule district, consumed poison outside the secretariat in Mumbai. Six days later, he died at Sir J.J. Hospital. Dharma’s sons, Narendra and Mahendra Patil, said their father took the extreme step after several failed attempts to get fair compensation for the acquisition of his farmland.

“Ministers Jaykumar Rawal and Girish Mahajan visited us at J.J. Hospital,” said Narendra. “Opposition leaders Ajit Pawar and Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, too, came. I just wish they had looked into our complaint before January 22.”

When I visited Vikhran, friends and relatives had gathered at the Patil home. They were mostly women, who talked in hushed tones inside the house. Plastic chairs were stacked outside, so that men could sit and talk to Narendra and Mahendra. Narendra runs a medical shop in Surat, Gujarat, while his brother teaches at a government school in nearby Amalner.

“It was in 2009 that the process of acquiring land for a thermal power station began,” said Narendra. “We received the first notice in 2010. It said the farmers would get adequate compensation. District collector Prajakta Lavangare also held a meeting in the village, and we were told that we would get priority in recruitments for the plant.”