If you veer towards the macabre, here’s a chilling story: Towards the end of August this year, Manisha, a mother of five, living in a village in Marathawada, Maharashtra, asked her children to play outside, latched the door of her hut, poured kerosene over herself and sought to end her life in flaming agony. She succeeded, for she died a while later in hospital. Her husband Laxman is what experts call a “landless labourer”, unable to find any work. Manisha could no longer bear to see her children starving. Technically, hers was not a “farmer suicide” because neither Manisha nor her husband were farmers. They were farm labour.
Unmitigated Disaster
Since the alleged murder of Sheena Bora is the flavour of the season, the haunting story of Manisha was quickly buried in the hidden closet of our collective conscience. But for those who understand agriculture, Marathwada seems especially cursed. This year, there has been as much as a 50 percent shortfall in monsoon rains in vast stretches. For farmers and farm labour who are already struggling with an agricultural crisis, this is an unmitigated disaster.
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