Karnataka’s Sugarcane Development and Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMC) Minister, Shivanand Patil, stirred up quite a storm on a regular Tuesday. You see, he made this eyebrow-raising claim that farmer suicides in the state were skyrocketing “after the state government upped the compensation game” for the families left behind. Well, let’s just say that his words didn’t exactly fall on deaf ears.
Patil’s comments triggered some serious reactions from various farmer organizations within the state. Mallikarjun Ballari, the general secretary of the district unit of Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, and Hasiru Sene weren’t pulling any punches. They not only demanded the minister’s resignation but also threw a rather provocative challenge his way, asking, “We’ll shell out Rs 50 lakh as compensation to your family; would you be up for that suicide deal?” The call for Patil’s resignation wasn’t a solo act; it was like a chorus. Farmers across the board urged Karnataka’s Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah, to give Patil the boot from his cabinet, all because of what they deemed an “irresponsible statement.”
However, as the heat kept rising and the controversy reached a fever pitch, Shivanand Patil decided it was time for a swift U-turn. He wanted to make it abundantly clear that he never meant to imply that farmers were taking their own lives for the sake of a hefty compensation check. In his words, “I didn’t utter a word to hurt the feelings of our farmers.” He insisted, “I was just giving the media folks a little nudge, you know, for the greater good of the community. I suggested they be responsible and wait for the FSL (Forensic Science Laboratory) report before jumping to conclusions about farmer suicides.”
Now, let’s rewind a bit. Patil, who also happens to be the minister in charge of Haveri district, that farmer suicides had been on the rise since 2015, right around the time the Congress government decided to give the compensation amount a nice little bump, from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 5 lakh. And; he dished out some advice to the media, saying, “You folks in the media should know that farmers take their lives for all sorts of reasons. If you rely solely on the FIRs filed by the police, you’re bound to get it wrong. What you should do is wait for the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report to find out the real cause of death before you start reporting.”
He didn’t just stop at advice; he went on to share examples of recent cases. According to Patil, there were instances where farmers had met their end due to alcohol addiction, heart failure, or even heart attacks. But some not-so-honorable relatives had apparently reported these unfortunate incidents as suicides, all in the name of scoring some compensation cash. Patil even went as far as to suggest that it’s human nature to try and cash in on compensation by spinning false stories.
Patil made it clear that in those “genuine” cases where farmers had indeed taken their lives due to debt or crop failure, their families wouldn’t have any trouble getting that much-needed compensation.
Now, Patil didn’t take kindly to a series of reports on farmer suicides and wanted to set the record straight. According to him, farmer suicides weren’t some brand-new phenomenon in the state; they had been happening for the past two decades. To back up his claim, he rattled off some numbers тАУ in 2020, about 500 farmers had tragically ended their lives, followed by 595 in 2021, a staggering 651 in 2022, and as of this year, 412 more had already met the same fate.
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