Widows of farmers who committed suicide cry their hearts out

Floodgates of suppressed emotions opened at the Kisan Sansad here as woman after woman from different states narrated how lack of remunerative prices for farm commodities had led her husband to commit suicide and reduced her to penury.

With larger families not recognising the rights of the women over the joint land-holding, farmers’ widows, especially the young ones, have mostly been left to fend for themselves, pay the debt left behind by their deceased husband and bring up their children on meagre daily wages.

No woman was narrating her story — each was crying out her pent up agony. Several women held photographs of their dead husbands. “Nobody is listening to us. We are dying,’’ the distressed women said.

Of the nearly 6000 to 7000 farmers who gathered from parts of the country at Parliament Street here under the aegis of All-India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) about 3000 were women farmers and widows of farmers who committed suicide in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab.

So heart-rending was the story of Kantabai Pandurang Bhuse from Latur district whose “very beautiful” teenaged daughter committed suicide so that her debt-ridden father did not have to worry over her dowry, that it brought tears to many an eye.

“By taking my own life, I am relieving my parents of their agony. Being small farmers in debt, they will not be able to arrange my dowry from the daily wages that my father earns,’’ the girl, a student, wrote in her suicide note.