Farm Minister's Parliament reply on suicides creates flutter in govt

Controversy erupts a day before PM Modi's visit to Bihar

A day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi was to speak on mega plans for cultivators, a written reply of Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh’ to the Rajya Sabha created a stir on social media for having listed love affairs and impotency among the causes for farmer suicides.

The reply was that according to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, farmer suicides were due to, among other reasons, family problems, illness, drug abuse/addiction, unemployment, property disputes and professional or career problems.

Clubbing NCRB’s listing of general causes of suicide, including love affairs, barrenness and impotency as reasons for farmer suicides caused indignation.

Opposition leaders dubbed the minister insensitive. The statement soon became one of the trending hashtags on social media for much of the day. The entire agriculture ministry and Press Information Bureau (PIB), the government’s official media arm, went into overdrive to limit the damage.

Sources said top officials from the department of agriculture and PIB was summoned by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. They were joined by minister of state for agriculture Sanjeev Balyan and MoS for information and broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore. Files were summoned to check the facts.

Radha Mohan Singh was in Bihar to oversee preparations for the PM’s rally there on Saturday. He said the answer was based on a report by NCRB, which the government cites in its replies, and the ministry had nothing do with the contents.

Some officials said the controversy seemed to have arisen because of a change in the manner of reporting and presentation of data related to farmer suicides in 2013 and 2014. In the 2013 data, these did not differentiate between actual farmers and farm labourers.

The 2014 data did, leading to an abnormal drop in the reported number of suicides, but omitted love affairs and impotency as reasons for these suicides. Sources said it was possible that in preparing the replies, officials did not note this change.

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi counselled the PM to ask his ministers to visit the houses of farmers to “see what is going on”.

Samajwadi Party’s Naresh Agrawal demanded an apology for the “irresponsible” remarks and CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury described as "ridiculous" the reasons given for suicides. The CPI’s D Raja said the reply showed callousness on the issue, with suicides taking place because of the “unprecedented debt crisis” faced by cultivators.

The Janata Dal’s K C Tyagi said, apart from being insensitive, it was an insult to farmers. He threatened a notice against the minister for “misleading” Parliament.

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, who addressed the daily media conference on Friday, had little defence to proffer. “Why don’t you call Radha Mohan Singhji and he will definitely clarify. He is very accessible. He must not have meant this,” he said.

In the evening, the ministry issued a clarification that the department considered the issue one of great sensitivity and deals with it in the seriousness it deserves.

While answering on such an important issue, particularly on the floor of the House, the department considered it was necessary to provide truthful information from different sources, to enable an informed discussion. The statement added it was not the minister’s intention to attribute suicides to issues like love affairs. It had been taken out of context, highlighted in an unwarranted manner.

In the answer, the minister citing NCRB data said the number of suicides by persons self-employed in the farming or agriculture category in 2012, 2013 and 2014 were 13,754, 11,772 and 5,650, respectively. The number committed by farmers attributed to agrarian distress during 2012, 2013 and 2014 as reported by state governments was 1,066, 890 and 1,400, respectively. The figure up to June 2015 was 263.