News India Times
May 1, 2015
14
Special Report
– that’s all you need to know
By Annie Gowen
and Rama Lakshmi
armer Gajendra Singh
Rajput had clashed
with his father in recent
days after some of the
family’s crops – mus-
tard seed, sunflower
and wheat – failed in unseason-
able rain. Rajput claimed his
father ejected him from the fam-
ily farm.
Rajput, a father of three from
Rajasthan state, then came to a
farmers’ rally in India’s capital on
April 22, climbed a tree and
hanged himself –in full view of
thousands of horrified onlook-
ers, as well as a large contingent
of Delhi police, who witnesses
said seemed to be frozen in
place. Joginder Deshwar, 30, said
that when he saw Rajput tying a
noose, he began frantically scal-
ing the neem tree and was the
first to reach him.
“I kept looking down and
telling police, ‘Help me, help me,
please help me,’ “ Deshwar said.
“I caught a hold of his body and
brought him down, but by the
time we reached the ground, he
was already choking.”
Rajan Bhagat, a spokesman
for the Delhi police, declined to
comment early April 23 about
accusations that police had done
nothing to stop the suicide.
The public tragedy, which
unfolded on television, focused
nationwide attention on the
plight of India’s farmers, who
have suffered mightily from
recent unseasonable rain and
hailstorms, which damaged
more than 24 million acres of
crops over 14 states. The govern-
ment has increased compensa-
tion for affected farmers in
recent weeks, but advocates say
that both national and state-
level help has been slow in com-
ing and that more is needed. “It’s
sheer desperation. There is no
relief and untold damage,” said
Sachin Pilot, a senior leader of
the opposition Congress party
from Rajasthan. “It reflects the
lack of hope in Indian agricul-
ture right now.”
Farmers suicides in India are
common, according to a
December government report,
with deaths attributed to crop
losses because of bad weather
and low prices, as well as to
unpaid debts.
Pilot said Rajput was the 42nd
farmer from his home state to
commit suicide in the past two
months. “For some months,
everybody has been talking
about farmers’ issues, but there’s
no attention to the real damage
on the ground,” said
Dharmendra Malik, a
spokesman for the Bharatiya
Kisan Union, a national farmers
union that held a rally in Delhi
last month. The farmers are so
heavily invested in their land, he
said, that “when a farmer faces
crop damage, he has nowhere to
turn.”
Climate experts say India is
increasingly at risk for such
extreme weather events because
of climate change, including last
year’s erratic monsoon. This
year, there is more bad news for
farmers: The monsoon season is
expected to be dry.
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi tweeted his condolences to
Rajput’s family, saying the coun-
try was “deeply shattered and
disappointed.”
“At no point must the hard-
working farmer think he is
alone,” Modi said.
Nagender Sharma, a
spokesman for the party in
charge of the Delhi government,
said that more than 10,000
attendedWednesday’s rally to
protest a controversial land bill
that would diminish some farm-
ers’ rights.
The rally had been going on
for more than an hour when
Rajput began climbing the tree,
witnesses said.
Once aloft, Rajput appeared
to be shouting slogans and tak-
ing part in the protest, but his
suicidal intent soon became
clear from the white cotton towel
he fashioned into a noose.
Sharma said that volunteers
rushed to take him down but
that he was barely conscious by
the time they managed to do so.
Sharma’s Aam Aadmi Party, or
Common Man Party, had organ-
ized the rally, held just yards
from Parliament. The party and
its leader, Delhi Chief Minister
Arvind Kejriwal, were later criti-
cized for carrying on with their
speeches even after Rajput’s
hanging. Rajput was pro-
nounced dead at Dr. Ram
Manohar Lohia Hospital in
Delhi, authorities said. He had
left a crumpled suicide note in
which he wondered how he
could get home and closed with
a popular national slogan from
the 1960s and 1970s, “Hail sol-
dier! Hail farmer!”
– TheWashington Post
Farmer Kills Himself Steps From India’s Parliament
– JAIPUR
F
armer Gajendra Singh, who
committed suicide during
an AAP rally in Delhi, was
cremated on April 23 in his
native village in Rajasthan. His
family members hit out at the
party over his death, saying no
leader tried to dissuade him.
“Why did no one try to stop
him from climbing the tree?Why
did no leader of the Aam Aadmi
Party try to dissuade him? There
are lots of questions that remain
to be answered.We hold police
and the AAP leadership respon-
sible for the death. If any of them
had acted swiftly, he could have
been saved,” Gajendra Singh’s
uncle Gopal Singh told IANS.
Earlier in the day, Gajendra
Singh was cremated in his native
village Nangal Jhamarwara in
Dausa district. Teary-eyed peo-
ple shouted slogans as his last
rites were performed.
Gopal Singh even raised ques-
tions about the suicide note, say-
ing the handwriting does not
seem to be that of Gajendra
Singh.
“He was troubled and dis-
turbed for the last couple of
months but no one in the family
could ever think or believe that
he would commit suicide,” he
said. “We (the family) are
presently passing through a lot
of stress, strain and depression.
We are really not in the right
state of mind to think what we
should do next.”
Gopal Singh said Gajendra
Singh’s father Bane Singh “has
been crying since he heard the
news.”
“It has been difficult for us to
control him as he also fainted a
couple of times while crying and
we had to seek the help of a doc-
tor,” he said. “The condition of
his three children and his wife is
similar as they have been crying
for hours now.”
People present at the crema-
tion shouted slogans against the
Vasundhara Raje government
and the AAP. Former chief minis-
ter Ashok Gehlot, Rajasthan
Congress president Sachin Pilot
and other party leaders met his
family and tried to console them.
“We are shocked and
depressed,” said a villager. Chief
Minister Vasundhara Raje, in a
statement, expressed profound
grief over the death and termed
the incident “very tragic.”
In her condolence message,
Raje prayed to god to give
strength to the bereaved family
members to bear this huge loss
and grant peace to the departed
soul. She said the Rajasthan gov-
ernment was with the farmers in
every circumstance, was com-
mitted to their welfare and was
ceaselessly working in their
interest.
– IANS
Rajasthan Farmer Cremated, Family Lashes out at AAP
Reuters
Above, a farmer is seen hanging from a tree during a rally organized by Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party (AAP) in New Delhi
April 22. The farmer hanged himself from a tree during the political rally in what appeared to be a desperate protest against the
hardship felt by many people scratching a living in rural India. Below, a farmer shows wheat crop damaged by unseasonal rains
in his wheat field at Sisola Khurd village in Uttar Pradesh, March 24.
Reuters
F
