Agricultural debt turned 4,680 into young widows in Punjab in 15 years: Affidavits

KISHANGARH/CHOUTIAN (MANSA/SANGRUR): Carrying a framed photograph of her dead husband to the fields, Bhupinder Kaur,38, has been relentlessly cutting wheat husk in Kishangarh village of Punjab's Mansa district for the past four days. She will prepare the hay out of the husk to feed a pair of buffaloes and earn an additional income from their milk to support her child.

This even as the purchase of her rain-damaged wheat from a three-acre field hinges on a quality check report under Centre's new specifications issued on April 14.

Kaur is just one of 4,680 widows in Mansa and Sangrur, who have transformed into breadwinners of their families over the past 15 years after their farmer husbands committed suicide. The men killed themselves, unable to bear the burden of repeated crop failure and debt. The suicides have been recorded in panchayat affidavits which are in possession of TOI.

Of these fighter women, 1,160 in Sangrur and 1,080 in Mansa women received the Rs 2 lakh compensation, that too in 2013 following a petition by NGO Movement Against State Repression (MASR) in the Punjab and Haryana high court.

The robust among these women have learnt to drive tractors, plough fields, and reap the harvest on their own. But as they age, some women mortgage their land for a fresh loan while others rent out their fields to loan sharks as re-payment of old loans.

While a debt of Rs 9 lakh in 2008 to buy agricultural implements took away Kaur's husband Bikram's life, her father-in-law Pritpal hanged himself only six months ago because of frequent visits by loan sharks and bank recovery agents. "Farming has taught me new ways to fight for survival. Never to trust governments or nature," she says.

Many widows can't marry their daughters or have to cancel their engagements following dowry demands as the returns on crops only come after a six-month cycle of wheat and rice or cotton.

"In many cases a girl's family has to pay Rs 1 lakh as dowry for each acre owned by the groom. So it's a triple-whammy for widows - death, rising debt, and dowry," says MASR convener Inderjit Jaijee.

"I want all my all kids to be independent and educated," says widow Sulochana Kaur of Choutian village does doing everything to make ends meet from sewing, to ferrying the harvest in bullock carts to digging 250-400 feet for a submersible pump.

There are even those who, in the middle of bad season, take their fight to claim the Rs 250 widow pension.

These women belong to different sections of society, varying from Jat Sikh families to marginalised scheduled caste (SC) sub castes Bazigar, Mazhabi and Ravidasias. But there is a common thread between all of them - the desire to live and the spirit to fight.

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