Farmers' suicides in India

Farmers' suicides in India refers to the event of farmers dying by suicide in India since the 1970s, due to their inability to repay loans mostly taken from private landlords and banks. India being an agrarian country with around 70% of its rural population depending directly or indirectly upon agriculture,^[1] the sector had a 15% share in the economy of India in 2023,^[2] and according to NSSO, around 45.5% of country's labor force was associated with agriculture in 2022.^[3] Activists and scholars have offered several conflicting reasons for farmer suicides, such as anti-farmer laws, high debt burdens, poor government policies, corruption in subsidies, crop failure, mental health, personal issues and family problems.

The National Crime Records Bureau data shows that while 296,438 farmers had died by suicide between 1995 and 2014,^[4] in the nine years between 2014 and 2022, the number stood at 100,474.^[5] In 2022, a total of 11,290 persons involved in the farming sector (5,207 farmers and 6,083 agricultural labourers) have committed suicide in India, accounting for 6.6% of total suicide victims in the country.^[6]

Earlier, governments had reported varying figures, from 5,650 farmer suicides in 2014^[7] to the highest number of farmer suicides in 2004 of 18,241.^[8] The farmer's suicide rate in India had ranged between 1.4 and 1.8 per 1,00,000 population, over a 10-year period through 2005. However, the figures in 2017 and 2018 showed an average of more than 10 suicides daily or 5760 suicides per year.^[9] There are accusations of states manipulating the data on farmer suicides, hence the real figures could be even higher.^[10]