It is the farmers’ fault that they kill themselves in their hundreds in Maharashtra — they chew tobacco and sit around. It is refreshing to have such a novel thesis issuing from the Union textile minister himself. Shankersinh Vaghela offered as counterpoint the example of Gujarat’s farmers — they work hard after having chewed their tobacco. His thesis comes close to an earlier ‘scientific’ report on the suicide of farmers in Karnataka, which claimed that alcoholism was the ill that plagued suicidal farmers in that state. Other factors, such as high-priced pesticides, debt, crop failures and enforced monoculture were issues that were noticed in the report but found to be irrelevant in the main. Insensitiveness is not a particularly remarkable trait in politicians: Mr Vaghela seems rather true to type than otherwise. But what does seem surprising is that the Union government seems to be speaking in two voices. If everything is the farmers’ fault, why did the prime minister encourage them in their laziness by offering the distressed farmers of Vidarbha a relief package of Rs 3,750 crore in July 2006? Obviously the money has not helped, either because it has not got to where it is most needed, or because it is not really the solution: 1,500 farmers have died by their own hand between July 2006 and May this year.

The root of the problem is controversial: it has to do with the conditions of globalized trade and the situation of the small Indian farmer. The law against saving seeds, forcing the farmer to buy seeds supplied by corporations every year, the insistence on monoculture that leaves them vulnerable to crop failure, the repeated failures of untested seeds and the ineffectiveness of expensive pesticides that lead farmers into irredeemable debt have all been discussed and debated upon. The cotton farmer of Vidarbha has been hit especially hard, because of the artificially lowered prices of cotton in the world market. The solution would lie in rethinking and reorganizing farming systems. That the government is speaking in two voices would suggest that the policy has not been worked out with any care, there is confusion in crucial areas. Even after so much tragic loss of life and distress on the present scale, that cruel indifference may still be corrected. But the nation could well do without the kind of remarks Mr Vaghela has made.