Farmers’ Suicides in India: Magnitudes, Trends, and Spatial Patterns, 1997-2012

The last decade has seen a high degree of agrarian distress in India, of which the large number of suicides by farmers across the country is stark evidence. Despite one-off efforts by some State governments, activist organisations, and the press to enquire into the phenomenon, there is a need for a comprehensive picture based on a single, nation-wide data source. The present paper is a modest attempt to fill this gap in analysis. Using secondary data on suicides by profession, obtained from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the paper provides a simple analysis of the magnitude of, and trends in, farmers’ suicides in India from 1997 to 2012, and of regional patterns in these suicides. We argue that while the socio-economic causes underlying farm suicides are complex and require further empirical work, there can be little denying that farm suicides are strongly linked to the larger context of agrarian distress in the country.