Indrapuri village in Savli taluka was teeming with visitors on Monday. Revenue officials, police, politicians, journalists and even a videography team were there, focussing their collective attention on a tumbledown hut and the three acre land which once belonged to its owner — now dead.
It was just yesterday that Rangitsinh Parmar, a small-time 32-year-old farmer, decided that he can’t take the stress — of mounting debts and failing crops — any longer and ended his life using a rope. On Sunday morning, when his wife Vimla was busy with household chores and father Sukabhai was away, Rangit went to the backside of his farm and hanged himself from a neem tree.
Sitting beside a heap of unused fertilizer bags, Vimla appear dazed, almost sleepwalking through her ordeal. But mention Rangit’s name, and she breaks into a loud wail.
Other family members are equally stunned. They said Rangit had been unusually silent in the past few weeks. He had taken about Rs 25,000 loan from some farmers in neighbouring Cheliyad, whose land he had tilled, and had sown costly Bollguard (Bt) cotton seeds, pigeon pea and cash crop tobacco in his three-acre field.
This is the second suicide by a farmer in Savli taluka in a fortnight. As in the case of Maganbhai Patel, who committed suicide in Garadia village of same taluka about a fortnight ago, Rangit’s pigeon pea crop failed with the late arrival of rains and the cotton crop was destroyed by heavy rains when they finally came.
‘‘We have to ascertain the reason for his suicide. Even from private sources, Rs 25,000 is not a big debt. Also, the crop failure is not complete, though I have been told the production is not as much as it should have been,’’ said K D Panchal, Joint Director of Agriculture in Vadodara District Panchayat. He said he would wait for a comprehensive report from the taluka office before connecting the two suicides.
However, Rangit’s younger brother Rajendra says it was crop failure and debts that drove Rangit to suicide. ‘‘The land was flooded for more than a month when it rained. Whatever crop stands now is not even one fifth of what should have been,’’ said Rajendra.
With their father crippled by a fracture, it is now up to Rajendra to pick up from where Rangit left. ‘‘I will have to find some way now. Last week he appeared worried about how to repay the debts. Yet he wouldn’t tell us how much he owed or take money from any of us,’’ said Rajendra.
The inaccessibility of the village, perhaps, reveals the difficulties Rangit might have faced. The undulating terrain is difficult to traverse even on a tractor. The Express Newsline team had to leave the vehicle behind and trek 2 km on foot to reach the village. There is no bank or any government office in the vicinity. Even the village panchyat is 5 km away from the hamlet at Cheliyad.