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Farmers' widows from Kerala seek relief
Gargi Parsai
| They seek Centre's intervention to get their loans waived |
TALES OF WOE: Shiny Rajan from Wayanad district of Kerala narrates her woes outside the Kerala House in New Delhi on Saturday. Her husband had committed suicide as he was not able to repay loans.
NEW DELHI: "If you trouble me I will follow my husband to his grave and take my two children with me," 32-year-old Shiny Rajan told the village money lender — called "blade" locally — in Wyanad district of Kerala when he came calling for the nth time for the return of the loan taken by her farmer husband who had committed suicide. He had consumed the very pesticide he used to spray his banana plantation with, after the crop failed in the drought of 2002.
"I said it in sheer desperation because of the shame of not being able to cope," she told The Hindu here, tears welling up in her eyes. She parted with her small savings and eight sovereigns of gold but could not even clear the interest on the debt.
Shiny is one of the 53 farmers' widows and destitute farmer women who have come here from Wyanad district to knock at the door of the Central Government for relief and redress.
They are seeking waiver of the loans taken by their deceased husbands whether through nationalised, gramin, or cooperative banks or the local moneylender.
They now want to start afresh with organic farming for which they want a corpus. "Credit and pesticides are killing our husbands," they say.
Those who contribute to the corpus in the village will be assured free organic milk, fruits, vegetables, cash crops and plantations grown by them. The idea is to support themselves and be rid of middle men. But first, the Government has to clean their slate.
Under the banner of All-India Widows and Destitute Women's Movement they met Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar here on Saturday. According to P.T. John, a farm leader, the Minister is said to have assured the Movement that he would ask the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) to send a team to Wyanad for specific details. A meeting with Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has not materialised so far.
Thirty eight-year-old Leelamma Jose's world crumbled when her plantation farmer husband committed suicide five years ago having failed to return a Rs. 15,000 loan availed from a bank. She tried to repay the loan in vain.
Then she came across a social service society and she became a Life Insurance Corporation agent. She is the one who organised the farmer widows and destitute farmer women under the Movement.
Forty-year-old Bennilda's farmer husband committed suicide. She is registered with the employment exchange agency since 1982 but has not received a call as she lacks political backing nor can she pay a bribe up to Rs. 50,000.
Seventy-year-old Stella's husband died of an illness. She took over the running of his field but is up against the perennial problem of pests and diseases that hit the pepper and ginger crops.
According to Sridevi, 56, the National Employment Guarantee Programme of the Government keeps out elderly persons and widows. "They give preference to the younger generation."
After years of suffering, the women have discovered one another.
"Till now we did not know how to organise ourselves and the power of being organised," said Chinnamma, also from Wyanad.
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