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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Widows of Vidarbha highlights the lesser-known perseverance of the wives of farmers who commit suicide -Taruni Kumar

Widows of Vidarbha highlights the lesser-known perseverance of the wives of farmers who commit suicide -Taruni Kumar

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published Published on Feb 28, 2018   modified Modified on Feb 28, 2018
-Firstpost.com/ The Ladies Finger

“After all, what did the widows of farmers know about agriculture, crop management, bank loans, private debts, land documents, health bills, power connections, panchayat politics, children’s education? The short answer was – everything.”

When farmers commit suicide in India – an occurrence so common that ‘farmer suicides’ is a phrase that’s become commonplace in newsrooms and policy spaces – their deaths are assessed and a compensation is given to their families if, and only if, their suicide is revealed to have been because of the pressure of crushing debt. For a short second of the news cycle, the images of their grieving families become the focus of what the man leaves behind. But, while the story of the men’s poverty and difficult conditions make the news, their widows are ignored, without thought for the fact that the family the male farmer was trying to support is the same for which these women must now earn.

“It is easy to die,” a widow from Vidarbha tells author Kota Neelima; a quote that features as the first line of the introduction for her book Widows of Vidarbha. It sets the stage for the 18 stories that follow. Because to live is the more difficult path that these women follow, to make sure their children and families continue to survive. Some of the women continue to live in abject poverty, while others have moved up the class ladder. Some of them work as farmhands to make ends meet, while others have developed the means to send their children to engineering schools. But while their stories of distress may not come as a shock, the book successfully manages to highlight the manner in which these widows melt into the shadows in the minds of most who deal with the issue of farmer suicides.

The book’s biggest success is how aware it makes the reader of how little they knew of the lives and struggles of farm widows.

Women often end up being invisible in spaces of policy-making, and not just in terms of participation. Aside from the low numbers of women who actually end up making it to the tables of decision-making, policies themselves often overlook the specific needs of women. And the issue of farmer suicides is no different. Neelima’s book focuses on the voices of the widows of these farmers who are otherwise ignored, shunned and subjugated by their families and the government. It’s a deeply relevant contextualisation of the women who never make it to the narrative.

Please click here to read more.

Firstpost.com/ The Ladies Finger, 26 February, 2018, http://www.firstpost.com/living/widows-of-vidarbha-highlights-the-lesser-known-perseverance-of-the-wives-of-farmers-who-commit-suicide-4367853.html


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