The villages adopted by Baba Nanak Education Society (BNES) in Punjab, and thus the families adopted by you, face constant vulnerabilities of weather changes. Most recently, the stress is  elevated, per our recent reports from the ground. The families you support count on your continued assistance, to help them withstrand vulnerability upon vulnerability. Especially when, as you'll note in the update below, the government experts are often projecting an image (and even policy proposals!) that are quite disconnected from the ground reality!

BNES notes:

"Our village lanes are still muddy from last week's heavy rain, and we read that more rain is likely ... Some of our villages are prone to waterlogging even when rain is moderate. They are mainly close to the river Ghaggar from starting from Makror Sahib and going on past Khanauri. The situation is generally soggy in Mandvi, Chandu, Bushehra, Shergarh, Shahpur Thedi, Nawagaon, Banarasi, Andana, Chatha Gobindpura, Phulad, Hamirgarh, Bhundar Bhaini, Surjan Bhaini and Salemgarh. Here's a map showing the problem area... 

If the weather gods smile, these villages produce good harvests because the soil is fine, light alluvial deposit. But they also invariably suffer the worst crop damage when heavy rains hit. It's no mystery why suicide rate is especially high in these villages.
Vagaries of weather, animal and crop disease outbreaks, extreme market fluctuations, debt burden, family expectations ... where to turn when the pressures become unbearable? For sure, God is closer to us than the government."

Meanwhile, notes BNES, melas and festitivities continue, speaking about a lot of these farming families in the abstract...

"PAU's annual Kisan Mela was held earlier this week. It was inaugurated by Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan with PAU Vice Chancellor Dr Satbir Singh Gosal as the guest of honour.
Several dignitaries shared their valuable thoughts but the most interesting was Dr Gosal's suggestion that Punjab farmers diversify to cotton and sugarcane. He noted that in decades past, these crops were widely grown in the Malwa belt. Probably Dr Gosal was speaking theoretically.
Cotton is not seen in our area now. Farmers bitterly recall their struggles with white fly and pink bollworm and fake BT cotton seed. PAU will have an uphill task persuading farmers around here to risk growing cotton again.
As for sugarcane, it's a water-guzzling crop: about 20,000 litres of water is needed to produce one quintal of cane. Nearly all of Sangrur district is in what is called "the dark zone" of dangerously depleted watertable.
It's a high-cost crop -- it's a long duration, non-mechanised and labour intensive in a time of labour scarcity, requires at least five operations from manual planting to propping, application of weedicide and pesticide and finally manual harvesting, it takes only a couple weeks of excessive rain and high humidity to see an attack of red rot wipe out the crop.
Farmers not just in Punjab but all over India, have starved while the sugar mills held on to their payments. There are cases before the Punjab and Haryana High Court right now asking justice to farmers on this very issue. This is surely the biggest obstacle to promoting sugarcane cultivation.
From a mill owner's point of view, they say that they are squeezed between the fixed State Approved Price at which they must buy, and the control price at which they must sell. During the covid years the mills were closed for want of labour. India exports a lot of sugar but the international market is notorious for prices that soar and plunge without warning. Moreover, export is not an option for Punjab mills because by the time sugar is transported from Punjab to Mumbai and then shipped abroad, there's no profit left.
By the way, I've always wondered about the description "cooperative sugar mill". To the best of my knowledge they are all owned by politicians or politically connected people. Where does the "cooperative" element come in?"

Policy change is necessary. Pie-in-the-sky ideas are at best disrespectful to the families we support, and at worst very dangerous! 

As 2022 draws to a close, we check in with our larger extended kaumi family in Punjab and notice the trends have not changed, and the support you all provide through the Adopt-A-Family project is as relevant, even life-saving, as ever!

Last month, our partners, Baba Nanak Education Society, noted 3 new suicides:

 Pargat leaves behind a widow and three children. Davinder and Jagal were also each married, and each had two children. Pargat and Davinder were both agricultural labourers and Jagpal was a farmer. All three men were heavily in debt.

Who is a typical rural suicide victim? What do their lives look like?

He had little education and few assets.
He inherited a few acres of land but for most years cost of production exceeded profit on harvest.
He bought a tractor or deepened his well...costly investments that didn't increase profitability.
To make ends meet, he sold off land little by little.
Once the land was gone, his only option was to seek work as a labourer.
His debts remained and creditors hounded him.
Earnings from daily wages were not enough to feed the family....
Finally, he took  his own life in abject desparation

What does a suicide widow look like?
She has children; often they are very young.
In-laws and her own family are surviving on bare minimum; they can't help her.
She has little education but often has skills, though unmet with local markets.
She's ready to work but opportunities in her village are limited.

Could she work as a domestic servant in a town? Possibly if: 
... she has relatives who can serve as a base in the beginning;
...if she earns enough to rent a jhuggi and feed her kids;
...if she is smart enough, strong enough, to cope with the insecurities of living on her own.

Realistically, what can be done to help her?

BNES has struggled with this question for a long time.

Their answer is: provide monthly assistance to the family sufficient to ensure that they don't go hungry ON THE CONDITION THAT all the children of the family remain in school and complete 12th grade. If a child wants to study further and has ability, we try to arrange a scholarship. SAANJH funds college scholarships as well.

Every child who gets an education, gets employment and supports their family is a beacon of light.

Thanks to EACH of you for supporting their light, their self-realization, their self-empowerment. 

May the Guru keep smiling on EACH one of you now, in 2023, and forever.

Guru Rakhaa!

One of the families we have been supporting thanks to all of your generosity had some bright and beautiful news recently! Their son landed a good job in Punjab Department of Animal Husbandry. Vadaaiyan to Bhupinder Singh of Village Chottian, a village particularly hard-hit by agrarian suicides.

Bhupinder was a teenager when his father Amrik Singh committed suicide in 2017, leaving him, his younger brother and their mother Gurvinder Kaur, struggling to survive.

Through Saanjh's Adopt-A-Family project and Baba Nanak Education Society, Bhupinder could continue his studies all the way through high school and then through professional college where he studied pharmacy. 

This month he has joined duty at the Veterinary Dispensary.

We bow our heads to this family's grit and sucess. We a humbled to be a small part of their story; thanks to YOU!

Baba Nanak Education Society (BNES) is watching, as is all of Punjab, the various political promises being trotted out in the countryside: on the one hand proud after celebrating the historic win through the heroic Farmers' Protests, on the other still as economically devastated as ever. 

Punjab's Assembly elections bring the same promises: farm debt waiver, relief for widows and orphans of suicide victims, more and better rural schools, assistance to destitute elderly. But is there hope for any of these being fulfilled?

Baba Nanak Educational Society makes no extravagant promises. But they walk the talk and directly address agrarian desperation. 

The aim of Saanjh's Adopt-A-Family and BNES is to keep children of suicide-affected families in school at least till class/grade 12. Only with at least basic high school qualification can they aim for a better life.

Just in the area served by BNES, 2021 alone saw over 80 farmers and farm laborer suicides: leaving behind elderly parents, widows and orphans. More details of 2021 suicides are still trickling in as BNES fieldworkers travel home to home... but the message is deathly clear again: agrarian despair is real and urgent!

It's been one thing after another...compounding the crises for debt-burdened village families.

In third week October, just as farmers were feeling relieved about getting their paddy to the market, heavy, unseasonal rain drenched the fields of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. Ploughing had to wait for the fields to dry out. Wheat can be sown right up to mid-November, but....

....now DAP (preferred fertilizer)  is in short supply and what little is in the market is being sold at black market prices. In the newspapers we read two explanations for the crisis... government leaders say it's because of rising global prices and supply-chain constraints; opposition political leaders say the Modi government has engineered the shortage to punish farmers for their year-long protest against the new farm laws.The fertiliser crisis means agri-input cost has taken another dangerous jump.

What about suicide-affected families? Some of them had land at one time but by the time their husbands / fathers / sons committed suicide, family land had been sold off to pay debts... so now they have no land to sow. Those who were not labourers before, have become labourers now. In normal sowing times, farmers hire labourers and this means earning for widows and grown children.

But, this year, nothing is normal.

With the big jump in agri-inputs, what can the farmers do?

• The farmers can sow the same acreage they sowed last year with the same amount of fertiliser, but they will have to take out a bigger loan. The heavy debt increases. OR
• The farmers can sow the same acreage but cut back on input cost by using less fertiliser. This means lower yield and lower income.  OR
• The farmers can sow less acreage. Again, lower yield, lower income.

And crops are always at the mercy of poor rains/bad weather...

When the farmer is in trouble, the laborerer is in trouble. It's an old adage ... When the kisan (farmer) is in pain, the seeri (laborer) is at death's door.

Baba Nanak Education Society fears there is no chance of a decline in the number of rural suicides. Who will step forward and assist village families, already deeply vulnerable and pained, now facing one crisis over another?!

• Between January and June 2021, our partners at Baba Nanak Education Society had recorded 40 new suicide cases.
• In June 2021, they recorded 7 more cases and they are tallying their final July numbers now.
• BNES notes how many of those ending their lives in desperation are laborers, Mazdoors:

"Many of these labourers owned land until a few years ago.  They had very little land to begin with.  To meet expenses (including debt repayment) they sold off one little bit of land after another until they had nothing left. Their next option was to earn as agricultural labourers. Since farms have shrunk to micro size, those who still have land can meet their labour requirement with family labour.  Possibility of earning as an agricultural labourer declines further and further.  Labour is now required for only a few days each year.  When even agri-labour income dries up, many simply give up and take their own lives."

• BNES has also noted a rise in the number of women committing suicide:

"One reason for this may be the spread of micro-finance agencies set up specifically to extend credit to women.  These outfits are now found in even remote villages.  A woman takes a loan, cannot repay, takes another loan to repay the first loan."

Your Dasvandh helps signal that people care; that some relief is available; that men and women, kisaans and mazdoors, may have other options than debt-induced suicide.

Thank you.  

With the pandemic re-surging in Punjab, the difficult protest/mochaa ongoing, Baba Nanak Education Society (BNES) continues providing essential support to families of farmers who have committed suicide due to debt.

Listen in to this recent interview (largely in Punjabi) with Harman Kaur Sharda, one of the people behind the work of BNES. She talks about the background & history of the Adopt-A-Family project started by Baba Nanak Education Society. She speaks about the reality of gender discrimination still engrained in families, and how Adopt-A-Family intervenes on this: it has nudged more girls and women into schools and vocational courses. Thus, doing essential culture change work, much beyond K-12 education!

Thanks to donors like you, this work of BNES is possible & sustainable today!

https://bnespunjab.org/images/video/Shades_Women.mp4

Thank you for rising to respond to the desperate needs in Punjab 2020.

We want to share this recent article that provides essential focus on the essential ongoing work of Baba Nanak Education Society, the organization that receives 100% of your donation to Saanjh's Adopt-A-Family project.

Thanks to all the Adopt-A-Family donors who contribute to this mission led by Mr. Jaijee and his team!

Hit By Indebtedness and Suicides, Punjab Farmers Worry New Laws Will Make Things Worse

https://thewire.in/agriculture/punjab-farmers-suicides-debt

"Jaijee and his organisation have documented at least 100 debt-related suicides this year in the Lehra and Andana blocks combined. Jaijee has worked in this field for over three decades. According to his calculations and extrapolation of data from these two blocks, the total number of debt-related suicides in Punjab this year could be hovering around 8,800. He compares this with the wretched villain of 2020 – the coronavirus – and finds that rural suicides (~8,800) are double the COVID-19 deaths recorded in Punjab as of December 2020 (~4,900).

In this context of pervasive debt in Punjab, and suicides related to debt, both professor Anupama and Inderjit Jaijee believe that the new contentious farm laws, which have led to massive protests by farmers and agricultural labourers countrywide, will be further detrimental."

https://thewire.in/agriculture/punjab-farmers-suicides-debt

Thanks to your DVN donations to Saanjh’s Adopt-a-Family program, over 110 children traumatized by the farmer suicide epidemic in Punjab, are in school, supported, and believe they are not alone!

In 2020, the debt burdens of the Punjabi farmers are many times compounded: the COVID pandemic; sudden shut-downs; challenges of remote learning in remote villages; the dangerous new farm bills; farmer protests; reprisals. We need you more than ever!

A message from Baba Nanak Education Society (BNES), on the ground, through the pandemic and all the challenges 2020 has brought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtzZC5AIw6c&feature=emb_title

(BNES recently distributed smart phones to students otherwise disconnected from schools during COVID)