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In 2014, the National Crime Records Bureau of India reported 5,650 farmer suicides.〔National Crime Reports Bureau, (ADSI Report Annual – 2014 ) Government of India, Page 242, Table 2.11〕 The highest number of farmer suicides were recorded in 2004 when 18,241 farmers committed suicide. The farmers suicide rate in India has ranged between 1.4 to 1.8 per 100,000 total population, over a 10-year period through 2005.〔 India is an agrarian country with around 60% of its people depending directly or indirectly upon agriculture. Farmer suicides account for 11.2% of all suicides in India.〔 Activists and scholars have offered a number of conflicting reasons for farmer suicides, such as monsoon failure, high debt burdens, genetically modified crops, government policies, public mental health, personal issues and family problems.〔Gruère, G. & Sengupta, D. (2011), Bt cotton and farmer suicides in India: an evidence-based assessment, The Journal of Development Studies, 47(2), 316–337〕〔Schurman, R. (2013), Shadow space: suicides and the predicament of rural India, Journal of Peasant Studies, 40(3), 597–601〕〔Das, A. (2011), Farmers’ suicide in India: implications for public mental health, International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 57(1), 21–29〕 There are also accusation of states fudging the data on farmer suicides. ==History== Historical records relating to frustration, revolts and high mortality rates among farmers in India, particularly cash crop farmers, date back to the 19th century.〔I.J. Catanach (1971), Rural Credit in Western India, 1875-1930, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0520015951, pp 10-55〕〔Laxman Satya (1998), Colonial Encroachment and Popular Resistance: Land Survey and Settlement Operations in Berar: 1860-1877, Agricultural History, Vol 72, No 1, pp 55-76〕〔 The high land taxes of 1870s, payable in cash regardless of the effects of frequent famines on farm output or productivity, combined with colonial protection of usury, money lenders and landowner rights, contributed to widespread penury and frustration among cotton and other farmers, ultimately leading to Deccan Riots of 1875-1877.〔〔Kranton and Swamy (1999), The hazards of piecemeal reform: British civil courts and the credit market in colonial India, Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 58, pp 1-28〕 The British government enacted the Deccan Agriculturists’ Relief Act in 1879, to limit the interest rate charged by money lenders to Deccan cotton farmers, but applied it selectively to areas that served British cotton trading interests.〔(Deccan Agriculturists’ Relief Act, XVII of 1879 ) Government Central Press, Bombay (1882)〕〔Chaudhary and Swamy (2014), (Protecting the Borrower: An Experiment in Colonial India ), Yale University〕 Rural mortality rates, in predominantly agrarian British India, were very high between 1850 to 1940s.〔Mike Davis (2001), Late Victorian Holocausts, El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World, Verso, ISBN 1-85984-739-0, Chapter 1〕〔BM Bhatia (1963), Famines in India 1850-1945, Asia Publishing House, London, ISBN 978-0210338544〕 However starvation related deaths far exceeded those by suicide, the latter being officially classified under "injuries".〔Tim Dyson (1991), "On the Demography of South Asian Famines: Part I", Population Studies, Volume 45, No. 1, pp 5–25〕 Death rate classified under "injuries", in 1897, was 79 per 100,000 people in Central Provinces of India and 37 per 100,000 people in Bombay Presidency.〔Ajit Ghose(1982), Food Supply and Starvation: A Study of Famines with Reference to the Indian Subcontinent, Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 34, Issue 2, pp 368–389〕 Ganapathi and Venkoba Rao analyzed suicides in parts of Tamil Nadu in 1966. They recommended that the distribution of agricultural organo-phosphorus compounds be restricted.〔Ganapathi, M. N. and Venkoba Rao, A. (1966), A study of suicide in Madurai, Journal of Indian Medical Association, vol. 46, pp 18-23〕 Similarly, Nandi et al. in 1979 noted the role of freely available agricultural insecticides in suicides in rural West Bengal and suggested that their availability be regulated.〔Nandi et al (1979), Is suicide preventable by restricting the availiability of lethal agents? - A rural survey of West Bengal, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 21, pp 251-255〕 Hegde studied rural suicides in villages of northern Karnataka over 1962 to 1970, and stated the suicide incidence rate to be 5.7 per 100,000 population.〔Hegde RS (1980), Suicide in rural community, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 22, pp 368–370〕 Reddy, in 1993, reviewed high rates of farmer suicides in Andhra Pradesh and its relationship to farm size and productivity.〔Ratna Reddy (1993), New technology in agriculture and changing size-productivity relationships: a study of Andhra Pradesh, Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 48(4), pp 633-648〕 Reporting in popular press about farmers' suicides in India began in mid 1990s, particularly by Palagummi Sainath.〔P Sainath, Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India's Poorest Districts, Penguin Books, ISBN 0-14-025984-8〕 In 2000s, the issue gained international attention and a variety of Indian government initiatives. National Crime Records Bureau, an office of the Ministry of Home Affairs Government of India, has been collecting and publishing suicide statistics for India since the 1950s, as annual Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India reports. It started separately collecting and publishing farmers suicide statistics from 1995.〔J Hardikar, (Farmer suicides: Maharastra continues to be worst-affected 10th year in a row ) DNA India (9 January 2011)〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Farmers' suicides in India」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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