Farmer Suicides and the Function of Death in Neoliberal Biopolitics

Abstract

The farmer suicides that have taken place in India since the 1990s constitute the largest wave of recorded suicides in human history. While existing research largely focuses on explaining the causes that lead farmers to take their own lives, this paper examines the biopolitical governing function that the suicides have. The paper argues that the farmer suicides have functioned to legitimate intervention into the lives of those who remain by either treating them as subjects with mental health problems or educating them on how to embrace a neoliberal entrepreneurial mentality. The farmer suicides arguably also function to dispose of a population that has become surplus in the contemporary developmental vision of the Indian state. Furthermore, the paper contests biopolitical theorization that views suicide or death as resistance to biopower, arguing that such theorization fails to recognize both the particularity of biopolitics in a context where the presence of death is ubiquitous and the way in which the death of some may reinforce the biopolitical governing of life of others. The farmer suicides express rather than contest the devaluation of "unproductive" lives in neoliberal capitalism.On March 27, 2017, Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian parliament, passed a new Mental Health Care Bill, which has been welcomed as an important sign that India is adopting a more progressive position in the treatment of mental health issues. The previous year, the bill had been passed by Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the parliament, and on April 7, 2017, it received the assent of President Pranab Mukherjee, thereby becoming the Mental Health Care Act of 2017. The act includes provisions that revise various aspects of Indian mental health care policy. However, most attention has been paid to the fact that the act also effectively decriminalizes attempted suicide. Until now, attempted suicide has been subject to punishment by a one-year prison sentence, fines, or both, under the Indian Penal Code Section 309. 1 The new act states that "Notwithstanding anything contained in section 309 of the Indian Penal Code any person who attempts to commit suicide shall be presumed, unless proved otherwise, to have severe stress and shall not be tried and punished under the said Code" (Ministry of Law and Justice 2017, 46). This change in the Indian state's approach to suicide comes against the backdrop of the largest wave of recorded suicides in human history. The suicides in question have been committed by farmers, more than a quarter of a million of whom have taken their own lives in India between 1995 and 2009 (Center for Human Rights and Global Justice 2011, 1). In the current decade, the number of farmer suicides 1 The British introduced the criminalization of suicide to India as part of their colonial administration (Niehaus 2012, 223). The Indian Penal Code that contains the criminalization of suicide was developed during the British Raj Regime of 1860 (Ranjan et al., 2014, 5).

Farmer Mental Health Interventions: A Systematic Review

“…A total of five articles discussed paraprofessional “case-finder” program components, but none reported evaluative data; three addressed interventions in the US [ 37 , 87 , 93 ], and two addressed interventions in India [ 124 , 125 ].…”

“…A total of two articles described but did not report evaluative data on nurse-led health services developed for farmers in the UK [ 129 , 130 ]. A total of two articles addressed the introduction of additional psychiatrists to address farmer suicide in India [ 124 , 131 ]. Badami [ 131 ] contends that the poorly administered, purely psychiatric mental health policies and clinical services of the District Mental Health Programme (DMHP) in Kerala, India, was ill-equipped to deal with the complex reality of agrarian suicide.…”

Cultivating distress: cotton, caste and farmer suicides in India

“…Recent debates in the field of political sociology and medical anthropology suggests that focusing on causal explanation of farmer suicides argue against the interpretation of such tragic deaths as mere resistance to biopolitics and it’s role in governing of life (Alt 2018 ). Biopower, if understood as the social political control over people’s lives leading to a State sponsored death which in turn, normalises population control, does not in itself explain how such power dictates those who live and those who die.…”

“…Is the notion of biopower sufficient to account for the contemporary ways in which the political, under the guise of war, of resistance, or of the fight against terror, makes the murder of the enemy its primary and absolute objective?’ (Mbembe 2003 ). Alt ( 2018 ) however argues that ‘ such theorization fails to recognise both the particularities of biopolitics in a context where the presence of death is ubiquitous and the way in which the death of some may reinforce the biopolitical governance of life of others’ (ibid. p1).…”

“…This translates into approximately 48 farmer suicides every day. Published literature consistently suggests that small and marginal farmers are disproportionately affected with the majority farmers belonging to ‘backwarded’ castes (Vasavi 2009 ; Merriott 2016 ; Alt 2018 ) yet the relationship between caste identity of cotton farmers and suicide remains unexamined. A notable exception is research conducted in Maharashtra State which focuses on the voices of widows in the context of patriarchy, caste, and neoliberal agricultural policies (Falnikar and Dutta 2019 ).…”