Hyderabad:
In Andhra Pradesh, over 2200 farmers committed suicide last year. Their families are going to tough times. And to add to their misery, the government has recognised only 144 as 'genuine' and eligible for compensation. The rest of the families got no help and see no hope.
Paying a big price are young children who inherit the burden of debt and are forced to become labourers to survive.
"Like everyone else, I also want to play and study. But because of my family's condition, I don't know if I will be able to go to college. Because of the debts, my brothers went away. My mother is disabled and can't work. When I see others wearing new clothes, I also want to buy, but the money we get is not even enough for us to eat," said Ashwini, a Class 10 student at a government school in Nalgonda.
Every weekend, and on many weekdays too, Ashwini becomes a labourer at a brick-kiln because she has to support her disabled mother. The frail girl, hardly 30 kg in weight, carries as many bricks as the length of her hands will allow her to load on her head. Transporting one thousand bricks this way will fetch her Rs 100 at the end of a whole day at work. The irony is that Ashwini cannot enrol for the less strenuous work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) because she is a minor, only 15 years old.
Teachers say Ashwini is a good student but she is continuing in school despite the most difficult conditions. The mid-day meal Ashwini eats at school is her first and often only full meal for the day.
Ashwini's father, a farmer, drank pesticide and killed himself in March last year because crops had repeatedly failed and debts mounted to Rs 3 lakh. Her two brothers left the village unable to face debtors. The family got no help from the government.
"Officials promised help. But in the last one and a half years, we did not get any help. So we eat when there is something. Otherwise we go hungry. We live with tears and hunger. And all the time we are running from debtors," said Ashwini's mother Nirmala.
When debt takes the life of a farmer, along with him die many dreams. For all the talk about supporting the girl child, not extending even the minimum basic support to farmer families in extreme distress pushes girls like Ashwini out of school, to a life of drudgery, with no chance to escape the cycle of indebtedness.