Chittaranjan Ray set out from Gadang village in West Bengal for far-off Kerala in 2015, at the age of 28, seeking better wages. He worked as a mason on sites across the state, saved some money and came back to cultivate eight bighas of leased land. He had worked on the family’s farmland before, and wanted to try his luck at cultivating potatoes on his own.
“The land was being cultivated for the first time, so it demanded more hard work and higher investments,” says his uncle Uttam Ray, a farmer in his early 50s. Hopeful that with a good harvest he would earn a profit, Chittaranjan took loans from local moneylenders and the bank – over time, a total of around Rs. 5 lakhs – at “very high interest rates,” Uttam says. But then, in 2017, the land became water-logged after heavy rains. The crop perished. Unable to face the loss, 30-year-old Chittaranjan hanged himself on July 31 that year in his house.
“His parents were eager to get him married,” adds Chintamohan Roy, a farmer from the same village in Dhupguri block of Jalpaiguri district, who cultivates potato, paddy and jute on five bighas (1 bigha is 0.33 acres). “As he was not eligible for a bank loan, his father took it on his behalf.” With his son gone, the 60-year-old father is struggling with the debt, the deceased young man’s mother is ailing.
Chintamohan too has seen a recent suicide in his family. “My brother was a simple person, he could not take the pressure and committed suicide by consuming pesticide on June 23, 2019,” he says. His brother Gangadhar was 51.
“He was cultivating potato on his own five bighas,” adds 54-year-old Chintamohan. “He took loans [from banks, private moneylenders and even from input dealers]. With recurrent losses for the past few seasons, the situation was such that he could not control himself…”
A large portion of Gangadhar’s land is under mortgage with private moneylenders. His total debt was around Rs. 5 lakhs. His widow is a homemaker with three daughters, the eldest in college. “We brothers and Gangadhar’s in-laws are trying to pull them through somehow,” Chintamohan says.







