According to an internal government report, the banks in Anantapur district sanctioned loans worth Rs. 1808.51 lakhs to 4,857 weavers in 2012-13. This amount dropped to Rs. 47 lakhs, given to just 65 weavers in 2016, before the scheme was replaced by another in August 2016.
When the powerlooms were set up in Dharmavaram, Dhanunjaya started purchasing more handlooms in an effort to keep up. By 2013, he had four (each handloom costs around Rs. 50,000), and had spent large sums for two caesarean surgeries for his wife, S .Chandrakala . To keep up, he too borrowed from local moneylenders.
By 2015, Dhanunjaya was forced to sell three of his looms. And by then, he had started drinking regularly, perhaps due to the anxiety and pressure from moneylenders. Alcoholism, Ramanjaneyulu says, has been growing among the weavers in Dharmavaram.
In October 2016, determined to stop drinking, Dhanunjaya turned to Lord Ayyappa, who is believed to fulfil wishes if one follows a disciplined, ascetic lifestyle. "I have taken up Ayyappa maala [a 41-day observance]. All our problems will end now," he told his mother.
But by December, when the stress of the debt mounted, Dhanunjaya returned to alcohol. "Moreover, after demonetisation it was hard to rotate the debts," Kumar said. People in the villages often borrow money from friends or family to pay their old debts to retain the moneylender’s trust.
"People must have seen him drinking. He probably felt ashamed about drinking while on maala ," his mother, around 70, said. On the night of December 16, Dhanunjaya returned home while his wife was at her mother's place, and hanged himself next to the one handloom that remained in his house.
Not far from his home in Dharmavaram, there is a statue of Mahatma Gandhi spinning a charkha . The inscription below reads: ‘Without khadi , I am not there’.