Dilapidation of the Rural: Development, Politics, and Farmer Suicides in India

This book explains farmer suicides in India in the backdrop of rural politics as a determining factor. By bringing in politics as a variable the research presented in the book reveals that there are non-farm factors playing critical role in prompting behavioral change amongst the peasantry but haven’t received much academic attention. The book argues that the changing nature of public spaces has significantly altered the perception of self in the rural society of India. It presents indicators of this rural change and how the state policy and political parties led political mobilization that changed the character of community relations in the rural areas.

The book shows that other possible manifestations of the large-scale behavioral change in the rural areas and increasing rural distress, those are equally serious but haven’t received much attention, are rising cases of drug-addiction, agrarian riots, or other forms of collective violence. The increasing number of farmers protests also need to be understood in this context.

Dr Sudhir Kumar Suthar teaches at the Centre for Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. His areas of specialization are governance, rural and agrarian politics and movements, political psychology, international relations and research methodology.