Egoism, anomie and masculinity: suicide in rural South India (Andhra Pradesh)

397 Pages·2012·2.23 MB·English

The London School of Economics and Political Science

Egoism, Anomie and Masculinity: Suicide in Rural South India (Andhra Pradesh)

Kumar Nilotpal

A thesis submitted to the Development Studies Institute of the London School of
Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, January 2011
Declaration

I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for PhD degree of the
London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than
where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others. The copyright of this thesis
rests with the author. Quotations from it are permitted, provided that full
acknowledgment is made. The thesis may not be reproduced without the prior
written consent of the author. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best
of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party.
Abstract

The dissertation offers an examination of the incidence and significance of ‘farmer
suicides’ in post-reform India. Based on fieldwork conducted in a village in Anantpur
district, Andhra Pradesh, it challenges the notion that the official category of ‘farm-
related’ suicides is always characterized by farm-related etiologies. Instead, it shows
an etiological continuum underlying these suicides. One end of this continuum does
comprise genuine farm-related suicides that are distinguished by high levels of
indebtedness on account of non-fructuous investments in groundwater extraction,
land-leases, expenditure on marriage(s) of daughter(s) and health related difficulties.
But there is also a large sub-category amongst official ‘farm-related’ suicides that
includes many that are not exclusively or principally farm-related. Sometimes called
“fake (farm-related) suicides”, this sub-category is explained locally in terms of a
range of familial or inter-family disputes. It is by systematically creating or inflating
the extent of household indebtedness after a suicide, attributing it to ‘farm-
expenditures’, and then denying non farm- related causes in collusion with the police
during an inquest, that local peasants manage to have such suicides classified
officially as ‘farmers’ suicides’. Such a classification is to their financial or social
advantage.

My analysis of local farming practices confirms the view that the entrenchment of
capital-intensive groundwater-based commercial agriculture in a semi-arid zone has
intensified various production related risks. However, the dissertation also shows
that rural suicides represent significant social and cultural disjunctions. Local inter
and intra-family kin relationships are increasingly undermined by rising
individualism and its attendant friction. There are also normative tensions that arise
out of an acute desire on the part of local peasants to adopt status-enhancing, refined
lifestyles and consumption practices. A local ideology of masculinity (paurusham)
structures the interaction between these wider economic, social and cultural changes
and emergent notions of self amongst the villagers. Local suicides, whether they are
principally farm-related or not, represent differential possession of masculine
aggression, and one’s capacity and willingness to construe and avenge irreversible
dishonour (avamanam). Insofar as the claim of honour is widely democratized now,
and insofar as there is an expansion in the scope of social space in which it is claimed
now, the possibilities of experiencing dishonour and the need to avenge it by way of
suicide has also increased.
Acknowledgments

I have accumulated debts from a large number of people in course of this research.
The first and foremost amongst them are my two supervisors at LSE, Prof. John
Harriss and Prof. Stuart Corbridge. The intellectual support, help and kindness that I
received from Prof. Harriss was crucial in preparing the ground for this work.
Likewise, it is Prof. Corbridge’s generosity in terms of his time, support and patience
that has enabled me to complete this work in its present form. It has been both a
pleasure and a privilege to work with Stuart. My thanks are also due to Prof. Tim
Dyson, Prof. Robert Wade, Prof. Tim Allen, and Prof. Jonathan Parry for their helpful
comments at different stages of this work. I am also indebted to Dr. Caroline Osella
(School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) and Dr. Andrew Wyatt
(University of Bristol) for examining this dissertation, and for giving me the benefit of
their detailed comments.

I express my gratitude to the Foundation for Urban and Regional Studies (FURS) at
the University of Essex, J.N. Tata Endowment, Mumbai, and B.D.Bangur
Endowment, Kolkata, for having made available to me generous research
studentships in 2003 to read for PhD. I remember in particular Prof. Linda
McDowell at the University of Oxford and Ms. Jenifer Tucker at Essex for their kind
help and support in this regard. I am grateful to the financial support office, LSE, for
having made available the Development Studies Institute (DESTIN) research
studentship awards towards my PhD. My big thanks are due to Ms. Stephanie Davies,
the DESTIN departmental manager, for helping me sort out various administrative
aspects of the doctoral work.

In India, I am indebted to Dr. Leena Abraham at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences
(TISS), Mumbai. To her indulgent kindness I owe the first seeds of my intellectual
fascination for the subject of suicide, and to her I also owe my first introduction to
the people of Anantpur. At TISS, I also fondly remember Late Dr. Vikas N. Pandey
who first encouraged me to read Emile Durkheim and Jack Douglas, and who
oversaw my first academic writing on suicide in 1999. My thanks are also due to the
librarians of the Nehru Memorial Library, Ratan Tata Library, and Jawaharlal Nehru
University in New Delhi and Sri Krishnadevraya University, Anantpur for enabling
me to benefit from their facilities.

In Anantpur, I have benefitted greatly from the friendship of Bablu, Subba Rao and
Narayana at the Timabktoo Collective. But I have my greatest debt to Dr. Geyanand,
Dr. Prasuna, Mr. Jayachandra, Mr. Narsimha Reddy (Enadu publications,
Hyderabad) , and the entire Praja Vaidshala family. The help and support that I
received from Dr. Geyanand and the family throughout the course of my field work
has meant a lot to me. I also wish to thank Mr. Vishweshar Reddy (Congress I), Mr.
Imam Basha (Human Rights Forum, Anantpur), Mr. Chandrashekhar (Human
Rights Forum and Govt. Arts College, Anantpur), MV Ramana (Communist Party of
India-Marxist, Anantpur), Dr. Malla Reddy (Rural Development Trust, Anantpur)
and Dr. R. Chandrashekar Reddy (Sri Krishnadevraya University, Anantpur) for their
help in the course of my fieldwork. My thanks are also due to Narayan Reddy, Irrappa
and Venkatramdu in Kuderu mandal, and a number of other CPI (M) cadres in
Raptadu, Kadiri and Uravkonda mandals of Anantpur who gave selflessly of their
time to take me to their villages and enabled me to speak with local peasants.

I am also greatly indebted to the people of NRP – the primary field-site for the study.
Thank you, Jaimma amma and Mahanand Reddy anna for making me a member of
your family. Although every one in the village was extremely friendly and helpful, I
cherish in particular the help, love and affection that I received from my friends in
“our street” (ma geru). It is a pleasure to say that they are too many in number to
name here. Similarly, in KK village, my thanks are due to the entire Durgam family
including Suri anna, Ujinappa anna and Rama akka.

Amongst my friends, Rajib, Meenakshi, Nandini, Sunder, Swagato, Praveen, Neha,
Gus, Mili and Sunil have heroically borne the barrage of demands I have made on
their time (and on their minds!). I also thank the Whitting family in London, and
Suzanne and Anthony in particular, for their unwavering warmth and generosity
during the writing up period. Thank you Anthony for patiently proof-reading a large
part of this dissertation.

Ma, Babujee, Nalini and Kanad; without you I could not possibly have written this
work. And I know that Nani would have loved to see and touch this dissertation!
Contents

List of contents i

Diagrams and tables iv

Statement of ethics vii

Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1. ‘Farmers’ suicides’; the thesis 1
1.2 The dissertation; epistemological considerations 9
1.3 Theoretical considerations; the peasantry, modernity and identity 24
1.4 The method of data-collection 38
1.5 Main findings and the organization of chapters 44

Chapter 2: Ecology, Risk and Cash Crop Cultivation; agrarian change in NRP
2.1 Introduction 47
2.2 The ecological specificity of Anantpur 50
2.3 Relative equality in access to land; sharp inequality in access to
groundwater 58
2.4 Declining mixed-farming practices 68
2.5 The agrarian structure of NRP 74
2.6 Crop production; capitalistic intensification under distress 79
2.7 Declining yield and the non-viability of dry land groundnut cultivation 98
2.8 Conclusion 103

Chapter 3: Aham, Swartham and Poti; rising individualism in the village
3.1 Introduction 105
3.2 The household as a dimension of family; the preponderance of elementary
families 106
3.3 Kutumbam; increasing individuality and contestation 113
3.3.1 Father-son relationship 114
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3.3.2 Husband-wife relationship 127
3.3.3 Relationship amongst brothers; rising swartham and quicker
household partition 139
3.4 Inter-Kutumbam relationships ; swartham and poti 153
3.5 Conclusion 159

Chapter 4: The Desiring Village; consumption, status and identity construction
4.1 Introduction 161
4.2 Food and drink; “enjaying class”, leaving “mass” 162
4.3 Clothes, style and 'looking good'; consuming class without showing off175
4.4. Cell phone, Bike, TV; consuming 'outside' in competition 185
4.5 Constructing new houses; the desire for “neatness” 191
4.6 Money, Asuya (ill-will) and Anomie; ‘consume and show off’, or
‘consume but don’t show off’? 197
4.7 Conclusion 202

Chapter 5: ‘Farmers’ Suicides’; a critical appraisal
5.1 Introduction 204
5.2 A brief overview of official cases of ‘farmers’ suicides’ 205
5.3 Method with experience; the exigencies of fieldwork on suicides 208
5.3.1Iswaramma’s and Jairamlu’s suicides 217
5.3.2 Converting a non-farm related suicide into ‘farmers’ suicide’;
focalisation and transvaluation 224
5.4 'Farmers' suicides’; an aetiological continuum 231
5.4.1 Suicides caused primarily (or substantially) by farming reasons 231
5.4.2 Suicides caused by a combination of farming and non- farming
reasons 246
5.4.3 Suicides caused by exclusive non-farming reasons 249
5.5 Conclusion 258

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Chapter 6: Manam and Avamanam; the ideology and organisation of Suicide
6.1 Introduction 260
6.2 Suicide; the indigenous discourse 261
6.2.1 Paurusham and mānam; the requisites for a “life with honour” 264
6.3 Paurusham and avamānam ; the circumstances of suicide for men 277
6.4 The excesses of paurusham; the circumstances of suicide for women 297
6.5 The effects of paurusham; the organisation and method of suicide 301
6.6 Conclusion 307

Chapter 7: Conclusion
7.1 Introduction 310
7.2 Agricultural crisis and anomie; contradictions between production and
consumption 310
7.3 Egoism; rising individualism and self-interest in social relations 316
7.4 Rural Suicides; an etiological synchronization of egoism, anomie, and
paurusham 318
7.5 Suicide in India; key areas for further research 326

Appendix 1 Masculinities, Modernities and Consumption in Contemporary India 328
Appendix 2 Classification of Households in NRP 340
Appendix 3 Village Household Census Form 343
Appendix 4 Detailed Farm Sample Survey Questionnaire 346

References cited 361

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