When Students Got Together To Make A Documentary On Farmer Suicides In Maharashtra

“On 21st December 2015, a relative realised that Santosh’s mother had taken poison and rushed her to the hospital. Soon, they realised that his father too had taken the same poison. His mother passed away in the hospital that night. His father passed away after her cremation two days later, leaving Santosh and his siblings with a loan of 4 lakhs and 4 acres of dry land with no access to irrigation.”

As documented in the film, Uprooted, there are several farmers families in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra who are left in the similar scenarios as Santosh. According to report, the regions of Vidarbha and Marathwada were the worst regions hit by the infamous Maharashtra drought of 2015, which lead to 3,338 farmers in the state to be victims of suicide, the highest in the last 14 years.

“India being an agricultural country with 60% of its population living in rural India and close to 48% dependent on agriculture for a livelihood was our motivation to create this documentary.”, explains Talib Chithiwala, the director of Uprooted. Having stated these figures, there is no doubt in saying that this agrarian crisis is the worst we have observed for the longest time, yet the government policies continue to fail when it comes to the welfare of families who are affected by it.

Identifying this as a contemporary problem, the students of KCBMM college got together for their final year semester project and spent roughly about 4 months doing research and field work. “This included meeting with government officials, journalists, social activists, experts and mainly visiting villages in Aurangabad and Vidarbha. The most important aspect of our research was us interacting with the farmers and families of the victims addressing the issue from their perspective and having first hand experience of the situation rather than depending on other people’s views and opinions.”, adds Talib.

The documentary does not only address the problem, but aestheticizes the crisis in a uncompromisingly honest manner by getting into the corners of the drought ridden Vidarbha region. From portraits of tensed families to taps dropping one drop every hour, the documentary takes its audience through the stone roads of the districts in Vidarbha. Not only does the region have extreme poor accessibility to basic resources, but as it is not equipped with irrigation facilities, the region has turned into a dry area during to irregular rainfall in 2015.

The team explains that for many of them it was their first time traveling into the rural parts of Maharashtra and all of them realised that there were two completely different worlds coexisting within the same states. They told us that they became much more exposed to issues like dowry, lack of sanitation and health facilities, roads and infrastructure and most importantly education and the way it is all connected to economic and political issues that lead to farmers committing suicide in the region.

While the government seems to be in the midst of bringing strong policy action after this crisis, the students feel that the biggest solution to this crisis is to improve the level of education in rural areas as well as encourage sustainable development methods for long lasting improvement (e.g. water conservation, fertilizers, management techniques etc). They aim to to use this documentary as a medium to communicate with farmers, which will also inspire, educate and connect famers from two different villages who have faced similar issues and but have found alternatives which has had a positive and sustainable impact.

You can watch the video here.