Women farmers are the unacknowledged face of India's agriculture as well as its current crisis.

What is it about?

From vegetable patches in the Himalayas up north to muddy water in paddy fields across the south, women labouring in agriculture and allied activities is a common sight across rural India. Yet, few are deemed a farmer by the Indian state, society or the media. A gender bias that runs through land titles, wage levels, money lending, compensation and even media coverage. Thus even in less stressed places and times, photo captions always identify the agriculturalist couple as ‘the farmer and his wife’ and never ‘the farmer couple’. And now, as the ‘farmer’s widow’. This photo essay seeks to highlight such anomalies. It is produced in collaboration with some of the sisters, wives and daughters of debt-ridden farmers who chose to end their lives.

Featured Image

Photo by GreenForce Staffing on Unsplash

Photo by GreenForce Staffing on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Since 1995 India's farming crisis has claimed over 300,000 lives by way of debt-ridden farmers killing themselves. While the crisis doesn't appear to be ending, its continuation over the years has made Indian media and urban public lose interest. By putting faces and other personal details, this project seeks to lend immediacy to an issue, and lend individuality to a people lost to poor agricultural policy, sidelined by media indifference and buried in abstract statistics.

Perspectives