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By Aparna Pallavi Women and moneylenders have always had a volatile relationship. In suicide-ridden Vidarbha, this aspect of the agrarian crisis has remained largely hidden, but in several documented cases, women have been attacked and their land and property snatched
On May 24, 2007, Chaya Thakre, a farmer from Lakhmapur village in Akola district, noticed that local moneylender Sheshrao Sontakke, along with a group of people, was ploughing her family’s four acres of land. Her husband Sahebrao was not at home, so Chaya ran out to challenge Sontakke. Members of the moneylender’s family grabbed Chaya, tied her hands and feet, and beat her up badly. Chaya had to be hospitalised. A month earlier, farmer Kaushalya Bedre of Desaiganj in Chandrapur district was beaten up by local moneylender Gyaneshwar Marke while she was working on her land. Marke and members of his family even snatched her mangalsutra before leaving. On June 16, farmer couple Sheela and Sudhakar Bhakre of Katpur village in Morshi tehsil, Amravati, were attacked by a group of thugs wielding axes and sticks, led by moneylender Ramesh Nibhorkar. Both sustained serious injuries and had to be hospitalised. When the incident came to light, on June 25, the couple was still in hospital. Three recorded incidents in three months, and all involving women. Women and moneylenders have always had a volatile and dangerous relationship, cutting across geographical and historical barriers. In today’s suicide-ridden Vidarbha, this aspect of the agrarian crisis has remained largely hidden. Around two-and-a-half years ago, the village of Dudal in Akola district received state-wide recognition after its residents beat moneylender Bandu Wakhare to death. The latter had demanded that a farmer who could not repay his debt ‘give his daughter instead’. A year after that, a moneylender in Udgir, in Marathwada’s Latur district, kidnapped the wife of an indebted farmer. Press exposure and public pressure forced him to release the woman unharmed. The state government crackdown on moneylending, which has been named as one of the chief causes of farmer suicide, forced many moneylenders underground temporarily. Many did not even turn up to collect their dues after last year’s first crop. But in recent months, violence by moneylenders -- especially in cases relating to mortgaged land -- has risen markedly. In several documented cases, women have been attacked. Apart from the gradual slackening of government vigilance, which is a stock feature of governance in our country, one reason being cited for this sudden spurt is an October 13, 2007 high court judgment that upheld the cause of the moneylender against a farmer. In this case, the farmer had registered a sale deed to his land in the moneylender’s name, in return for a loan. After the loan was repaid, the farmer’s ownership rights were restored by the registrar. Later, however, the moneylender challenged the restoration in the high court, which gave a purely technical judgment that the registrar had no authority to restore the rights. The case is pending. In all three cases of violence mentioned earlier, the reason for the attacks was similar to the above case. Chaya Thakre says: “My husband had borrowed Rs 20,000 against a mortgage of our four acres of land. Even when we paid Rs 32,000 a year later, Sontakke refused to return the papers of our land.” Fortunately for the Thakres, local MLA Gulabrao Gawande intervened under his Shetkari Bachao movement, and the land was returned to the family. “But there was hostility,” says Chaya’s husband Sahebrao. “Sontakke kept telling me that he would take not just my land but also my house. And, on May 22, he made good his threat.” As of now, a police complaint has been lodged and the situation between the two parties is tense. Sudhakar and Sheela Bhakre had also taken a loan of Rs 15,000, at an interest rate of 10% per month, against their 3.5 acres of agricultural land, for treatment of their daughter way back in 1989. Seven months later, the couple went to Nimbhorkar, the moneylender, with Rs 25,000 in capital and interest. But the latter refused to take the money, saying: “I want your land, not your money.” Despite repeated attempts by the Bhakres over the years, Nimbhorkar refused to return the land’s papers. “Nimbhorkar has very good political connections,” says Sudhakar. “So it was not possible for us to take any action against him. We could only keep requesting him.” On June 16, Sudhakar and Sheela were attacked as they worked on their land. If there is one thing that all these incidents prove, it is that despite the hype about government action being taken against moneylenders, the practice is alive and well. There have been at least one or two reports in the press of violence at the hands of moneylenders, every month. “The saokari (moneylending) question is an intricate one,” says activist Kishor Tiwari of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti. “The saokar is an integral part of the village economy, and not a villain as is made out by the government and a section of the media. Of course, violence and exploitation occur at times, and then it can also extend to women in physical or sexual form. But the root of it all lies in government policy.” According to Tiwari, legislation regarding moneylending activities lacks clear and strict regulation on interest rates, procedures regarding mortgage, etc. “That is one reason why saokars are getting away with practices like getting farmers to register sale deeds in return for loans.” Regarding the crucial role of the saokar in the village economy, farmer-activist Gajanan Amdabadkar says: “Banks give credit only for certain specific purposes, and then the procedure is time-consuming and demands paperwork. But farming families’ credit needs are varied and complex. When money is needed urgently, for example in the case of sudden illness or a farming emergency, people have no option but to run to the saokar. And, more often than not, village saokars, despite the exploitative rates of interest they charge, are also sensitive to the problems of the farmers in a certain rough-and-ready way.” “The impersonal bank often tends to be more cruel in a covert way than the moneylender who lives among the villagers,” says activist Chandrakant Wankhede. “When you are fencing face-to-face, and you see your opponent bleed, you can’t but somehow be affected.” Farmer and suicide widow Kusum Ingle of Kanheri Sarap village in Akola district, agrees: “After my husband died, the saokar from whom we had borrowed money waived Rs 5,000 off the sum due to him after he saw our plight. What more could he do? The bank did not even do that much.” According to Wankhede, the credit policy of government banks has driven farmers to the doors of moneylenders. “This year, because of the policy of denying fresh loans to defaulters, only around 30% of all farmers in the region were able to access official credit. How do you think this huge number of farmers will sow their lands but through private credit?” This is especially true of women farmers, particularly farm widows whose land is not registered in their names. Mangala Akoth of Barshi Takli village in Akola says: “I have 5 acres of land, but I have been able to sow just 1 acre this time. The land papers are in my late husband’s name, so the bank would not give me credit.” Even for her 1 acre of cotton, Mangala had to avail of private credit at an exploitative 10% interest rate. “If I cannot recover my costs, I will be in serious trouble,” she says. A similar problem resulted in the suicide of 50-year-old farmer Shanta Vinayak Ingle of Bothbodan village in Yavatmal. Shanta’s son Shaligram says: “My mother and her siblings had paternal land. But my mother could not pay the registry fee required to transfer her share of the land to her name. Unable to access bank credit, she had to repeatedly approach saokars for credit at very high rates of interest. When she committed suicide, she had unpaid private loans worth Rs 30,000.” The relationship between women and saokari credit is complex and layered. Take the case of Babybai Vinod Rathod, also from Bothbodan village. This year, Babybai was unable to sow her land at all. “I asked the village saokar for a loan, but he insisted that I sign a sale deed. But the land was not in my name and I could not do it. As a consequence, I have no loan and no crop,” she says. “I do not know whether it is good or bad,” says Bothbodan sarpanch Anup Chavan, talking about Babybai’s case. “If she had signed the deed, she would have had a crop coming now. But then she might have found herself in a land tussle with the saokar. At least now her land is safe.” Does the solution lie in bringing the moneylender within a regulatory framework? The Reserve Bank, which has recently scripted legislation giving the moneylender legitimate space in the rural economy, appears to think so. The legislation, which acknowledges the wide reach and crucial role of moneylenders in meeting rural credit needs, nevertheless also curbs the power of moneylenders through provisions like compulsory registration and interest caps. While such legislation will have a positive effect, the obvious question is whether the measures will actually be implemented, keeping in mind the vulnerability of the farming population which is by and large too poor to take a stand, and the strong political connections most big and small players in the moneylending business enjoy. The legislation also offers private credit institutions a neat entry point into the rural economy through the medium of the moneylender, who is allowed to borrow from the former. And the timing of the new legislation is suspect -- it comes at a time when not just private banks but also International Financial Institutions (IFIs) are showing an interest in lending to the rural farm sector (the Asian Development Bank earlier this year released a policy paper to this effect). While IFIs are notorious throughout the developing world for their anti-people and developmentally aggressive policies and for bypassing or coercing democratic institutions into passing legislations in their favour, private banks too do not have a very clean record when it comes to doing ethical business. Under the circumstances, the crucial question is whether the proposed legislation will only make it easier for these institutions to use moneylenders as a via media for their own ends. Such situations are not unprecedented. The seed and inputs industry has been using moneylenders (who double as input dealers) to force, cajole or trick farmers into using seeds and inputs manufactured by it. Agricultural disasters have been engineered through such linkages. Could something similar happen to the rural credit sector through IFI-private-bank-moneylender-farmer linkages? It’s too early to tell. Economic questions are intricate and much study will be required before the results of such a move can be accurately gauged. Meanwhile, one thing is certain: with the spate of farm suicides not showing any signs of slowing down, an increasing number of women will have to deal with moneylenders in the coming years. One way or the other, a healthy and pressure-free relationship between the farmer and the moneylender will have to evolve if stories like those of Chaya, Sheela and Kaushalya are not to repeat themselves. (Aparna Pallavi is a Nagpur-based journalist. She is working on an NFI fellowship on the Feminine Face of the Vidarbha Agrarian Crisis.) InfoChange News & Features, November 2007
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