‘Young men don’t just wake up and decide to die’

Sushil Goyal     

Tribune News Service

Kaheru (Sangrur), January 19    

As I prepare myself to enter 65-year-old Gulzar Singh’s house, the bits of information I already have about the family only heighten the disquiet. On May 13 last year, Gulzar Singh and Surinder Kaur’s 32-year-old son Jaswinder Singh, a bachelor, committed suicide. Six years earlier, elder son Kulwinder Singh, 33, died — the family believes he ended his life. Two months later, his wife Manpreet Kaur, 32, followed suit. Their daughter Parmeet Kaur was six then, son Jaskaran Singh four.

The obvious questions emerge, questions that keep hovering: is there something wrong with this family, is there a suicidal trait? Why would a couple just give up, leaving kids behind? “The mounting debt is what is wrong with the family, the unending cycle of low returns and high borrowings is what makes young men  lose hope and reason,” says my village contact, surprised at my chain of thoughts.

In the house, the grandparents make it a point not to hang the pictures of Kulwinder, Manpreet and Jaswinder in any corner. “What’s the point?” asks Gulzar Singh, “it upsets my grandkids, ruins their day.” He makes an exception for the guest, that’s me, and asks the children to bring the pictures out of the bed-box. “When I truly miss them is when grandmother gets us ready for school,” says Jaskaran. “You know what, uncle,” he adds, “once I’m done with my studies, I want to be a farmer.” Gulzar Singh looks at him with surprise — he doesn’t know whether to feel proud, or disillusioned.

Parmeet is a student of Class 8 in the government senior secondary school and Jaskaran Singh in Class 5. With a limited source of income,  Surinder Kaur’s concerns are immediate: the government, she points out, has not been able to provide winter school uniform for the children.

Gulzar Singh owns 23 bighas in the village and had to give the small landholding on contract this year after Jaswinder’s death. The debt stands at Rs 7 lakh (Rs 4 lakh from a bank, Rs 2 lakh from Housefed and Rs 1 lakh borrowed from an ‘arhtiya’). “The way things are, I will never be able to return the loan,” he says.

Elder son Kulwinder Singh was found unconscious near the railway track, 3 km from Kaheru village, on December 20, 2009. He died at CMC Hospital, Ludhiana, the same day. Gulzar does not skirt the issue. His son apparently committed suicide, he says. Under stress about their financial condition, Kulwinder’s wife Manpreet consumed celphos tablets soon after.

Jaswinder Singh consumed pesticide after his wheat crop on 15 bighas was gutted in a fire in April last year. “He was under severe stress for many days about how he would repay his debt,” says his father.

“What’s disturbing,” he says, “is that it bothers no one. Young farmers killing themselves should shake governments. Here, aspersions are cast on their mental state, on their being weak. What about their mental state? A farmer sees no hope, no help, no future, just the debt. He will go mad, won’t he?”

Gulzar Singh has submitted forms twice for financial assistance under the social security department’s dependent children financial assistance scheme, but there’s been no forward movement.

He even made a representation before the Chief Minister during a Sangat Darshan in the village after the victory of SAD candidate Gobind Singh Longowal in the Dhuri Assembly byelection. “Nothing happened.”

No one came to the bhog too, he says, as if that could have changed the family’s situation. “If any politician did, it was Harpreet Kaur Barnala, wife of former Dhuri MLA Gaganjit Singh Barnala.”

“You know why such things are important,” my contact person tells me later, “it is because it makes people feel wanted, cared for. At times, nothing is more important.”

The elderly couple says their main concern is their grandchildren. The girl is 12, the boy 10. “Their mother’s brothers thankfully keep providing moral support, keep visiting,” says Gulzar Singh. “But young men dying should shake the government, no? Young farmers just don’t wake up one day and decide to die. Who is weak: the governments, or our boys?”