1,500 farmers commit mass suicide in India

Belfast Telegraph ^ | 4/15/09

[B-Chan]

Hooray, Portugal!

[bigjoesaddle]

I like your term “hopeychangey “. I will use it, and the’s nothing you can do about it.

[bmwcyle]

What does the the red area have in common?

[Scythian]

I totally agree, watching this video showed me the cynacism in my own self, I wept at the end upon hearing the female judges words Susan Boyle Even without her voice, we are all wonderfully made.

[bigjoesaddle]

If a museum with 1,500 priceless paintings burns down, people everywhere cry for the loss to humanity, and rightly so. Yet when 1,500 innocent human beings die — each one a unique and priceless work of art — we shrug at the loss.

Good point. thank you.

[B-Chan]

More than 40,000 Americans die on the road every year, all needlessly (we could live without cars), and no one cares. By comparison, we lost something like 50,000 during the entire Vietnam War.

I don’t get it.

[yankeedame]

1,500 farmers commit mass suicide in India

Please excuse display of ignorance, but how did this all come about? Who came up with the idea? Who organized it? Chattisgarh is a fairly large state Did someone -- or some group -- travel throughout the state looking for and/or convincing participants in this? How is it that no one in any sort of authority, even a local school teacher, didn't get wind of this and report it? B/c they kept it a secret? All 1,500 + their families? All of them? It would be on the scale of someone traveling around Nebraska trying to convince 1,500 farmers to commit suicide all at once. And how did these Indian farmers do it:"All together now...One...Two..."

[dead]

Folks, please. I love to joke around as much as the next guy, but we’re talking about 1,500 DEAD HUMAN BEINGS. Can we please at least act like we give a damn?

It's a nonsensical article, with absolutely no attempt to even pretend to validate the figure given in the first sentence.

120,000 midgets had an earache.

[WOBBLY BOB]

really mass transit:

[ConservativeMan55]

They didn’t do it all at once lol

[Red Badger]

Why are people in CUBA committing suicide? They have free healthcare and all.....................

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

That was what I mentioned earlier. These are individual suicides, with individual reasons for the same, but largely related to debts.


You must remember roughly 70% of India's adult population are farmers, and it won't be a big coincidence that most people who commit suicide, are farmers as well.

Like I said, the whole article is based on journalistic word-play. They are making it sound as if it was one of those Jonestown-esque mass-suicides.


Comparative statistics:

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

IIRC, that photo was of a train carrying refugees from Bangladesh into India, during the Bangladesh War in 1971.

[Moonman62]

Bharatendu Prakash, from the Organic Farming Association of India, told the Press Association: "Farmers' suicides are increasing due to a vicious circle created by money lenders. They lure farmers to take money but when the crops fail, they are left with no option other than death."

Mr Prakash added that the government ought to take up the cause of the poor farmers just as they fight for a strong economy.

Usury and bankruptcy laws sound like a good idea.

[Moonman62]

What does the the red area have in common?

Looking at the entire map, I'd say that religious beliefs play a large role.

[Travis T. OJustice]

Alos, 1500 people out of a billion is not a very large number to be freaking out about. More people die than that in the USA from slips and falls at home. And they didn’t happen all at once, desapite how some people want to read it into the story.

[Travis T. OJustice]

I don’t hink the Japanese, Iranians and Spanish share much religious parity.

[ScottinVA]

“I like your term “hopeychangey “. I will use it, and the’s nothing you can do about it.”

LOL! Not a problem, since I “borrowed” the term from another FReeper.

[B-Chan]

You’re right. Their lives were meaningless. Sorry to have interrupted your ball game.

[B-Chan]

Materialism + lack of sincere Christian belief = hopelessness —> suicide