Ramrao: The Story of India's Farm Crisis

"ONE MORNING IN 2014, Ramrao Panchleniwar, a cotton grower in Maharashtra’s infamous Vidarbha region, consumed two bottles of pesticide. Had he succeeded in his bid to commit suicide, he would have been reduced to a statistic. After all, a farmer ends his life every thirty minutes in India; in Maharashtra alone, close to 60,000 such suicides have taken place over the past two decades. But Ramrao miraculously survived. In this book, rural journalist Jaideep Hardikar attempts to put a face to the country’s unending farm crisis with his story. He takes the reader on a journey of the everyday life of an Indian farmer, his struggles and many failings, the quagmire of issues he faces, and how he comes to a pass where he chooses to put an end to it all. The result of years of committed reportage, Ramrao turns an ordinary life into an essential biography for our times."