A post is being widely shared on Facebook with a claim that Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala are the states with the highest farm-labourer suicides for the 2014-16 period. Let’s try to analyze the claim made in the post.
Claim: Tamil Nadu (1776), Andhra Pradesh (1437) and Kerala (1205) had the highest farm-labourer suicides for the 2014-16 period.
Fact: According to the numbers provided by the Minister of State (Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare) in an answer to the Lok Sabha in 2018, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh were the states with the highest agricultural labourer suicides for the 2014-16 period. Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala occupied 3rd, 5th and 6th places respectively. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
When searched for the agricultural labourer suicides data on Google, it was found that the National Crime Records Bureau has not yet released the agricultural labourer suicides data for the year 2016. But, it was found that the Minister of State (Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare) has provided provisional data of the year 2016 in his answer to a question in the Lok Sabha in March-2018. The annexure to the Lok Sabha answer had the data related to agricultural labourer suicides for the 2014-16 period (with provisional data for the year 2016). On calculating the total number of agricultural labourer suicides in each state during the period 2014-16, it was found that Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have topped with 3808 and 1803 suicides respectively. Tamil Nadu (1776), Karnataka (1686), Andhra Pradesh (1437) and Kerala (1205) have occupied 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th positions respectively. So, the post is misleading people by not mentioning that Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh that have recorded higher agricultural labourer suicides than the states mentioned in the post.
To sum it up, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have the highest farm-labourer suicides for the 2014-16 period.
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