"The National Crime Records Bureau of India reported in its 2012 annual report that 135,445 people committed suicide in India, of which 13,754 were farmers (11.2%)."
"India's adjusted annual suicide rate is 10.5 per 100,000, while the suicide rate for the world as a whole is 11.6 per 100,000."
Of the total number of farmer suicides in 2002, 16.81% are attributed to crop failure, 2.65% to a price crash and debt burden and 0.88% to borewell failure.
My conclusions:
1. While even a single suicide is one suicide too many, India is better off in per capita terms than many developed countries.
2. Farmers constitute 60% of the population, while 11.2% of the total people committing suicides are farmers.
3. Of the farmers committing suicides, only 16.81+2.65+2.65+0.88 = 22.99% do it for farm related reasons. This means percentage of farm related suicides is 11.2x22.99 = 2.57%.
4. The other reasons for a farmer to commit suicide are similar to reasons for anyone else to commit suicide. Those suicides should ideally not be counted under farmers' suicides.
In pure number terms, it appears to me that suicide among farmers is not the pandemic it is made out to be. On the contrary, least number of suicides seem to be attributable to farm related reasons.
Suicide is probably a bigger problem in another demographic, but we don't talk about it.
PS: Assumption - the 2002 statistics for reasons for committing suicide by farmers are assumed to be roughly same today also.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers%27_suicides_in_India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_India
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