It is commonly believed that Punjab is a rich state and there is no dearth of food there, based on the fact that this state is considered the food bowl of India. However, sometimes, fact can be stranger than fiction.
Recent news reports have shown that there have been incidents of farmers committing suicides in Punjab due to the loans that they had taken for farming but were unable to repay them due to poor income from the crop.
United Sikhs, a global group of social workers of the Sikh faith, started out to identify the families of such victims of suicide but found a more startling statistic: families in Punjab who were alive but hungry.
They went on to find through a research commissioned via four universities in Punjab, families who didn’t have their two square meals a day. In this research, United Sikhs found that in the past 10 years roughly, over 4000 farmers had committed suicide due to bad loans due to amounts as low as Rs 100,000 or 200,000.
United Sikhs crowdfunded to provide 40 families in Sangrur and Barnala districts , what is known as basic food in Punjabi parlance, daal-roti. Hence was launched their anti-hunger project, Daal Roti on July 29.
Mejinder Pal Kaur, legal advisor of United Sikhs told SBS Punjabi: “When we started out to identify families who were victims of farmer suicides, we were surprised to learn that the hunger crisis was not limited only to the survivors of the dead. There were more living people who need help.”
She added that with a nominal monthly donation of INR 1200 or AUD 30, such families can be provided their daily daal-roti.
Listen more about the Daal-Roti Project in this interview.
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