Successive years of crop failure and three suicides in the family would have forced any woman to sell her farm and abandon agriculture altogether. But not Jyoti Deshmukh, a resident of Katyar village in Maharashtra’s Akola district. “A day after we had performed the tehravi rituals (performed 13 days after the death of a person) for my husband, I shifted from our home to our farm,” said Jyoti. “My father told me to come home as I was just 41 then. But I urged him to give me one year to try my hand at farming.”
Thirteen years after her husband, Santosh, took his own life, Deshmukh is a successful farmer today. Her story is a remarkable tale of determination and sheer hard work in the face of immense odds that a widow faces after her husband’s death.Jyoti’s father-in-law, Purushottam Deshmukh, died by suicide in 2001. As did her brother-in-law Sunil in 2004. “Not only did our crops fail, but his business failed too,” Jyoti said of Sunil. “He had turned cotton trader to supplement family income. He purchased cotton at Rs2,500 per quintal and hoped to sell to big traders at a profit of Rs250-300 per quintal. But the prices crashed and he was forced to sell his cotton at Rs1,400-1,500 per quintal. The loss was huge and he never recovered from it.”
Then, in 2007, she lost her husband. “We own 29 acres of agricultural land. But we hardly got anything that year. My husband suddenly became silent. He was not himself. One day, he consumed pesticide and ended his life. I was devastated to witness three suicides in six years. I did not know what to do with life or how to take care of my son who was in Class 9,” said Jyoti. In the years that followed, Jyoti not only turned around her family’s agricultural fortunes, but also educated her son Hemant, who is an engineer in Pune now. Along the way, she constructed a concrete-roofed home and bought a two-wheeler and a Deutz-Fahr tractor. “I barely stepped out of our house until my husband’s death,” said Jyoti. “I did not know anything about farming. I was confined to the home and kitchen, and was raising my son. After my husband’s time, elders in the village advised me to sell the land. My father, too, said that I should return home with my son. But I wanted to try my hand at farming. I urged my father and others to give me one year. I told them that if the crop fails again, I would act as per their wishes.”
Jyoti was encouraged by a local government official. He told her that women have started going to space and conquering many fields, and there was nothing wrong if she wanted to follow her heart.
A majority of Jyoti’s land is khar pan land, which means the groundwater is saline and unfit for agriculture. One of the first things she did after moving to her farm was to survey the land and find a spot with sweet water. She dug a borewell there and planted gram and moong in the first year. “My moong failed completely; but the gram was a success. I managed to get 100 bags of yield. That was my first income in the year after my husband’s death,” said Jyoti.In 2009, she turned to soya bean. Vijayrao Deshmukh, a farmer from a neighbouring village, helped her with the soya bean crop. “Vijayrao gave me two bags of soya bean seeds and told me how to cultivate it,” she said. “When villagers came to know about it, they started laughing as nobody had cultivated soya bean in our village till then. But I persisted. Along with soya bean, I sowed moong again that year. Once again, the moong failed but the soya bean gave me a very good yield. I earned Rs85,000 after selling it in the market. This was my first success. It was a revelation for the village too. Those who had laughed at me came to me and asked how I did it.”
Since then, Jyoti has not looked back. She has been cultivating crops with reasonable success every year. “Villagers made fun of me, told me to go away after selling my land. But my son told me not to sell even an inch of it. He likes farming. He said if we sell it now, we may get money, but we may not be able to buy so much land in future. He was studying back then. He told me, ‘Mother, I do not want anything extra. I do not mind even if we earn less, but please do not sell our farm,’” recalled Jyoti. Her annual agriculture income is around Rs6 lakh. Today, she cultivates cotton, soya bean, toor, gram and moong. She rebuilt her house in 2010. What used to be a kachcha village house is today a two-bedroom proper house with a compound wall. She bought her tractor in 2017 as villagers were hesitant to lend her their tractors. She used to plead with them for their tractors. They would not refuse, but would never give either. One day, in 2013, a villager agreed to help her with his tractor. “But he came late in the evening. It was almost dark and he did a shoddy job on my farm. The next day, after seeing what he had done, I realised that I would have to buy a tractor,” said Jyoti.
Yielding success: Jyoti Deshmukh at the APMC market in Akola | Amey Mansabdar
Hers is the only tractor in the village with a woman’s name on it. “When I painted my name on the tractor that hurt a lot of male egos in the village,” said Jyoti. This year, Jyoti was felicitated by a number of organisations. Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh Agriculture University felicitated her for being a successful farmer, as did Bachchu Kadu, guardian minister of Akola. “The minister felicitated me recently. He came home and listened to my story patiently,” said Jyoti. The certificate given to her by Bachchu Kadu reads: “Sister, you have achieved a lot. You did not give up despite the death of your husband, you did not leave the fight midway. You began tilling the land and also took good care of your child. You are truly an inspiration.”
The only thing that bothers Jyoti now is the attitude of the villagers. Earlier, they used to make fun of her. Now, they are jealous of her and trouble her in many ways. They do not allow her to park her tractor at her home. They have asked her not to bring it inside the village. On some days, vandals damage the power lines to her home, leaving her in darkness. “I don’t know what pleasure they get. I also try to give it back to them,” she said. “Normally, men in the village do not help with my farming. So, I have had to hire a farmhand from the neighbouring Amravati district.”
Jyoti is firm that she will not sell her land. “There was a day, after my husband’s death, on which I, too, contemplated consuming pesticide,” she said. “But the thought of my son and our village deity, Lord Kateshwar, gave me the necessary strength to carry on. My son is in Pune now and I can go there to live with him. But what will I do there? I enjoy farming and this land has given me so much.”