Psychological challenges of survivors of farmers suicide: Evidences from rural Punjab

Farmer suicides in Punjab represent a serious agrarian as well as social and psychological crisis that continues to affect the left-behind families particularly the widows. The present study was undertaken to examine the psychological challenges faced by the survivors of farmers who committed suicide in the south-western districts of Punjab. Primary data were collected from 240 farm households drawn from 77 villages of Bathinda, Mansa and Sangrur districts through snowball sampling during 2023-24. Structured interview schedules were used to gather information from widows and other family members. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was applied to prioritise the psychological challenges, while Tobit regression was employed to identify the socio-economic factors influencing the intensity of these challenges. The results revealed that majority of widows (90.83%) reported psychological distress, with depression (52.50%) and anxiety (31.67%) being the most common conditions. About 18.75 per cent of the widows experienced vulnerability mainly in the form of psychological abuse (53.33%). High blood pressure (25.42%) and diabetes (10.42%) were the leading health ailments among widows. Suicidal tendencies were reported by 11.25 per cent of the survivors. Tobit regression showed that younger age widow, old age widow, Jatt Sikh caste and indebted households significantly increased the intensity of psychological challenges. The study highlights the severe psychological burden borne by the left-behind families and underlines the urgent need for psychosocial support, debt-relief measures and stigma-reduction interventions.