An Indian farm worker plows a field on the outskirts of Jalandhar, in the state of Punjab, February, 2018.

2018 年 2 月，旁遮普邦贾朗达尔郊区，一名印度农场工人正在犁地。

Gazing across the pristine fields in the district of Sangrur in northern India, there was little indication families here were struggling. A nearby canal brought water to the wheat and rice crops that were the life source of the village's farmers.
Typical for India, the edges of the canal were littered with empty plastic bags, soda cans, and dark orange pesticide containers that swirled together in a corner where the water met a bridge.
But alongside the discarded trash floated something else: a bloated body. It was the third body that had been sighted that day, locals told us.

凝视着印度北部桑格鲁尔地区原始的田野，几乎没有迹象表明这里的家庭正在挣扎。附近的一条运河为该村农民的生活来源小麦和水稻作物提供了水源。
典型的印度，运河边上到处都是空塑料袋、汽水罐和深橙色的杀虫剂容器，它们在水与桥交汇的角落里盘旋在一起。
但在被丢弃的垃圾旁边漂浮着另一个东西：一具臃肿的尸体。当地人告诉我们，这是当天发现的第三具尸体。

I've encountered many devastating scenes like this, since I first started visiting farming families across the state of Punjab almost a decade ago. I go as part of a medical exchange program where American physicians learn how biopsychosocial factors -- such as government policies, the environment or economics -- impact health globally. Our group also partners with the local Baba Nanak Education Society, to gain a grassroots perspective.
In some cases, locals retrieve these bodies and return them to their families. Often, they are not recognizable and left to decompose in the river. By village consensus, the cause of death in this case was suicide. Though I'm not sure the body was ever identified.

自从大约十年前我第一次开始拜访旁遮普邦的农民家庭以来，我遇到过很多这样的毁灭性场景。我参加了一个医疗交流项目，美国医生在那里学习生物心理社会因素：例如政府政策、环境或经济是如何影响全球健康的。我们的团队还与当地的Baba Nanak 教育协会合作，以获得基层视角。
在某些情况下，当地人会取回这些尸体并将其归还给家人。通常，它们无法辨认的，并留在河中分解。村民一致认为，本案的死因是自杀。虽然我不确定尸体是否被确认过。

During these visits, we speak to families affected by the epidemic of farmer suicides. Those left behind -- parents, wives and children -- share their immense grief in the wake of a death. They describe debt passed from one deceased son to another, resulting in multiple suicides in one family.
The families tell us that children, particularly girls, are pulled out of school because they can no longer afford the cost of education. Young girls show us their carefully guarded treasure of dowry goods, woven with their own hands, to decrease the ultimate financial burden on their families.
The situation for India's more than 260 million agricultural workers is dire. Nearly 30 people in the farming sector die by suicide daily, according to the most recent figures available, typically due to overwhelming debt. Indeed in 2020, more than 10,000 people in the agricultural sector ended their own lives, according to government data.

在这些访问期间，我们与受流行农民自杀而受影响的家庭交谈。那些留下来的人——父母、妻子和孩子——在其死亡之后受到了巨大的痛苦。他们描述了债务从一个已故的儿子转移到另一个，导致一个家庭的多起自杀。
这些家庭告诉我们，儿童，特别是女孩，被迫辍学，因为他们再也负担不起教育费用。年轻女孩们向我们展示她们精心保管的嫁妆宝藏，用自己的双手编织而成，以减轻她们家庭的最终经济负担。
印度的情况2.6亿农民的处境十分严峻。根据可获得的最新数据，从事农业的人每天有近30人死于自杀，通常是由于巨额债务。根据政府数据，事实上在 2020 年，超过 10,000 名从事农业的人结束了自己的生命。

India's economic backbone -- its farmers and their families -- is in collapse. They face crushing pressures: insurmountable debt, environmental degradation, and extreme rates of cancer lixed to exposure to pesticides.
This strain is compounded by climate change and extreme weather -- from ground water depletion to water shortages and crop damage due to rising temperatures -- effects which have been tied to increasing suicides in India.
Farming is a notoriously economically unstable industry globally, but farmers in India find themselves buried under densely layered problems. Many are subsistence farmers who are drowning in the volatility caused by the Green Revolution which began in the 1960s as a way of industrializing the agriculture sector with high yielding seeds, mechanized tools and pesticides.

印度的经济支柱——农民和他们的家庭——正在崩溃。他们面临着巨大的压力：无法克服的债务 ,环境退化，接触杀虫剂有关的极端癌症发病率。
气候变化和极端天气加剧了这种压力——从地下水枯竭到水资源短缺和气温升高导致的作物损失——这些影响与印度的自杀人数增加有关。
农业是全球众所周知的经济不稳定产业，但印度的农民发现自己被埋在层层叠叠的问题之下。许多自给自足的农民，他们淹没在1960 年代开始的绿色革命所造成的动荡中，这是一种利用高产种子、机械化工具和杀虫剂实现农业产业化的方法。

In some cases, farmers cannot work their land due to illness lixed to the revolution's pesticides and fertilizers. They are dealing with deep-rooted battles against multinational corporations. And all the while having to take out loans each year to make the agricultural cycle possible.
And then, when farmers are unable to get loans from legitimate banks, illegal moneylenders -- or loan sharks -- step in, charging exorbitant interest rates and creating an inescapable debt-trap for farmers, in some instances pushing them to suicide.
The state of Punjab where we visit, is known as the breadbasket of India. While it accounts for approximately 3% of India's arable land, it grows almost 20% of the country's wheat and 12% of the country's rice. It is also known as "ground zero" for India's Green Revolution. What happens in Punjab is a warning sign for the rest of the country. Over the last five years, suicides in the rural Indian State of Punjab increased by over 12 times.

在某些情况下，农民由于与革命中使用的杀虫剂和化肥有关的疾病而不能耕种。他们正在应对与跨国公司的根深蒂固的斗争。与此同时，每年都要贷款以维持农业周期。
然后，当农民无法从合法银行获得贷款时，非法放债人（或放高利贷者）就会介入，收取过高的利率，并为农民制造不可避免的债务陷阱，在某些情况下会迫使他们自杀。
我们访问的旁遮普邦被称为印度的粮仓。虽然它约占印度耕地的 3%，但它种植了该国近 20% 的小麦和该国 12% 的稻米。它也被称为印度绿色革命的“归零地”。旁遮普邦发生的事情对该国其他地区来说是一个警告信号。在过去五年中，印度旁遮普邦农村的自杀人数增加了 12 倍以上。

But addressing the epidemic of farmer suicide is not just a distant policy problem. In a country of nearly 1.4 billion, where almost 60% of the population relies on agriculture for its livelihood, effectively reforming India's agricultural sector is quite literally a matter of life and death.
A first step for India would be to acknowledge and track farmer suicides as the harbinger of trouble. While it's clear that Indian farmers are facing obstacles that make it nearly impossible to provide for their families, what we don't know is the magnitude of the problem.

但是，解决农民自杀的流行不仅仅是一个遥远的政策问题。在一个拥有近 14 亿人口、近60% 的人口以农业为生的国家，印度农业部门的有效改革实际上是一件生死攸关的事情。
印度的第一步是承认和追踪农民自杀是麻烦的预兆。虽然很明显，印度农民正面临着几乎不可能养家糊口的障碍，但我们不知道问题的严重性。

Suicide is illegal in India, with prison time threatened for anyone who attempts or is deemed to have assisted with the act. This policy, a remnant of British colonial rule, makes it exceedingly difficult to collect accurate data.
Experts have noted for years that criminalizing suicide results in severe underreporting of its occurrence across the country. The 2017 Mental Healthcare Act attempted to limit the Indian Penal Code's applicability and to decriminalize suicide, in the hopes of empowering people to receive mental health treatment. But critics of the law have pointed out that these attempts have proven ineffective for two key reasons: Section 309 on suicide remains law, and law enforcement officials continue to enforce it.

在印度，自杀是非法的，任何企图自杀或被认为协助自杀的人都将面临牢狱之苦。这一政策是英国殖民统治的残余，使得收集准确的数据极其困难。
多年来，专家们一直指出，将自杀定为犯罪导致全国范围内自杀事件的严重少报。2017年的《心理健康法》试图限制印度刑法的适用性，并将自杀合法化，以期赋予人们接受心理健康治疗的权利。但该法案的批评者指出，这些尝试被证明是无效的，原因有两个:关于自杀的第309条仍然是法律，执法人员继续执行它。

Even today, India's suicide statistics -- including official statistics on farmer suicide -- are published by the National Crime Records Bureau and are based on police reports and investigations. In a culture where mental health and suicide are highly stigmatized, impoverished families are disincentivized from reporting suicide to authorities because the state fails to provide families the support they need and registers their loved ones as criminals.
Once acknowledged and documented, multiple potential solutions are available. Increasing mental health services can significantly reduce suicide rates, and is another step towards a solution. ​Informal moneylenders and loan sharks must be investigated, their systems dismantled and more viable loan options provided to farmers.

即使在今天，印度的自杀统计数据——包括农民自杀的官方统计数据——仍由国家犯罪记录局公布，并基于警方的报告和调查。在心理健康和自杀受到高度污名化的文化中，贫困家庭没有意愿向当局报告自杀，因为国家未能为家庭提供所需的支持，并将他们的亲人登记为罪犯。
一旦得到确认和记录，就有多种可能的解决方案可用。增加心理健康服务可以显着降低自杀率，这是朝着解决方案迈出的又一步。必须调查非正式放债人和放高利贷者，废除他们的制度，向农民提供更可行的贷款选择。

Banning highly hazardous pesticides in farming is also a cost-effective way to prevent suicide, including across India as a whole. Indeed, India has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, with an estimated 170,000 people taking their lives each year, according to the World Health Organization.
While civil rights activists have been sounding the alarm over farmer suicides for decades, there has largely been deafening silence from the global community.
That was until February 2, 2021, when music icon Rihanna posted a tweet heard around the world. She lixed to a CNN article about the Indian government's violent crackdown on the non-violent "farmers' protests," and wrote: "Why aren't we talking about this?! #FarmersProtest." Within a day, it was already one of her most popular posts, with nearly 1 million likes. A few hours later, another tweet from climate justice activist Greta Thunberg went viral too.

在农业中禁止使用高度危险的杀虫剂也是一种经济有效的防止自杀的方法，包括整个印度。事实上，印度是世界上自杀率最高的国家之一，据世界卫生组织估计，印度每年有17万人自杀。
几十年来，民权活动人士一直在就农民自杀问题发出警告，而国际社会却在很大程度上保持着的沉默。
直到2021年2月2日，音乐偶像Rihanna 发布了一条全世界都能听到的推特。她链接到CNN一篇关于印度政府暴力镇压非暴力“农民抗议”的文章，并写道:“我们为什么不讨论这个?!”# 农民抗议。”在一天之内，这就成为了她最受欢迎的帖子之一，有近100万个赞。几小时后，气候正义活动人士 Greta Thunberg的另一条推文也在网上疯传。

Just like that, the world's attention focused on the "farmers' protests" which by that point had already been going on for more than six months and which some had already identified as the largest protest in human history. By early December, more than 250 million people had participated in a nationwide strike, in a show of solidarity.
The protest was in response to farming laws aimed at loosening the rules around the sale, pricing and storage of farm produce that protected farmers from an unfettered free market for decades.

就这样，全世界的注意力都集中在了当时已经持续了六个多月的“农民抗议”上，一些人已经将其认定为人类历史上最大规模的抗议活动。到 12 月初，超过 2.5 亿人参加了全国性的罢工，以示团结。
抗议活动是对旨在放松农产品销售、定价和储存规则的农业法律的回应，这些规定几十年来一直保护农民不受自由市场的限制。

Some saw the legislation as a necessary move that would finally open up India's faltering economy by giving farmers more autonomy to set their own prices and sell to private corporations directly. Others saw it as a heavy-handed move that would benefit large companies and spell doom for working class farmers.
Protesters against the farm bills flooded the streets of New Delhi, in the midst of a global pandemic and in the face of unrelenting police violence, risking their lives to make their voices heard. Indeed, 700 farmers died while calling for reforms, according to unx leaders.

一些人认为，这项立法是一个必要举措，它将赋予农民更多自主定价和直接向私营企业出售产品的权利，从而最终开放印度步履蹒跚的经济。另一些人则认为，这是一项严厉的举措，将使大公司受益，但却给农民阶级的农民带来厄运。
反对农业法案的抗议者涌上新德里街头，在全球大流行的情况下，面对警察的无情暴力，他们冒着生命危险发出自己的声音。事实上，根据工会领导人的说法，有700名农民在呼吁改革的过程中死亡。

Now, more than a year after they first started protesting, the farmers have won their battle with the government. In late November, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that he would be repealing the farm bills that launched the farmers' protests.
Many around the world have celebrated this decision, seeing it as grassroots victory over the commercial aspirations of the world's largest democracy. Some also see it as a source of hope for non-violent, democratic protest in a moment where many are investing in social justice efforts but also losing confidence in them.

现在，在他们开始开始抗议一年多后，农民已经赢得了与政府的斗争。11 月下旬，印度总理纳伦德拉·莫迪宣布，他将废除引发农民抗议的农业法案。
世界各地的许多人都在庆祝这一决定，将其视为基层民众对世界上最大民主国家的商业愿望的胜利。一些人也将其视为非暴力民主抗议的希望之源，因为很多人都在为社会正义努力投资，但也对这些努力失去了信心。

While there is much to celebrate, those who know the plight of Indian farmers more intimately understand that India's decision to repeal the laws is not the end of the struggle -- but rather, just the beginning.
India needs far more than agricultural reform. Officials can begin by destigmatizing and decriminalizing suicide, by sincerely committing to collecting accurate data on suicide attempt and mortality, and by devoting resources to support the mental health needs of India's farmers and their families. Because right now, many Indian farmers are killing themselves to put food on the nation's tables.

尽管有很多值得庆祝的事情，但那些更了解印度农民困境的人更清楚地知道，印度废除这些法律的决定并不是斗争的结束，而仅仅是一个开始。
印度需要的远不止农业改革。官员们可以从消除自杀的污名化和非犯罪化开始，真诚地致力于收集关于自杀未遂和死亡的准确数据，并投入资源支持印度农民及其家庭的心理健康需求。因为现在，许多印度农民为了国家的餐桌上有食物，不惜牺牲自己的生命。