| |
STATES: TAMIL NADU
Crushed By Gold
With insurmountable debts weighing heavily on their
minds, goldsmiths in Coimbatore choose to end their lives
By Arun Ram
 The
smell of death is strong along the labyrinthine Kurumber Street in Coimbatore
these days. It's not the carcasses that hang upside down in the butchers'
stalls on either side, their jugulars still dripping blood. They have
always been there. It's the stench of hopelessness that permeates down
the dank staircases. In the honeycomb-like dwellings on the upper floors,
goldsmiths with little work and lesser pay are contemplating whether to
use the cyanide in their hands for polishing jewellery or to end their
lives. And between the dead and the dying, hope, block-printed like the
fuzzy numbers on cheap lottery tickets, makes a frugal sale.
Indeed, hope in the community of goldsmiths
in this Tamil Nadu town is dying. As are the goldsmiths. With over 30,000
goldsmiths, Coimbatore was once the second largest hub of the yellow metal
workers in the country after Mumbai. But In the past couple of years,
over 200 of them have reportedly taken their lives, buckling under severe
financial stress. In the absence of official figures that is only a conservative
estimate. "It could well be more than 300," says P.K. Sukumaran,
president of the Jewellery Workers' Union.
| |
|
| |
DESPERATION: Senthil and his family live and work in a single-room
apartment
|
With no official monitoring, goldsmiths are increasingly
finding themselves at the mercy of shop owners-and dubious financiers.
Unable to both make ends meet and repay huge loans, they resort to suicide.
In deep debt, goldsmith Kannan and his wife Bhagyalaksmi,ended their lives
and those of their three children. "She never told me how much they
owed whom," says Bhagyalaksmi's brother B.N. Natarajan, himself a
goldsmith struggling with a monthly income of around Rs 2,000.
Like many others, Natarajan is a victim of meter
vatti, a system of levying steep compound interest on borrowings: a loan
of Rs 100 taken in the morning becomes Rs 110 by the evening. It can be
killing, as M. Kannamma found out. Her goldsmith husband died a debtor,
leaving it to her to repay a small loan that had, with meter vatti, grown
to Rs 5 lakh. The financiers kept harassing her. Within a year the amount
spiralled to Rs 25 lakh, pushing Kannamma to make two failed bids on her
life.
Those who live don't know how long they can
carry on. Senthil, 30, works from a single-room Kurumber Street apartment
that he shares with his mother, sister and nephew. "Privacy is a
luxury," he says. "Three years ago, I was earning Rs 4,000-Rs
5,000 and we could lead a decent life. With income dropping by half, I
don't know how to manage the expenses."
Curiously, the police say they have no specific
data on such cases. Says N. Chembagaraman, deputy commissioner of police
(crime and traffic): "We register suicides but I am not in a position
to provide details." The district administration is yet to act on
complaints. M.P. Munisamy, brother of M.P. Selvaraj, a goldsmith who killed
himself last month, says he has submitted several memoranda to the authorities.
"But no action has been taken."
Contradicting Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha,
who recently observed that collectors had a "satisfactory grasp"
over the problems of their districts, N. Muruganandan, Coimbatore's district
collector, says, "I have no information on the subject. I only took
charge a couple of days ago." In fact, one reason why the goldsmiths'
complaints are not being promptly redressed is because of the frequent
reshuffle of officials. The police, no doubt, have intervened after protests
from goldsmiths. As a result, some meter vatti financiers have gone underground,
but there are many who continue to operate secretly, laying easy traps
for the goldsmiths.
|
|
METRO TODAY
Web
Exclusives
