Natha, the protagonist of the comedy "Peepli Live," is on the brink of losing his farm to debt. When a local official mockingly suggests he commit suicide so his family can reap the 100,000 rupee ($2,000) in government compensation, Natha halfheartedly decides to do it.

After a local journalist picks up the story, Natha's impending suicide quickly turns into a hot-button national issue, just as elections are approaching. The core issue is rural poverty, illustrated by the death of the character Hori Mahato, a starving, landless farmer, left unnoticed in the media frenzy surrounding Natha, said Ron Herring, professor of government, on a panel of three Cornell scholars who discussed the film after an Oct. 26 Cornell Cinema screening in Willard Straight Hall.

"Hori died hungry. Nobody pays attention to the real problem, the slow degradation of farmers at the bottom of the pyramid. At the same time, the media creates this buzz about a pseudo event which takes the public space," said Herring. The film's satirical approach, poking fun at civil society, the media, state and federal government, exposed this oversight.

The panel agreed that a fall in the rate of increase in agricultural productivity, unreliable rainfall and risky cultivation of cash crops are the main causes of rural crisis in parts of India. However, the Sundance Film Festival-award winning film does not focus on these issues.

"As wickedly funny as the film is, it doesn't really get us any closer to understanding the problems of rural cultivation or the causes of these suicides," said panelist Hayden Kantor, a graduate student in the field of anthropology.

One member of the audience argued that capitalism is the problem. This is the narrative of nongovernmental organizations, said Herring, but "debt can come from a lot of different places." In the film, the debt was caused by medical expenses; "failure of public provisioning of health services, credit and crop insurance exacerbate rural desperation," Herring said. Without good data, it is unclear which farmers are committing suicides and how many, noted panelist Chandrasekhara Rao, a visiting Fulbright professor.

The film's closing credits say that almost 200,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide in the last 10 years or so, yet according to official national data, Herring said, farmer suicide rates are relatively low and stable.

As part of an interdisciplinary team, Herring interviewed Indian farmers in 2006 and found "the media construction baseless," Herring later wrote in an e-mail. "Farmers were insulted and incredulous: If farmers committed suicide every time they fell into debt, they said, there would be no farmers. 'What kind of people do they think we are that we would leave our families helpless by committing suicide?' [they said]."

He added that although 200,000 suicides sounds extraordinary, India has 1.2 billion people with many farmers; even a low suicide rate will produce a lot of suicides over 10 years. "The movie rightly shows how media competition and incompetence generate the buzz around farmer suicides," he wrote. "The troubles of Indian farmers are real, but not much noticed by political parties, government agents or news media."

The discussion after the film also addressed suicide in general, as a tragic event and a vivid reality for many in the Cornell community. Herring said he received letters about Cornell's status as a "suicide school," after the cluster of several student suicides last year. But when considered over a 15-year period, the suicide rate at Cornell is below average, he said. "This doesn't mean the suicides weren't tragic," he said. "It just means there isn't anything specific about being at Cornell that causes suicides." The event was sponsored by the Department of Government, South Asia Program and Anthropology Graduate Student Association.

Erica Rhodin '12 is a student writer intern for the Cornell Chronicle.