The NCRB data on farmer suicides, its omissions on the reasons, and Maharashtra's overwhelming representation in those figures reminded me of a key character from The Caravan's investigation into Judge Loya's death: Dr Makarand Vyawahare. (1/n)
https://caravanmagazine.in/vantage/loya-post-mortem-manipulated-vyawahare-maharashtra-cabinet-minister-mungantiwar
The story revealed how Vyawahare—then a senior member of the forensic dept at GMC Nagpur—forcefully omitted details of a head injury from Loya's post-mortem. But as we highlighted, he had allegedly been fudging autopsy reports much before that: specifically those of farmers.
One of his former colleagues told me that when he was preparing the reports for three deaths related to poisoning, Vyawahare had forced him to change the smell that the doctor had inferred from the stomach tissue in 2 of the 3 corpses from "insecticidal" to "aromatic. "
