This article makes an attempt to examine how far Durkheim's types explain farmer suicides in India and suggests that they correspond to two of his types - egoism and anomie. Agrarian changes having considerably lowered the level of economic achievements of farmers, the disproportion between achievement and aspiration is greatly felt by those who experienced egoism. This study argues that anomie is an effect of egoism. The latter, a structural characteristic of modern agrarian economy and society, is the prerequisite for emergence of the former.

Agricultural development in Maharashtra over the last three decades has been unequal across regions with western Maharashtra much ahead of other regions in terms of major developmental indicators.