Farmers in India face chronic psychological strain arising from financial instability, climate uncertainty, social responsibility, and repeated exposure to loss. While agrarian distress is widely discussed in economic and policy terms, the emotional and psychological processes through which farmers survive these adversities remain underexplored. This study examines how farmers in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra, one of the most suicide-affected agricultural belts in India, regulate emotions and cope with everyday hardship through culturally embedded practices.
Using a qualitative exploratory design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 farmers (male and female) from a rural village in Marathwada. Participants were selected through community-based convenience sampling, and interviews focused on emotional experiences, stressors, interpersonal relationships, and everyday coping strategies. The data were analysed using thematic analysis to identify recurring emotional patterns and culturally grounded forms of regulation.
Findings reveal that farmers rely heavily on relational and activity-based coping rather than verbal emotional expression. Working in the fields, sharing distress with neighbours, fulfilling family responsibilities, and maintaining social dignity emerged as key mechanisms through which emotional suffering is managed. Emotional suppression, endurance, and collective resilience were found to coexist with deep psychological vulnerability, particularly among women and young widows. Despite persistent adversity, farmers demonstrated adaptive forms of meaning-making and social support that buffered against complete emotional collapse.
This study highlights the importance of understanding emotional regulation as a culturally situated process rather than an individual psychological skill. The findings suggest that mental-health interventions for farming communities must be grounded in social relationships, community spaces and everyday practices rather than solely clinic-based models. By foregrounding farmers' voices, this research contributes to applied psychology, rural mental-health policy, and culturally responsive well-being frameworks in the Global South.