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Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
Ismat Ara

‘Breaks your dignity’: India’s farm credit lifeline turns into debt trap

Mohsin (right) and his father in their home near Meerut, India, ponder over how they will repay a loan they took out on a credit scheme for farmers. Their loan was to pay off a dowry for Mohsin's sister [Ismat Ara/Al Jazeera]

Meerut, India – The last of the paint had begun to peel off Mohammad Mohsin’s house two years ago. The faded green, white and yellow paints on the walls still bore stains from last year’s monsoons.

A narrow, 3-foot-tall (0.9 metres) passage only possible to enter by crouching, led from the kitchen into a courtyard lined with buffalo dung, a rusting scooter, and a creaking cot in northern India’s Meerut district, about 100km (62 miles) from New Delhi.

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