Omnipresent but de-prioritised: Understanding the many faces of mental health and suicide in India

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The report is structured so that suicide rates, which is the incidence of suicides per one lakh of the population, are simultaneously determined at multiple categorization levels: gender, age, social status (married, single, etc.), professional background , and also the reported reasons behind death by suicide. These categories overlap to form individual identities and histories of struggle and therefore require personalized solutions to problems that are largely systemic.

For example, a married farmworker in Punjab has different intersectional vulnerabilities than her counterpart in Telangana, and is even further removed from a single student preparing for exams in a city. Suggesting that a common solution can solve the problem for all three is quite convenient. Efforts are needed to probe the timing and intensity of interventions throughout an individual’s life course, starting from the earliest years. The paucity of statistics and literature on “distal risk factors such as depression and premature alcohol-induced deaths” is a key issue that requires attention, in addition to urgently addressing the global lack of research on suicide prevention.

One of the important issues highlighted by the report is the high prevalence of suicides in the 18-30 age group, which represents about 35% of deaths, followed by 32% of deaths in the 30-year-old group. to 45 years. This is a serious concern considering that it is increasingly difficult for the working population to continue to live amid existing socio-economic pressures. It is not only a reflection of the labor sector in crisis, but it may also be hinting at the widespread presence of work and the professional tensions that accompany it in our daily lives. It became even more prominent during the last two years of COVID-19, when working hours were mostly indeterminate in the precarious work-from-home arrangement. While everyone who didn’t lose their job was required to stay home during COVID, it was the women who lost years of freedom by not having alternative spaces of respite where they could have a family respite. This may explain the staggering statistics of more than half of women dying by suicide as homemakers. Even when the overall ratio of male to female suicide deaths is 72.5:27.4, the proportion of the female population that succumbs to marriage-related problems, especially with regard to dowryand impotence/infertility is still much more than men.

States and UTs such as Kerala, Puducherry, and Sikkim, which consistently perform well on various national human development indices, also have the highest suicide rates, which is an indication of how a country’s economy-driven estimates of development state do not take population into account. mental health. To substantiate this claim, NCRB data also reveals that four megacities: Delhi, Chennai, BengaluruY mumbai — together they account for more than a third of all suicides in the country. As a consequence, urbanism certainly cannot be expected to guarantee better care of its people: the composite rate of suicides in cities (16.1) is higher than the national average (12). The persistence of high suicide rates in certain states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh in recent years is an indication that structural (area-specific) factors can also have a continuing effect on an individual’s health, and reverse this will require a national policy coupled with state sensitive intervention programs.

The medicalized nature of suicide tends to nullify its sociocultural roots, and that is why the vital capacity of the community to control them is often forgotten. The portrayal of suicide in popular media is reductive and misleading, only exacerbating the problem. The language used in the mainstream media is also channeled into misinterpreting suicide as an individual choice rather than addressing it as a systemic problem, by inappropriately labeling verbs such as “commit” to it. These factors make it difficult to involve suicide in discourse and its treatment in public health. the stigma associated with suicide along with those of depression and mental healthin general, they create a vortex of shame and danger, preventing people from sharing what is really bothering them with others.

The problem is structural, so the solutions can only be found in improving the quality of life through evidence-based care. A recent article in the Lancet Psychiatry, authored by a number of subject matter experts and civil society leaders, provides a path to do so with detailed recommendations on priority interventions at multiple levels of public health. What is also needed at this time is the need for India to have its own National Suicide Prevention Strategy using a multi-stakeholder scope and approach. Until that happens, we can all remain blissfully unaware and irresponsible.

(The author is visiting professor at the University of Delhi and founder of ETI)

If you feel suicidal or have suicidal thoughts, help is available, contact the Sneha Suicide Prevention Helpline: 044-2464000 (24 hours)

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