Sociologist Emile Durkheim had famously hypothesised that ‘suicides are a result of not just psychological or emotional factors but social factors as well’. The death of Payal Tadvi, a 26-year-old resident doctor at Mumbai’s BYL Nair Hospital, has exposed yet again the insidious nature of discrimination and casteism against Scheduled Caste (SC)/Scheduled Tribe (ST) students in medical colleges. Tadvi belonged to the Bhil Muslim community, recognised as an ST group. The death of Rohith Vemula, the Dalit student pursuing his PhD at the University of Hyderabad, whose suicide was described as “institutional murder” in 2016 is also a case in point.

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Reasons for high number of suicides in India are a mix of psychological or emotional influences and social dimensions:

• Discrimination:
  • Discrimination and slurs for having belonged to an ST community and having procured admission into the college through the SC/ST quota.
  • Racial slurs, Sexist slur etc. leading to extreme harassment of individuals.
  • Caste-based discrimination and resentment from upper-caste students and faculty is common in the high-pressure environment of medical colleges, as well as in other higher educational institutes in the country.
  • The 2007 report by the Thorat Committee has shown how rampant and varied the caste-based discrimination practices were in AIIMS, the country’s premier medical college.
• The past few decades have witnessed economic, labour and social changes on a scale rarely seen before. Such rapid change with the economic dislocation and change in social and community links it brings can be destabilizing.
• Youth suicide:
  • Reason for such high numbers can be attributed to lack of economic, social, and emotional resources.
  • More specifically, academic pressure, workplace stress, social pressures, modernisation of urban centers, relationship concerns, and the breakdown of support systems.
  • Some researchers have attributed the rise of youth suicide to urbanisation and the breakdown of the traditional large family support system.
  • The clash of values within families is an important factor for young people in their lives. As young Indians become more progressive, their traditionalist households become less supportive of their choices pertaining to financial independence, marriage age, rehabilitation, taking care of the elderly etc
  • The deaths of 49 students in Navodaya Vidyalaya schools in the last five years, and of three students preparing for the IIT entrance examinations in Kota in a span of four days, brings the issue of youth suicides to the fore again.
  • More youths are taking their lives due to the fear of failing in examinations, constant flak from teachers, bullying from peers, family pressure and a loss of a sense of a decent future.
  • These cases force us to recognise that youth suicides are ubiquitous, and the educational ecosystem must take the blame for this.
• Depression:
  • Depression and suicidal thoughts are two of the most frightening things a person can face in their lifetime. Unfortunately, acting on those suicidal thoughts is a far too common scenario for many across the world, including students.
  • WHO says that depression and suicide are closely linked and, at its worst, depression can lead to suicide.18 per cent of the total number of people suffering from depression globally were in India in 2015.

Measures needed:

• First, stop-gap solutions to setting up expert committees and counsellors in schools have not been able to solve the problem.
• The deep-rooted causes must be addressed. The government must undertake a comprehensive study on the reasons behind these suicides.
• Second, the curriculum should be designed in ways that stress the importance of mental exercises and meditation. E.g: The Delhi government’s initiative on the ‘Happiness Curriculum’ may be a step in the right direction.
• Third, with regards to higher education, 12 measures were suggested by the Justice Roopanwal Commission.
• Making Equal Opportunity Cells with an anti-discrimination officer functional in universities and colleges.
• Starting from the most “innocuous” of ragging practices to “extreme harassment,” such discriminatory behaviour in fact constitutes violence and is an assault on the human rights of a person that prevents them from leading their lives with dignity and obtaining an education.
• Educational approaches in schools, namely, teaching about the facts of suicide, developing educational modules in life skills, and problem-solving and training teachers
• Psychological support and care should be given to the individual. The state can seek assistance from NGOs as well as religious missionaries for this purpose.
• Strengthening the existing National Mental Health Programme and the district mental health programme, along with focus on training resources and streamlining of funds are some other recommendations for fighting depression and suicide.
• Finally, it is high time we seek to reinvent our educational ecosystem in ways that impregnate new meanings, new ideas of living, and renewed possibilities that could transform a life of precarity into a life worth living.

Conclusion:

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among school age youth. However, suicide is preventable. Youth who are contemplating suicide frequently give warning signs of their distress. Parents, teachers, and friends are in a key position to pick up on these signs and get help. Most important is to never take these warning signs lightly or promise to keep them secret.