On Suicides, Again

Editorial:-

This section returns to this worry too often, and that should be reinforcement enough of the magnitude of the problem. It is clear that not enough is being done at any level to address the disconcerting prevalence of suicides in Sikkim. This newspaper, we repeat, had started reporting on suicide cases in the belief that as readers started noticing the frequency with which people were ending their lives in Sikkim, some initiative will shake out of that collective concern. While some noises were made initially, in what appears many years back, and even some sensitisation programmes attempted, nothing meaningful has unfortunately materialised to address the issue. It appears that news-report of yet another suicide has even stopped shocking people anymore. But it should shock. Imagine the trauma a brother will have to carry throughout his life after having found his 15 year old sister dead to suicide, having hung herself with a khada at home. This happened recently in Gangtok, and is unfortunately not a rare occurrence. Suicides have become too commonplace in Sikkim. Some months back, a 10 year old in rural East Sikkim returned home from tuition classes to discover his mother’s dead body hanging from the ceiling fan. Those who have not had to deal with the confusion and trauma of having a near one commit suicide cannot even begin to fathom the shock and horror of such an experience, but all can surely empathise with the suffering of the people in question – both, the suicide victims as well as the families that they leace behind. Time will probably heal the 10-year-old child or alleviate the brother’s sorrow, but in their loss, Sikkim should sit down and work out how it plans to deal with the situation.

Too many people, all over Sikkim and across all age-groups are ending their own lives. Suicide is no longer a rarity or an aberration and returns too often to haunt Sikkim and claim fathers, mothers, grandparents, and also too often, even children. It is not enough to deduce that people end their lives because of problems they cannot deal with any more or due to poverty. Everyone has problems and many are poor, not all of them commit suicide. It is also obvious that the psychiatric help which keeps things in balance in one’s mind is not adequately available in Sikkim. Contemplating suicide is one thing, to actually commit it quite another. Obviously, not everyone attempt it, but those whose mental make-up has been debilitated by an unnoticed and untreated ailment are more wont to do so. Depression is rampant in Sikkim and although more people are coming forward nowadays than earlier to seek medical help, there are too many who still obviously don’t. Fact also remains that of everyone who requires it, started seeking medical help, there simply won’t be enough psychiatrists around to attend to anyone. And that is where paramedics, NGOs and social organisations will have to come in. With the comforting cushion of a large family gone, the pressures of modern lifestyles get the better of many and some snap under it. It is an accepted fact that a majority of the suicides can be prevented if the right psychiatric help and counsel were made available at the right time. Sikkim needs to figure out how it will do so. And it will have to figure this out fast, before another minor stumbles on to a suicide by a family member or another parent learns of a suicide of a child...