The fact that
suicides are a major worry for Sikkim is universally accepted, and yet nothing
is being attempted to redress the situation
This section returns to this worry too often, and that in
itself should be a matter of concern because it means that not enough is being
done at any level to address the disconcerting prevalence of suicides in
Sikkim. School kids, newlyweds, the elderly and even the gainfully employed
continue to take their own lives across the State and across the socioeconomic
strata.
This newspaper had started reporting on suicide cases in the
hope that as readers started noticing the unnerving frequency with which people
were ending their lives in Sikkim, some earnest initiative will shake out of
the collective concern. While some noises were made initially, and even some
sensitisation programmes attempted, nothing meaningful has materialised to
address the issue. It appears that a news-report of another suicide has even
stopped shocking people anymore, and if anything, has inured them to the
problem. Worryingly, it is also plausible that the routine occurrence of
suicides has convinced those with suicidal tendencies that taking one’s own
life is not such an aberration or as “wrong” as they have been led to believe.
May be the frequency of suicides has robbed it of the shock element. But it
should shock. There are few things more disturbing than parents waking up
strangled gasps of their child attempting suicide, or a father discovering that
his daughter has taken her life in his room and for reasons everyone had
sympathised with, but no one had taken seriously enough to find counsel for
her. Also traumatic must have been the horror of the 10-year-old in rural East
Sikkim who returned home from tuition classes to discover his mother’s dead
body hanging from a ceiling fan. Those who have not had to deal with the
confusion, trauma and even guilt of having a near one commit suicide cannot
even begin to fathom the shock that those left behind suffer.
Of course, time heals, but time can also be better utilised
if Sikkim sat down and worked out how it plans to deal with the situation. Suicides
are no longer aberrations, and return too often to haunt Sikkim and claim fathers,
mothers, grandparents, even children. 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 does it, but those whose mental make-up has
been debilitated by an unnoticed and untreated ailment are more prone to attempt
it. Depression is rampant in Sikkim and although more people are coming forward
nowadays to seek medical help, there are too many who still obviously don’t.
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 or counsel is made available at the right time. Sikkim needs to figure out
how it will do so. And do so fast, before another minor stumbles on to a
suicide by a family member or another parent learns of a suicide by a child...
