Daily Times

The recent report published on suicides in Sindh by the research wing of Sindh Police is quite alarming. It is clearly indicative of the gloomy societal anatomy of the province. According to the data collected by the newly-formed research wing of the police, 1287 persons, including 586 females, took their own lives between January 1, 2014, and June 30, 2019.

Moreover, the report presents a sorry state of affairs of the societal makeup the province is wired in.

The report further reads that of total 1287 hapless souls, 681 were Muslims and while 606 were Hindus. Among them, more than half were aged between 21 and 40. This shows that it’s not about an excessive suicidal tendency in a particular group, ethnicity, section, age or sex, which could have an absolved society to some extent. It is rather the society, its attitude, and aptitude that nabs an individual in such a manner that he thinks the extreme step of suicide the only escape and relief to his restive soul.

In other words, it won’t be an exaggeration to say that “suicide is a novel form murder.”

And the perpetrators and culprits are all that society is constituted of and range from an institution to an individual, the government to an immediate blood relative. Though the police say that the provincial government has been made known about this report among others so that measures could be taken to arrest the surging suicidal trend. However, these are challenges so far-rooted in our social fabric that unless all-encompassing, systematic efforts, engaging all social institutions are taken, precious lives would continue to be robbed off.

Suicide isn’t voluntarily taking of one’s life, but a murder orchestrated against the victim by the constituent parts of society

The study also throws light on the methods and manners the hapless souls resorted to taking their lives. These include hanging by a tree or ceiling fan; jumping into deep wells; burning to death; jumping from elevated places and through gunshots or knife wounds.

An issue facing society can never be resolved completely unless its very roots or the underlying irritants are diagnosed and eliminated. Similarly, the dream of a suicide-free society or a lowered suicidal rate can only be realised if the irritants and underlying causative agents are properly identified and treated.

The report cites penury, joblessness, and matrimonial feuds, growing socioeconomic constraints, domestic disputes, drug abuse and psychological anomalies as the major factors behind the burgeoning suicide toll in the province.

As far as poverty is concerned, this is, by far, the main causative factor in most cases of suicide. One’s inability to afford the basic necessities of life, like food, clothing for children or dependents, brings one close to this tragic move.

For example, how would a person feel like if he fails, loses generating enough to feed his children or sees his pale, malnourished children going hungry for a day or two? Or how about hapless and penniless parents whose children scream for a piece of new cloth on festivities? These are trying times and too many painful moments for some to survive. Finding no other escape or alternatives, such persons assume death to be the only escape to their ill-fated miseries. A father of four children in Karachi had taken his life last month over his inability to afford warm clothes to his children. A sane and conscientious can imagine the plight that forced him to do so.

Moreover, unemployment, or having no income source, is equally a causative factor behind. In these skyrocketing, inflationary times, it’s quite unfortunate to have no source to generate income from. An unemployed may not take his life if and when he fails only on one occasion to earn enough to afford two loaves for his children. However, when he tries hard to make both ends meet but fails despite harder and repeated attempts and despite having the ability or required qualification, he becomes too much frustrated and feels worthless. In this atmosphere of worthlessness, he prefers death over his penniless life.

Apart from this, matrimonial feuds and disputes also contribute to suicide in our province. Perhaps, most important is one’s failure to get married in the home of his/her choice due to rejections or parents’ abstinence. One may hear one taking one’s life over failure to get married of choice. Other marital issues contributing to suicides include disagreements between wives and husbands, or the in-laws.

Growing socio-economic constraints are one of the equally contributing irritants in this regard. Societies today boast to be advanced and prospered. However, most of them fail to provide the socio-economic needs of its populace to even to their survival level. Thus, the underprivileged and marginalized masses are left at mercy of fending for themselves and suicides.

Besides drug addiction and abuse, anxiety, stress, frustration, depressions and mental traumas resulting from horrific life events also cause a surge in suicidal incidents. Other factors are excessive income expectations of family from an individual, dejection or disturbance of “psychological attachment,” dependence in marital relations, social boycott and “alienation” of an individual, an emerging trend of boastful display of one’s wealth, changing values of “respect” and “success” and last but not the least, lack of culture of counseling and lending moral courage.

What these causative factors suggest is that all the irritants or causes of suicides are essentially related to and wired in the societal fabric and setup. Henceforth, broadly speaking, suicide isn’t voluntarily taking of one’s life, but a murder orchestrated against the victim by the constituent parts of society: the individuals and institutions.

Therefore, tackling the same would require reforming institutions and individual mindsets in such a manner that creates a conducive and fertile society, which may incentivise, not hinder, personal growth in life.

In this regard, poverty alleviation, provision of employment, accessibility of quality education, healthcare and psychological counseling, socioeconomic well being may serve, to large extent the purpose of reducing, if not eliminating altogether, the incidence of suicidal rate in the province. Moreover, collaborative and active participation of religious scholars, NGOs, civil society and launching awareness campaign through media houses, as suggested in the said report, can help arrest growing suicidal trends in the province.

The writer is a freelancer