Suicide Prevention Day: Why Do People Commit Suicide?

It is crucial that families, educators, and society at large create an environment where young people and professionals are supported emotionally and encouraged to face failures with resilience. We must collectively work towards building a culture that values mental health and promotes the idea that failure is not the end, but a stepping stone to growth. Addressing this issue now is essential to prevent further tragedies

Now more often than not, you read the heart-wrenching news related to suicide by some youngster after failing in an examination or for some other reasons. It is high time that discerning teachers, psychiatrists, and other aware citizens must think about why young people are so prone to ending their lives in situations of despair and failure. Hardly a day goes by when newspapers don't publish heart-wrenching news about a young person preparing for a competitive exam committing suicide. This is a very serious issue and the whole country needs to think about it. Similarly, nowadays, the number of people committing suicide due to business losses is also increasing. Just a few days ago, the billionaire owner of a famous bicycle-making company Atlas committed suicide in national capital.

On December 6th last year, it was told in the Lok Sabha that more than 35,000 students committed suicide in India between 2019 and 2021. The number of student suicides increased from 10,335 in 2019 to 12,526 in 2020 and 13,089 in 2021. There is no doubt that the enormous pressure and expectations of parents, teachers, and society to succeed in any situation is having a devastating impact on the mental health of students. The city of Kota in Rajasthan. Every year, thousands of students come to Kota hoping to get into one of the top colleges in the country. Their lives have one goal - to somehow crack the exam.

You go to Kota or any other city in India where coaching institutes for medical, engineering colleges, civil services, etc. are running. There, students are in a very stressful state psychologically due to excessive pressure and fear of failure.

Former president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Dr. Vinay Aggarwal, says that we should not just express concern about the increasing number of suicides. We have to find ways to stop suicides. We have organized an important seminar in the national capital Delhi on World Suicide Prevention Day (September 10th) to find solutions to this problem and the reasons behind the suicides of youth, businessmen, and other people, where psychiatrists, journalists, and social workers will present their papers based on their experiences. After those findings, we will create a further strategy.

Meanwhile, some coaching centers are also trying to make these efforts so that students are not under a lot of pressure. The head of a coaching center in the capital said that we constantly counsel students. We are also in touch with their parents.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), one student committed suicide every 42 minutes in 2020. This figure is truly scary.Look, young people need to be given a completely relaxed environment by their parents and teachers so that they can study without any pressure or do whatever they want to do. Social worker Brother Solomon George of the Delhi Brotherhood Society (DBS), which runs St. Stephen's Cambridge School in Sonipat, Haryana, says we ensure that children studying in our school or St. Stephen's College study without any pressure. We also have classes for our teachers so that they don’t ask a child their caste in class or their father's income. Some irresponsible teachers ask such unnecessary questions from their students. Then they start comparing the children studying in the same class with each other. As a result, unknowingly, they make a child very weak. Obviously, this has a very negative impact on that student who has been proven to be inferior. Such children often become immersed in despair and depression. Not only that, they commit suicide.

“ We believe that raising a child is a twenty-year plan. Who doesn’t want their child to achieve a high position in society, achieve fame and name, but for all this, it is essential that the child be given the freedom to choose the career they want according to their ability and preference. It is a bitter truth that in our society, success is considered to be a good job, a big house, and all other amenities,” says Brother Solomon George, who also looks after the affairs of many Vocational and Women Empowerment centres .

It is important that we prepare our children to face even difficult situations strongly. Life does not go on by giving up in the face of failure. That's cowardice.

As we mentioned above, a billionaire businessman shot himself to death in his luxurious bungalow in the capital a few days ago. Police are investigating the whole matter. It is being said that the owner of the bicycle-making company committed suicide due to losses in business.

Data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that in 2020, when the Covid- wave had devastated businesses, 11,716 businessmen committed suicide, which was 29 per cent higher than in 2019, when 9,052 businessmen had taken their lives. Karnataka recorded the highest number of deaths (1,772) from suicide by businessmen in 2020 - up 103 per cent from 2019, when 875 businessmen had taken their own lives in the state. In Maharashtra, 1,610 businessmen committed suicide, which was 25 per cent more than last year, and in Tamil Nadu, 1,447 died, which was 36 per cent higher than in 2019. Everyone knows that a large part of India's business community is connected to micro, small, and medium enterprises, which cannot withstand big shocks. This has led many businessmen to commit suicide due to drowning in debt or losses in business. The bottom line is that the increasing incidents of suicide among youth, businessmen, and other people in India must be stopped.

(The author is Delhi-based senior journalist and writer. He is author of Gandhi's Delhi which has brought to the forth many hidden facts about Mahatma Gandhi)