What's driving the suicide epidemic among Indian women

In the age of information influx when even before you can react to one event, another one, bigger in magnitude and scarier in depiction, replaces it. The quantum of tragedies erupting from the various news mediums often leave me worried and confused. Worried because I clearly see a pattern that is avoidable, and confused because of its regular repetition.

While I was trying to come to terms with the news of Manjula Devak’s suicide, a bright IITian, just 27 years old, news broke about Bidisha Bezbaruah, an actress and singer, who hanged herself allegedly over marital issues.

Both women were well-educated with a sea of opportunities before them, and too young to die out of desperation. Obviously, these two cases mentioned are not the only ones. A realistic calculation would outnumber our imagination.

Surprisingly, in most cases the pattern remains somewhat similar, revolving around marriage and relationships, still it goes on, year after year, victim after victim.

According to the National Crime Record Bureau data (2013), out of 1.3 lakh suicides, women comprised 51.4 per cent, of which 76 per cent were married. An international study published in the British Medical Journal presents a scarier picture — "Self-harm has replaced maternal disorders as the leading cause of death among women aged between 15 and 49 in India."

It reveals a 126 per cent rise in suicides among young women and goes on to add that "56 per cent were women between the ages of 15 and 29, with rates higher among well-educated young people in wealthier areas". Thus, ruling out the assumption of such cases confined to lesser educated low-income groups.

According to this news report, suicide is the seventh top cause of death globally among women aged 20-59 years, making age standardised suicide rate in India sixth-highest in the world, citing World Health Organisation data.

These data pertain only to suicides or self-inflicted harm, excluding other natural or unnatural death due to torture or violence, and shows the scale of social pressures and tension surrounding issues of marriage and relationships.

This happens in a society where men proclaim to be both protectors and worshippers of women. There can’t be a worst evidential failure of the Indian family and education system that has created a pool of genetically, mentally and emotionally dysfunctional generation that feeds on subjugating women.

The other dilemma is how the majority population of 51.5 per cent male are successful in dominating an equally near-majority of women who are 48.5 per cent. Practically speaking, every household has almost equal or more number of women, still their condition is pitiable.

It is bizarre that such incidents are no longer confined to less literate or poor families, but is much prevalent among urban, educated middle- and upper-class families too. It is beyond doubt that the Indian middle class is drenched in hypocrisy and double standards and so is the institution of marriage.

The urban middle class is at its worse. Its bucket lists measures in terms of brands, from clothes, to gadgets, to vacations to degrees, and beneath the superficial attraction, the mental clog remains preserved with pride.

Mothers are unable to decide between the choice of a house help and a daughter-in-law. Men are determined not to settle below professionally qualified women, who would stay at home or if work at all, should shuffle between their roles as professionals and homemakers.  

Highly unprepared for the challenges of modernity, we are trapped in the magnetic pull of tradition and aspirations. Educated or career-oriented women are increasingly expected to be Indianised (read acceptance of male domination), to prove that the foreign education or workplace haven’t corrupted them.

Families emotionally blackmailing their girls to put up with abuse, converting relationship into business deals and brushing off concerns on mental health and compatibility, need to take onus of the repercussions.

Blaming all on "in-laws" seems too simple. It is a household story of women entering unequal marriages, under the illusion that their sacrificing their careers, paying dowry, taking charge of kitchen, observing obsolete rituals, or having kids would resolve their marital issues.

Girls are fed the notion of being secondary from the mother’s womb itself, and it is so deep-entrenched that it takes years of self-realisation and struggle to flush out the venom. Who can deny that an unsupportive family breaks the courage of women more than what any abusive outsider can.

We have been taught "parents are Gods", partly by tradition and partly by Indian movies. I prefer to believe they are humans, flesh and blood just like us, culpable of making mistakes. Making them God snatches away their chance of making or rectifying mistakes and disrupts a healthy conversation affecting family decisions.

It's easy to blame the society for all ills. But what is society? Isn’t it you and I?

Also read: Why are so many Indian teens killing themselves? Start with 13 Reasons Why