Srinagar, Aug 31
After her wake-up knocks at
Mohsin's (name changed) door in the morning got no response, the worried
mother called her husband. The door, locked from inside, was then
broken open and the 19-year-old was found dead in the room.
The
autopsy showed Mohsin had chosen the easy way out of a frustrating life
he could not handle due to depression - he had committed suicide. An
empty bottle of sleeping pills and strips of anti-depressant drugs found
in the room proved that Mohsin had for long been suffering from a
mental condition that he could neither reveal nor handle.
Mohsin
was not the first and, unfortunately perhaps, not the last Kashmiri teen
to end his life in a way that shatters his parents' dreams about their
children and also ends what should be otherwise joyful lives and futures
of teens.
In the predominantly Muslim majority Kashmir Valley,
suicide is not only a social and moral taboo, it is an unpardonable
religious sin.
Muslims are forbidden from offering the funeral prayers of anybody who ends his life by committing suicide.
Ironically,
because of this social, moral and religious stigma, not many people
driven to the wall by depression are able to either disclose their
mental condition to the family or seek psychiatric help.
According
to Dr. Akash, a psychiatrist, teenagers living in the Valley are more
susceptible to psychiatric problems than those living in other parts of
the state - because of the pressures under which they live.
"We
are living in a conflict environment and here the pressures are
multi-faceted - failure in examinations, unsuccessful love affairs,
unhappy married and family life, frustration because of unemployment -
but
a special reason for suicide in Kashmir is the uncertain political situation," Akash told IANS.
"In
such uncertain conditions, healthy psychological and mental growth is
not possible and people resort to an extreme act like suicide to get
away from this scenario" he added.
Jammu and Kashmir has seen a
bruising Islamist militancy since 1989 that has claimed over 70,000
lives, the majority of them civilians.
"Suicidal tendency is an
ailment and it should be treated as such, but in Kashmir it is a very
complex phenomenon; seemingly happy youths may be a total wreck from the
inside, our social structure is such that it inhibits us from
expressing our feelings to our elders and this has disastrous results on
the psyche of a person, especially the youth and ultimately lead to
suicides" Akash observed.
According to sociologists, the shift
from the joint family to the nuclear family system is another major
reason for youth suicides in the Valley.
"We have become
disconnected. Today, parents don't have enough time for their children,
they buy them expensive electronic gadgets and motor vehicles but don't
spend enough time with them or listen to their problems and concerns,"
said a local sociologist.
"In a joint family, we had elders who
would counsel children and act as role models for them, but that trend
has declined drastically and teens in a small family feel alone as there
is nobody who would listen to their
problems or cater to their spiritual needs," he added.
A
sociological survey has shown that among those who committed suicide,
most were between 17 and 26 years of age and sadly enough, as many as 62
percent of them were women and girls.
The surveys revealed many
of the young boys and girls who had committed suicide had crossed the
their marriageable age while their parents found it difficult to arrange
matches for them. This has stressed girls
more than boys among the lot that took the extreme step.
More than 300,000 youths with degrees in medicine, engineering and other professions are unemployed in Kashmir.
According
to a survey, the incidents of suicide were almost negligible before the
advent of the militancy, but over the years, because of the lingering
violence, Kashmiris have become victims of post-traumatic stress
disorders.
This
is evident from the number of patients registered in the state's sole
mental healthcare facility, where about 150,000 patients are registered
as of December 2014 - compared to a meagre 1,200 in the late 1980s.
A
majority of doctors believe the number of those suffering from such
mental ailments could be much higher but aren't on the records as a
majority of people do not go to a hospital for treatment for varied
reasons.
The survey also indicated that 77.4 percent of those
attempting suicide were women. Of them, 11 percent opted to end their
lives during pregnancy.
The ratio of suicide in rural and urban
areas, as per the survey is 85:15. The proportion of illiterate and
literate victims is 40:60 respectively.
Alarmingly, 76.92 percent of people committing suicide were in the 16-25 age bracket.
(Shamshad Ali can be contacted at [email protected])
