Surge in suicides

The National Assembly has been told there have been 180 suicides in a single year in the country. Some organisations collecting statistics on suicides put the number at considerably higher and that may well be the case but the figure in parliament was the one reported by various provincial governments. Asked about the issue, members of government have blamed mental illness or despondency. This may not be entirely inaccurate although the motive for government MPs to say this could be simply to deflect the blame away from the government. It after all requires considerable ‘despondency’ to take one’s life. But the question that arises is why the mental health issues described by spokespeople for the government seem almost invariably to strike the poor. Depression, as a disease, does not discriminate or choose victims on the basis of their bank accounts. There are many medical professionals who will testify to this. It seems obvious that the spate of suicides we are seeing are linked to growing hunger, joblessness and the desperation that marks the lives of so many Pakistanis. And if anything, it is the system which is letting them down — from the man who hangs himself because he cannot feed his family to the woman who kills herself and her four children because she cannot bear to see her in-laws mistreat her offspring.

The crisis of hunger is as acute as that of militancy and of course plays a role in fuelling it. Heads need to be put together to come up with a plan, rather than to pretend all is well and the deaths that we see are unavoidable. Soup kitchens offer one immediate solution; philanthropists should be willing to pay out for them, at least as a means to address urban poverty. But on a longer term basis we need schemes to generate jobs — and perhaps, most importantly of all, greater equality of opportunity. The system rewards those who have money and power and the poor and underprivileged are excluded entirely from its benefits. There are today too many citizens who feel they have no future and no hope. Their agony needs to be addressed head on. No purpose is served by denying that it exists or insisting the growing figure for suicides represents something that is normal and acceptable.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2010.