We wish the tragic deaths that took the lives of two siblings in the capital on September 16 were not what the media had reported.
The two were at vulnerable age -- the sister 19, and the brother 15. Both were students, the sister just completed her O-level; the brother a student of Class-9 at an English medium school in the capital.
The bitter reality is that the ambience to tempting a hyper-sensitive youth to the path of suicide has long been there in Bangladesh -- in metropolitan areas, upazila towns or remote villages. However, the context and causes of these avoidable deaths are different.
In the last two to three decades, lifestyle and thought process of teenagers and youths have changed dramatically. In the big cities, the urban alienation coupled with anomie has long been holding sway over the young boys and girls. Following a prolonged and deep-seated growth of angst in them, they first fall victim to depression that eventually finds expression in violent outbursts. Committing suicide, itself an apparently quiet job, but impregnated with violent impacts, is one of them.
The urban area-based suicides are mostly prompted by psycho-social reasons. Like in many fast-developing cities, Dhaka is also getting used to 'communication gaps' of varying natures. They have the roots in social stress, uncertainties in future careers, parental family break-ups leading to detachment etc. All this gives way to the tendency of living in self-made cocoons, detached from the close circles, with long relations broken or fraying. Many can adapt to this unconventional lifestyle, some may even relish it; although few can resist the inner erosion. It finally makes one a social outsider in the existentialist sense. If one gets stuck in this state, the comparatively weaker section, upon reaching the tether's end, says goodbye to life -- prematurely.
If we acknowledge the bitter fact of our growing urban suicides, we should not also forget that this suicide phenomenon is a complicated one. It is intertwined with dozens of causes -- both clearly manifest and subtle.
While the suicides in the capital Dhaka or in other cities stay on the verge of morbidity or are induced by a kind of depression, those occurring in the rural areas have direct relationship with the mundane life. In most cases, sexual harassment drives adolescent or a little grown-up girls to commit suicide. Poverty-stricken mothers or a bankrupt heads of the family take their own lives, sometimes along with their whole families. In the traditionally agrarian or a semi-feudal Bangladeshi society, self-esteem or the sense of dignity appears to be quite sharp. A slight bruise on this highly-guarded ego may end up in self-inflicted deaths. According to different surveys, it is mostly the food-deficit regions in the country that experience higher incidence of suicides. But it's a riddle why Shailkupa in the Jheneidah district once witnessed scores of suicide deaths every year. In our rural areas, suicides prompted by unbearable and incurable diseases are also common.
As random studies have found, there are three chief reasons behind suicides occurring in Bangladesh. Apart from the city-centred psycho-social one, and the socio-economic one prevalent in rural and semi-urban Bangladesh, there is another reason which is completely depression-induced. It attacks a section of the urban population, especially those engaged in creative activities. Fortunately, we haven't had a novelist like Hemingway, poets such as Esenin, Mayakovsky or Sylvia Plath -- all of whom committed suicide. We are also lucky in the sense that unlike in Japan, we do not have the custom of embracing suicide "as a form of enlightenment". Perhaps it is due to this quasi-spiritual quest that Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima took recourse to seppuku or hara-kiri, and Nobel Laureate Yasunari Kawabata committed suicide, despite his opposition to it earlier.
The now-celebrated Bengalee modern poet Jibanananda Das is said to have periodically experienced bi-polar disorders, which at times may lead one to commit suicide. According to many contemporaries of the poet, his fatal accident after being hit by a traditionally slow-moving tram in Kolkata was an oblique response to beckoning death.
The bi-polar disorder sends one to the extreme height of ecstasy, to bring him or her down to the lowest abyss of despair in the next few moments. This psychic debility can now be noticed among many city youths of Bangladesh.
That suicides are becoming a national casualty cannot be denied. It takes a heavy toll on the country's productivity. The rise in suicide cases leaves a negative impact on the economy. Studies have found out that it is mostly the youths in their most productive phase of life who prematurely leave this sweet world. From this point of view, the suicide menace warrants in-depth analysis on the part of both sociologists and economic experts.
A recent study by World Health Organisation (WHO) reveals that over 10 thousand people on average commit suicide a year in Bangladesh. According to the study, persons aged between 15 and 29 are mostly at the risk of committing suicide in the country. It needs no further explanation that this age-group includes our most productive workforce. A different study made locally puts the annual suicide deaths in Bangladesh at 20,000.
Suicide is the most ignoble way of leaving this world. It symbolises defeat and weakness. Man is born to keep struggling. In the end, he triumphs over all adversities. The vulnerable should be taught to celebrate life, and be positive. Apart from counselling, youths ought to be engaged in social and national-level mainstream activities.
shihabskr@ymail.com