Life – God’s most valued gift bestowed to all living beings cannot be restored once it drives out of one’s body. When some one takes his own life out of complete desperation, frustration and ultimate defeat, social science categorizes such death as ‘suicide’. Suicide is intentional, self-inflicted death. Suicide is unique human act which occurs within societies irrespective of cast, colour and creed. People who contemplate or attempt suicide usually suffer from extreme emotional pain and distress and feel unable to cope with their problems. Such people likely suffer from mental illness, particularly severe depression, and feel hopeless about the future. Suicidal behavior has numerous and complex causes. The genetic characters, mental health, and social forces all individually or collectively contribute to suicidal leanings. The majority of people who kill themselves suffer from depression that is often undiagnosed and untreated, other mental illnesses not diagnosed at the right time may also contribute to suicidal behavior.
The present modern day world, which is otherwise comfortable, but quite strenuous, is rife with incidents of suicide, and materialism is the main cause for social discontent, despair and ultimately high rate of suicides. Kashmir till recently was having the lowest rate of suicide cases but situation has changed all together for last more than one decade due to drastic changes on social, political and economic front. Social fabric of our society has become so loose and torn, that suicidal tendencies and behavior have completely taken over the positive thinking and approach of our social arrangement. Every other day we confront newspaper reports regarding suicides and attempts of suicide, these are only reports, which get noticed otherwise situation is very depressing on this front. Suicide is a spontaneous reaction only in rarest of rare cases; otherwise it is a long nurtured negative state of mind, perpetuated by certain adversaries in the society. This negative state of mind over a period of time shapes into a mental illness, which even lobotomy, can not rectify, but reversal of adverse conditions can help in rehabilitation.
Disintegration of society, lack of social justice, polarization of social setup on certain lines, conflicts and above all economic disparity is what drives people towards suicide. The recent studies conducted by Kashmir based social scientists and psychiatrics reveal that young men and women are prone to suicidal tendencies in the valley. They further conveyed and suggested through the analysis and out come of their studies that it is emotional trauma and insecurity among valley based women, which leads them to the extreme step of suicide. About suicides among young males they attribute it to increased and escalated violence. Trauma, insecurity and violence are no doubt contributing to increased rate of suicide cases in Kashmir, but these are not the only and major contributors. High rate of suicides is the culmination of faulty and flawed economy, corrupt system of governance, nepotism, social injustice, and inflated materialistic psyche and attitude of present generation.
In our society plagued by bigotry women are subjected to all sort of disparity, and further more materialism escalates the situation where women has to face all the brunt. The concept of nuclear family conceived, propagated and encouraged by women had added fuel to the leaping flames of disintegrating societies. Dowry the offshoot of materialism brought women to levels of vulnerability where she is subjected to all sort of atrocities and pushed to the oblivion of suicide. The biggest problem with women folk is that they are their own enemies. Women are perpetuators and instruments of hatred, violence and atrocities against their own community in one capacity or the other, just to full fill their materialistic urge and ego. At occasions their exorbitant aspiration, demands and wishes make their life strenuous. Women being all-strong can face every sort of pressure to certain degrees and levels but social trauma (manifestation of materialism and degraded values) inflicted on her can make her wreck and push her to suicide.
For last two decades we have been churning out large number of literate youth out of our literacy factories, with minimum education to take on the mantles of society. Once out of their learning places, we have nothing to offer them on any front. Our economy is in doldrums and trembling under its own weight. Our systems are rife with corruption and nepotism. Our young generation is facing hostile situation of conflict and crisis. They got their education under the shadows of corruption and materialism so their mind and psyche is plagued with the syndromes of dishonesty. They have materialistic aspirations and want to be rich and prosperous over night with least possible efforts and thumbs down care for values. As we don’t believe in division of labour, we all want to be kings (in command), so is the case with our younger generation. They get further alienated from social harmony when they see politicians, beurocrates, so called elite and capitalists rehabilitating their progeny with all comforts by corrupt practices and nepotism. All this gets our youth marginalized and puts them on the fringes of satisfaction, prosperity and contentment, thus making them vulnerable to all sort of depression leading to suicidal inclinations.
Unless we understand and resolutely believe in integration, harmony, contentment, satisfaction, fate, destiny, and make our youth not only to believe but make them to embrace and have faith in all this, the greed and materialism will lead us no where, but will push us to wilderness and we will be faded into nothingness. Unless we develop the sense of commune and community, integration and cooperation our social setup will cease to exist and our young people will keep on dyeing by no fault of theirs, but obviously by the choice of our degraded and defective society.
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