collection 2020
Corona's Other Casualties
Why in India unemployment-related suicides are becoming as contagious as the virus itself
Source: Newslaundry
When Raji Reddy first saw Srinivas’ son in the hospital, he was shocked. “Both of his hands were burnt. He told me that he did not have time to react and used his bare hands instead to douse the fire that was engulfing his father,” recalled Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) Employees Union General Secretary who had come to visit Srinivas in Apollo Hospital, Hyderabad on the night of October 12th. Raji had met Srinivas hours before he set himself on fire that evening.“He told me that he wanted to do something to help the agitation but how could I have known that he'd kill himself?” says Raji. Srinivas, 56, however, succumbed to his injuries the next day. He had suffered 90% burns after self-immolating himself in front of his house.
A TSRTC bus driver from the Khammam district of Telangana (TS), Srinivas was on an indefinite strike along with 48,000 TSRTC employees since 5th October demanding a pay hike and merger of the transport corporation with the TS govt. He, however, along with all 48,000 protesting employees was dismissed the very next day by TS Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao(KCR) for staging an illegal protest. Distressed and humiliated, Srinivas, now also jobless, killed himself a week later, igniting an agitation that lasted almost two months. What followed next were four copycat suicides by the protesting employees which according to Reddy helped build pressure on the state govt. “So many lives could have been saved if only KCR had negotiated with us earlier. It is unfortunate that it took these suicides to get our demands met but what other option did we have? The way we were treated, it was humiliating and I blame KCR for our loss,” he says.
“He (Srinivas) is a martyr,” Reddy was also quoted as saying to The Hindu. 48-year-old Surender Goud, a bus conductor with the TSRTC was also termed a martyr after he too killed himself a day after Srinivas’ death made headlines. A month later, on 13th November, 45-year-old Naresh, another bus driver with TSRTC was found unconscious in his house. He had reportedly consumed pesticides and died on his way to the hospital. In his suicide letter, according to Indian Express, he hoped that with his death the ongoing strike would get a new life just like how Srinivas had reportedly hoped. “The sacrifice of his (Srinivas’) life was for the betterment of striking RTC employees,” stated Deccan Chronicle.
These deaths expose a grim reality. India has an unemployment crisis. According to an India based think tank Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data, India’s unemployment rate rose to 7.5% in 2019 from 3.8 % in 2017. But what is equally alarming is the simultaneous rise in unemployment-related suicides in the country. Latest data by the National Crimes Records Bureau suggests that a staggering 12,936 unemployed people in India committed suicide in 2018. This accounted for 9.6% of the total suicides in the country, which makes one wonder why more people in India are reacting to unemployment by killing themselves? What explains this extreme reaction? Is it a mental health crisis or financial fears arising out of job insecurity? Experts say that there is more to these suicides than what meets the eye. Suicides among the unemployed, they are afraid, are now being both normalised and glorified. And as India, along with the rest of the world, heads towards a Corona-virus led economic recession that threatens more job losses, experts predict a spike in unemployment related suicides that have become equally contagious.
As Contagious as Corona
“Unemployment related suicides can be classified as cluster suicides”, says Dr Nishi Misra, a researcher in the Defence Institute of Psychological Research, Delhi, India. Her paper titled Psychosocial Autopsy of Mass Suicides: Changing Patterns in Contemporary Times, 2019 describes ‘Mass clusters’ a type of suicide cluster as a “temporary increase in suicides across a whole population”.
Additionally, according to The American Association of Suicidology “suicide cluster (or contagion) is defined as an occurrence in time and space of suicides, greater than the number of suicides which would be expected on the basis of statistical prediction.” In this context, Dr Shamika Ravi in her paper A Reality Check on Suicides in India that cites the above definition argues that “an ingredient which appears to facilitate a contagion is the tendency to glorify and sensationalize the deaths resulting in a highly charged emotional atmosphere that promotes further suicidal behaviour.”
“We saw this happening during the TS bus strike,” says Aarti Nagpal, Assistant Professor, Health Psychology at GITAM University, Hyderabad. According to her, suicides, especially during a politically charged event are often used as a political tool. “The protestors were termed ‘martyrs’ and their suicide were considered heroic. Soon political leaders announced several financial packages for their family members which further validated their death. This kind of portrayal of such tragic events is actually the irony of Indian society and the media that is trying to gain sympathy and limelight”, she adds.
Dr Ravi in her paper too affirms that highly publicized politician visits and offering special packages might aggravate suicide contagion that suggests the appropriateness of suicide to vulnerable people. While Srinivas’ suicide and its subsequent coverage in the media became instrumental in shaping the TS bus strike, what made equal noise were statements by opposition leaders following his death. “During the Telangana statehood movement five years ago, Srikantha Chary’s death had propelled the movement till a separate state was achieved. Srinivas Reddy’s death at the same hospital would create a similar movement in the state to support the RTC employees,” Congress leader A. Revanth Reddy was quoted by Deccan Chronicle.
“And that’s where the problem lies,” continues Nagpal. “Copycat suicide in not something that is new in India. We see that mainly in students and farmers and here it was among the unemployed protestors,” she says.
When asked whether this ‘suicide contagion’ can explain the spike in unemployment-related suicides in India, Dr Misra replied that though a pattern is visible which can be attributed to hopelessness, poverty and personality disposition, a definite data to substantiate this claim is lacking.
On unemployment-related suicides becoming a genuine concern post-Corona-virus led recession in India, Dr Misra said that though it can be hypothesized, it is still too early to make a prediction. Dr Soumitra Pathare, however, seems certain. In a Tweet on April 2nd, he wrote that “Suicide is a major Covid public health issue” and that “economic impact is going to play a major role”.
“From past experience with economic crises, we do know that suicides increase with a 6-12 month lag effect from the crisis event. For example, the 2009 economic crisis in Greece led to a 25% increase in suicides in the subsequent 2 years,” says Pathare, Director of Centre for Mental Health Law and Policy, India.
A similar concern was raised by researcher Aaron Reeves from Oxford University in his paper titled Economic suicides in the Great Recession in Europe and North America. His study concludes that during the last recession (2008-9) 4,750 more people committed suicides in the US after it recorded a 10% increase in unemployment. “Sadly, I think there is a good chance we could see twice as many suicides over the next 24 months than we saw during the early part of the last recession,” he was quoted as saying to the Reuters. “With India too heading towards an economic recession, there can be a spike in suicides among the unemployed,” concludes Pathare.
The Mass Exodus
A day after PM Narendra Modi announced a 21-day lockdown, India witnessed something unprecedented. The morning of 25th March saw thousands of migrant workers across the country set off to their respective villages on foot where they were certain of not starving to death. This, as Delhi-based journalist Basant Kumar termed it, was a mass exodus resulting out of poor planning and a Corona-led panic. “The country went into a total lockdown with a four-hour notice and it took the government another two days to announce a financial package. People were unemployed overnight and the only option they had was to leave the cities immediately where neither did they have a shelter or a job. It was a total chaos. I’ve never seen something like this in my journalism career,” he said. “Both money and food is scarce now since the lockdown as I have no work anymore. One anyway has to die, whether it is corona or the curfew or this walk. Now that I’ve left, I’ll reach home somehow,” 24-year-old Javed, who worked as a tailor in Delhi, was quoted as saying in one of Basant’s ground reports for India-based news website Newslaundry.
On 26th March, two days after the lockdown, India’s Finance Minister announced a $23 billion relief package that included a wage hike for people working in the unorganised sector and an additional 5 KG of wheat or rice for 800 million people living under the poverty line. This package, however, according to economists is too little and too late. In an article for Quartz India, Jayati Ghosh an economist at Jawaharlal University (JNU), Delhi expressed her concerns over how small and embarrassing the package is. According to her the proposed package only amounts to around 0.5% of estimated GDP that will do nothing to counter the free fall of the economy. “India is on the verge of an unprecedented economic catastrophe. The Covid-19 crisis comes at a time when GDP growth is slowing. If it was rolling down a hill earlier, now it is poised to fall off a cliff”, she writes. She further mentions how the most vulnerable section will “bear the brunt of the crisis” and how there will be a widespread increase in poverty owing to no livelihood for at least 21 days for the non-agricultural workforce. Nivedita Jayaram, a researcher at Aajeevika Bureau, a labour research and legal organisation in India confirms Ghosh’s fears. According to her the current lockdown has only aggravated existing inequalities in wages and employment that migrants have been facing for decades. “The wage and employment crisis already underway in the country will be worsened by the economic crisis fuelled by the lockdown. Businesses suffering losses will be forced to shift costs to workers who will be employed on more adverse terms or face a lack of employment and wage-lessness. Without state intervention, migrant workers will be the worst hit by this crisis,” she says. When asked what impact the lockdown will have on India’s already existing employment crisis, Jayaram replied that the crisis has already begun.
“We are already receiving distress calls from migrant workers who have either been removed from their jobs overnight or are being forced to take unpaid leaves. Reports reveal that urban joblessness in India is already up by 22%. And in this post lockdown phase where there will be lack of work and severe hits to several industries, the need for income to sustain basic consumption will only push the most vulnerable to accept work at lesser margins and in poorer conditions,” she added. The other casualties According to the latest data by CMIE, the employment rate in India fell to an all-time low of 38.2% in March 2020 following the lockdown. A similar trend was recorded in the US post corona lock down that saw a steep rise in unemployment levels. As of 9th April, 6.6 million Americans lost their jobs after the pandemic brought the US economy to a standstill, reported The Guardian. This, according to experts, raises concerns over a possible mental health crisis among the unemployed that can result in increasing ‘deaths of despair’. “Those hardest hit are likely to be the poorest, including many people of color, and those who benefited least from the last economic boom”, stated another article by The Guardian. The picture unfortunately, is not very different in India. A group of farmers have already threatned suicide post the lockdown. According to The Quint, lack of sufficient financial aid by the govt propelled these farmers from the state of Jharkhand to write a suicide letter that demanded immidiate help. “No source of income and hunger is making us suicidal”, the letter stated. “We cannot ignore the pattern of contagion here. India has a history of farmers killing themselves which gets a lot of attention both by the media and the politician. We know what happened during the TS bus strike last year,” says Aarti. All’s well that ends well? In December last year, a month after the bus strike was called off, the TSRTC management handed out ex gratia cheques of rupees one lakh each and an appointment letter to the families of the employees who lost their lives during the strike, reported Indian Express. The 52-day strike saw close to 30 deaths, five among who reportedly killed themselves for the bigger cause. Their family members now have a job with the same corporation that brought them this tragedy. But Raji Reddy wants to look at the brighter side instead. Their two-month long agitation has paid off with KCR agreeing to allocate Rs 1000 crore in the State budget to the TSRTC. “Aur kitane log marjate? Aur kitane log road pe ajate? Mereko neend nahi aya soch ke us din” (How many more will die? How many more will be homeless? I couldn’t sleep that night thinking about it), recalled Raji when he first heard about Srinivas’s death. “We’ll never forget his and others' sacrifice” he signs off.
About the Author
Gaura Naithani, India
Gaura is a multimedia journalist from India who is currently in the process of teaching herself all about Mobile Journalism. She has earlier worked for Scoop Whoop News and Telangana Today and was also awarded with IIMCAA Digital Production award in 2018
