Today, let us dispassionately look at the most intriguing phenomenon associated with man — suicide — a culmination of his decision to terminate his own life, sometimes called wilful dying, or intentional dying. Suicide indicates that the victim knowingly inflicts death upon himself. Since no other person terminates his life, the deceased alone is held responsible for his own violent death. The persons who create frustrating situations or circumstances that ultimately compel the victim to commit suicide are not held responsible for his death.
It must be understood that all deaths, other than natural death, happen to be different forms of brutal and violent death. A terminally sick cancer patient may die an extremely painful death. We can’t call his death a violent or brutal death. Deaths resulting from sickness, disease and old age are forms of natural death. In natural death, nature plays the pivotal role in terminating the life of a person. Other factors do not contribute anything in causing natural death to a person.
A person who dies in a road accident is said to have died a violent death. A person who grapples with bandits and receives bullets in his head and heart dies a violet death. A convict who is sent to the gallows on judicial orders dies a brutal death. Suicide is the only form of violent death that is continually discussed among the social scientists, psychiatrists and neurologists.
In our discourse today, we will look at shades of suicide from different angles. We will try to decipher the reasons and the circumstances that compel a person to take his own life. We will try to grasp the intrinsic message in the act of intentional dying. Suicide is man’s most awesome mode of protest against an atrocious society, callous judicial system, inequality, poverty, starvation and haplessness. Therefore, let us examine suicide as a social, emotional and psychological phenomenon.
It is not within the purview of this brief study to examine the complexities of suicide from a religious point of view. Almost all the religions do not approve of their followers’ decision to take their own life. Some religions clearly warn that suicide is an unpardonable sin, and that he who commits suicide shall languish in hell for eternity.
The religions of the world invariably insist upon their adherents not to indulge in self-destruction. Similarly, all major religions do not approve of an adherent to commit suicide, no matter how compelling the reason may be, and how worse the situation may appear in which a person finds himself helplessly entangled. The adherent is required not to commit suicide under any circumstances. Thus, let me make it clear that I do not intend to examine the act of suicide from a religious point of view. I intent to discuss suicide as a psychological and emotional phenomenon that has persisted from times immemorial.
No person puts an end to his life without a compelling cause, or reason. The reason that pursues a person to commit suicide may appear trivial to others, but for the victim the reason proves a deciding factor in his act of committing suicide. Last month, a retired professor and his wife died of starvation in Karachi. The horrifying death of the professor and his wife ought to have stirred commotion throughout the country, but it did not. Ours is a callous society.
The professor and his wife’s death was an act of suicide. The penniless professor could have saved his own and wife’s life by begging in the streets. He could have then escaped horrifying slow death. The professor preferred agonizing death over begging and borrowing in the streets. His dignity was dearer to him than an ignoble life. He and his wife shut themselves up in the house for several days, and eventually died of starvation.
We derive two messages from the professor and his wife’s suicide. One, it signifies man’s utmost defiance in the face of insurmountable odds, and his refusal to surrender his dignity by begging for his pension and GP Fund from Government functionaries. Two, his and his wife’s intentional dying is an upright man’s protest against an incorrigible corrupt society that has made honourable living almost an impossible proposition for honest and clean persons.
A woman plunged to death from the balcony of an apartment on the 8th floor of a building situated in a posh locality of Karachi. She struck the pavement and died instantly. She left behind in the apartment four drunken ‘customers’ who had generously rewarded her husband with a heavy purse. Ever since her marriage, she was pushed into prostitution by her husband. On her defiance, she was mercilessly beaten. She loathed living an immoral life. Whoever she approached for salvation took advantage of her haplessness. One night, she decided to put an end to her degrading life. She jumped from the balcony of her customers’ apartment and died on the pavement.
Her suicide indicates two points for our consideration. One, there was no possibility of her escape from the immoral life she was forced to live. Two, in death she saw her salvation. Thus, she committed suicide. The immoral life she loathed was the cause, and the extreme effect was her intentional dying, suicide.
Suicide is a very serious social and psychological phenomenon. It just can’t be dismissed casually as an act of cowardice. It leaves everlasting impact on the society, and betrays the hollowness in State governance. I have run short of space. On some other occasion, we will try to find an answer for an unanswered question: Why the persons responsible for creating simmering circumstances that compel vulnerable victims to commit suicide are let go scot-free?
Persons who create frustrating situations that ultimately compel the victim to commit suicide are not held responsible for his death
