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Why Are More Indians Signing 'Suicide Pacts'? We Asked an Expert.

In 2020, India saw at least 15 reported cases of suspected mass suicides. Mental health practitioners say Indian authorities are ill-equipped to intervene on time.
Pallavi Pundir
Jakarta, ID
suicide pact mental health psychology distress debt finance india
An ambulance carrying bodies of victims drives out near the site where 11 family members were found dead inside their home in New Delhi on July 1, 2018. Not only did this case of suicide pact mystify the whole country, but also led to a conversation around mental health. Photo by Sajjad Hussain/AFP.

Last week, a family of five—a couple and three children—were found dead in their house in a village of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Preliminary investigation hints at the possibility of a “suicide pact”—or an agreement among two or more people to die by suicide—over debt-related stress. 

In 2020, VICE World News came across at least 15 suspected cases of suicide pacts across the country. Early in December, financial distress led a woman and her two daughters into a suicide pact. In yet another case from last month, a couple and their daughter died of a suicide pact, which was revealed by another daughter who backed out and informed the neighbours. Initial probe states that the father had just gone through heavy loss in the milk business. 

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In the western Indian state of Maharashtra, bodies of three young men were recovered from a forest after a suspected case of suicide pact, in which the youths were allegedly trying to attain “nirvana”. The cops noted that their deaths coincided with “Amavasya”, or new moon day that is considered auspicious in the Hindu calendar, and found several items to make the link to superstition. 

In 2016, the World Health Organization reported that India has the highest suicide rate in the South East Asia region. The latest official data recorded a spike in suicides in 2019 as compared to 2018, witnessing 381 suicides a day. Suicide pacts, however, have been a recurring pattern over the years. In fact, in 2015, experts noted that suicide pacts are on the rise. The year 2019 recorded 72 cases of mass/family suicides, according to official data. 

A significant case that mystified Indians and experts took place in 2018, when a family of 11 in India’s capital city, Delhi, were found dead under mysterious circumstances. Cops suspected occult practice, while psychologists stated the role of shared psychotic disorder—or the “madness of many”—at play. 

Now and then, India is confronted with an ongoing mental health crisis. A few months ago, the discussion resurfaced when a top Bollywood actor allegedly died by suicide in his apartment. However, mental health discourse in India remains inaccessible to a large part of the population and often struggles with acceptance and stigma. 

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VICE World News spoke with Bhawna Barmi, a clinical psychologist based in New Delhi. She broke down the pattern of suicide pacts, and whether India is equipped to handle them. 

VICE World News: Hey Dr Bhawna. What, in your experience, is the dominating reason behind people forming suicide pacts in India? 
Bhawna Barmi:
In my experience, the leading causes for Indians to take this step is financial debt, religious mysticism or shamanism, inter-caste marriage, mental illness leading to stigma, and technology. We saw the last one in recent times, in the form of the Blue Whale Challenge (in which the players had to strike off various tasks involving self-harm) reported across the country. 

Suicide pacts has been flagged as a trend in India in the recent past. Have you seen a pattern over the last few years?
In 2013, 56 cases of family deaths (through suicide pacts) were reported. They involved 108 deaths. In 2019, there were over 70 reported cases involving 180 people with an average of three people per case. This shows an upward trajectory in suicide pacts. Most of the suicide pacts are observed in married couples and family.

Do you think there are any warning signs of such events? 
Suicidal thoughts always exhibit themselves in the way people think and behave. There will most often be signs such as talking about wanting to die or kill self because of the inability to solve the problems, or talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose. Some also talk about being a burden on others, or about the inability to shoulder responsibility. Behavioural changes of social withdrawal, extreme mood swings, increased rage or anger and recklessness. There have been some cases of increased use of alcohol or other substances. 

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Do you think there’s more to such cases than just the motivation to do it? 
Due to the collectivistic nature of society, there is a high demand for one’s performance and capabilities in relation to the other members of the group/family. For instance, due to the burden of financial debt, couples have executed suicide pacts that involve the entire family, including their children.

In many cases of shamanism or religious mysticism, many people feel the need to sacrifice themselves as well. As caste differences are of high significance in the Indian society, inter-caste marriages bring its own set of complications, where couples feel the only way to escape the constant stigma and oppression of respective family members is to kill themselves together.

In India, attempted suicide is criminalised (Section 309, Indian Penal Code). How does that add on to the problem? 
It is counter-productive in nature. Emergency care in hospitals may be denied due to the fear of legal hassles. Criminalising suicide attempts with imprisonment or fine or both further harass the mental stability of the persons concerned, which only contributes to their descend into mental health problems.

Did the pandemic make things worse? 
Yes, it led to more loss of jobs, halt in movement from the city of work to hometown due to lockdown leading to uncertainty and sense of hopelessness, and fear of contracting COVID-19 has increased incidences of suicide pacts in couples.

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Is our country equipped enough to investigate suicide pacts? 
India’s law enforcement agencies and manpower are low and ill-equipped compared to the rate of instances of suicide pacts. Legal proceedings are long and tedious, which leaves little to no hope for people who are desperate for relief. Such conditions render suicide cases as less important, relatively.

Is mental health taken into consideration while investigating deaths by suicide in India? 
Psychological autopsy is an emerging practice in India. There have been two instances: a high-profile case (as in the case of Sunanda Pushkar, in 2014, in which the wife of a politician died under mysterious circumstances in a hotel room) and another case where the number of people involved has been more than average (Burari case, in 2018, which claimed the lives of 11 family members) where it was deemed required. However, it is not practised in many cases. 

If you are or someone you know is dealing with an emotional crisis, mental illness issues and feelings of helplessness, contact AASRA Suicide Prevention and Counselling helpline: +91-9820466726. 

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