7 September 2023 : Indian Express
Indian Express
7-September-2023
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1) Kota Suicides: Reasons and Solutions
Context:
- A spate of teenage suicides in Kota, Rajasthan, which is considered the mecca of students preparing to crack various competitive exams that will get them their dream engineering or medical college has been in the news recently.
Statistics:
- Kota, already had developed a reputation for student suicides in the last decade or more having lost more than 100 young people in the last 10 years.
- Lately it has seen a sharp rise in its tragic numbers. Till August 27, 23 students had committed suicide.
- With 100,000 students coming to reside and train at the coaching institutes in Kota every year, these rates of suicide are disturbingly high.
- Suicide is the number one cause of death amongst those between 15 to 30 years of age which is by far the highest in the world in this age group.
- According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), in 2020, a student took their own life every 42 minutes; or, in other words, 34 students died by suicide every day.
- In the same year, 11,396 children below the age of 18 had ended their lives.
Possible Reasons for suicide:
- Suicide or suicidal behaviour is the culmination of various influences ranging from biological, socioemotional, cultural, political and issues of social justice.
- Developmental differences, family and parental expectations.
- The rigorous education system coupled with cut-throat competition which they can’t escape.
- Marginalization or discrimination that some have to face due to their race, religion or socio-economic background.
- A mental health disorder might creep in at some point in this trajectory, but it is not an essential precursor of suicidal behaviour.
- Away from their families and friends, they have no one to turn to during periods of distress and self-doubt.
- Absence of mechanism to identify and accept individual differences, safe spaces for students to share and support each other.
- Lack of compassionate, benevolent faculty who will take students under their wings.
- We as adults tend to ignore these signs and overlook their problems which ultimately add up, sometimes over months and years, till they reach a point of hopelessness and despair.
Role of The Coaching Mafia:
- Despite the fact that the Kota coaching industry estimated to be worth a whopping Rs 12,000 crore, it pays least interest to student welfare.
- It is interested in extracting the most out of the thousands of students and their families, both financially and in the form of results which would add to their popularity thereby attracting the next batch of innocent children and ambitious families who sadly fall into their trap which is laid out through advertisements in newspapers.
- They crank up the competition through weekly tests, sending the marks to parents each time, giving more attention to the better performers, and turning a blind eye to kids who slip through the cracks.
- Hapless students find themselves caught in 12-hour work schedules, seven days a week, with no respite or relief.
Current Scenario:
- The pandemic has opened up the floodgates of mental health problems across all communities and turned the spotlight on this vastly neglected space of human suffering.
- While statistics showing depression to be the number one cause of disability in the world were doing the rounds even before Covid-19, there was abject apathy towards mental health conditions in India.
- The annual budget of the National Mental Health Programme was a mere Rs 40 crore before Covid struck which has now increased more than threefold to Rs 134 crore for the year 2023- 24.
- The Rajasthan government appears to have taken a proactive stance with the crisis in Kota and promises to investigate and find solutions.
- While these may be welcome changes in the right direction, knee-jerk reactions and band-aid solutions like fans with springs, CCTVs and punitive action against scapegoats are not going to bring any lasting change.
Way Forward:
- There is a need for a much deeper understanding of the issues involved.
- There should be a continuous engagement with all stakeholders, including parents, educators, pivotal institutions, policymakers, professionals, people with lived experiences and young people who have faced the brunt of these tumultuous times and survived.
- As adults, we can make a difference, as long as we are able to witness and undertake the journey with our children, and be there when they need us the most.
- Proper counselling of the students should be done at regular intervals in order to assess their mental state.
- The institutes should also create an environment which has options of recreational activities in order to reduce the stress on the students.
2) Greater civil society contact with neighbors is in India’s interest.
Context:
- The Indian government has been doing the needful to make the G20 summit a grand success.
- It has taken considerable steps to convert the heads of government meeting into “a people’s festival” by popularizing the Indian G20 agenda among people across the country and the world.
- In this article we would aim to explore India’s strategic options with respect to its belligerent neighbors.
How important is public perception?
- In modern times global “influence”, is not shaped by governments alone but by how the people and civil society institutions interact amongst themselves.
- Official propaganda by governments only feeds one’s own ego and is usually considered wastage of money.
- If we take the example of government-to-government (G2G) level interaction, China despite being considered “unpopular” in the West attracts more western tourists and business than India.
- Public perceptions about nations are as important as G2G relations.
- In fact, when diplomatic relations worsen, people to-people(P2P) contacts can help maintain a balance in the relationship between nations, especially neighbours.
What has been India’s approach with respect to its neighbors?
- Indian government’s approach has been quite different when to comes to dealing with both Pakistan and China.
- Social contact among peoples through tourism, cultural festivals, academic programmes and so on is generally very low between India and her neighbours, but minimal with two important ones, China and Pakistan
- Apart from an occasional cricket match, there is virtually no social contact between the civil societies of India and Pakistan.
- A deterioration in diplomatic relations has been accentuated by reduced P2P contacts.
- All three governments are to be blamed for this situation.
- The low civil society traffic between China and India stands in contrast to the continuing P2P contact between China and the United States despite worsening G2G relations.
- Over the past decade, India-US civil society contacts have vastly increased and considerable official patronage has been extended by the Indian government to American think tanks and invested in relations with the US.
- While this is useful in itself, sadly no such interest has been shown in promoting India-China civil society contacts rather most of the research on and study of China has been “securitised”, being increasingly restricted to retired military officials, diplomats and intelligence staff.
What should be India’s approach?
- It is in our national interest that even as our government adopts a tough stance on national security issues pertaining to our neighbourhood, it ought to encourage greater civil society contact across borders, especially among media and academia.
- Neighbours must permit each other’s media to be properly stationed and represented.
- The absence of such media contact explains how dependent Indian media has become on western media for views on China.
- While experienced members of the armed forces, diplomatic corps and intelligence services must continue to study China closely and government policy would, understandably, be shaped by their assessments, it is also necessary that a democracy like ours encourages greater interaction and scholarship across civil society.
- Even if the Chinese government tries to create barriers to such interaction, we should, on our part, pursue it with vigour.
Way Forward:
- Even though China’s decision to skip the G20 meet is regrettable but it is not in India’s interest to allow this snub to either overshadow the relationship or narrow India’s strategic options.
- As ancient civilisational entities and neighbours, both nations have to think long-term and find feasible solutions in order to have a cordial relationship.
For Enquiry
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