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MenuBy Tamanna Basu, Consultant, HAQ: Centre for Child Rights
Suicides by children could perhaps be one of the key indicators for the measurement of a nation’s emotional health. The subject of child suicides in regular times itself remains inadequately discussed in India and has become even more so in the chaotic, shuffling stimuli of the COVID-19 Lockdown. In an ongoing attempt to orient in the direction of gaps and silences, this essay attempts a preliminary overview and critical analysis of English journalistic coverage of child suicides during the lockdown. This essay is written, firstly, in the hope of building conversation and concern upon the well-being of our children and, by extension, of the emotional health of the nation; and secondly, to pin-point the gaps and blind spots of India’s reportage on this subject so as to push for improvement and further knowledge generation.
The essay anchored itself in the study of ten media reports on the subject of child suicides during the COVID-19 Lockdown in India. The language medium was restricted to English journalism. Amongst all articles researched, 8 were focused on child suicides, while 2 mentioned children in relation to general suicides. Together, these ten articles are representative of 9 media houses (with two articles from The Federal). The essay does not include reportage on child suicides in India in general or even those that may have occurred during the pandemic but do not bear relation to the specific conditions produced by it. It attempts a critical analysis of the bulk of popular news coverage available on the internet on the subject of child suicides in India during the COVID-19 lockdown and its consequent conditions and circumstances.
What We Know
A staggering 8 out of the 10 articles studied focused on the fact that according to the Kerala State Crimes Records Bureau 66 children committed suicides (64 between the ages of 12 to 18 years and 2 below 12 years) in Kerala during the lockdown, with Malappuram district at the highest number and Thiruvananthapuram Rural at second highest in child suicides in Kerala.
The story of Devika, a 15-year-old Dalit girl from Valanchery, in particular, was elaborated extensively by Outlook India, New Indian Express, and Gulf News, as well as mentioned by others. Devika was an excellent student, a class leader, and scored high marks in academics. As per the news coverage, she committed suicide because she did not have the resources to attend online classes though her suicide note simply stated, “I’m (sic) going ahead” (Outlook India). Her story raised crucial questions about the discriminatory impact of the lockdown along socio-economic lines and the distress being faced by underprivileged children in India.
A couple of more stories by The Federal also from Kerala are as follows:
A10-year-old girl, a class 6 student, from Anchalumoodu in Kollam district, committed suicide with her suicide note stating that her father did not love her.
A 14-year-old boy, also from Kollam district, hanged himself but there is no final note, though, the police have concluded it was because he “wasn’t allowed to play football outdoors.”
The reports also share that in response to these figures the Kerala state government has launched various mental health interventions for children such as a tele-counseling programme, channeling Asha workers to support children, providing tips and pointers for parents and, India TV News adds that the state government also constituted a committee headed by senior IPS officer R. Sreelekha to do deeper research and study on the matter.
Apart from Kerala, there was only one article covering the number of general suicides (not focused on children specifically) in Kolkata and another doing the same for Ludhiana, which included stray mentions of child suicides.
In Kolkata, The Print reported that amongst those who died by suicide in May and June, 3 were below the age of 12 years and 26 were below the age of 30 years, however nothing is mentioned about children below 18 or about teenagers in specific. However, in the overall suicides data, the police is seeing a 100 percent increase in the number post lockdown.
In Ludhiana, the Indian Express mentions that five students died by suicide during the lockdown and that in the month of May, 2020 a 9-year-old girl killed herself in Dhandhran Enclave.
Drawn from all the articles reviewed, the environmental factors contributing to child suicides frequently mentioned in the reportage include stress over online education, stresses in romantic relationships, parenting by disciplining and pressure, discord in home spaces, domestic abuse, loss of contact with friends, and lack of various activities/ physical exercise.
Disproportionate Data or Disproportionate Reportage?
At first glance this intense and massive coverage subjects Kerala to heavy criticism. However, what is of greater concern is the seeming absence of similar statistical information in popular media regarding the rest of the country. To reiterate, out of the 10 articles studied for this report, 8 focused on Kerala. Either the media has somehow focused only on the data emerging out of Kerala without any inter-state or national comparisons, or the data gathering machineries of all remaining states and the national government have become dysfunctional in relation to child suicides during the lockdown. Both scenarios are worrisome in their respective regards and require immediate further research. Actual planning and implementation of corrective programmes are a moot point with such irregular media and public information.
The Child Equals Student Fallacy
In a number of articles, children who are committing suicide are referred to as “students” rather than as “children”. This tendency to reduce the identity of a child to a student is symptomatic of a problematic cultural world-view on the personhood of a child wherein the child is reduced to their function of getting educated as a student in order to join the workforce. Additionally, what this manner of identifying the child as a student does, particularly in the case of suicides, is that it gives the impression that the mental distress of the child occurs in the child’s student life or in relation to their spaces of education. Thus, a unilateral responsibility is transferred upon educational spaces for the management of the child’s mental health and responsibility is lifted off of parenting, families, neighbourhoods, and governments who play an equal role in creating the environmental conditions that impact the mental health of children. Thus, it is important for media coverage on child suicides to guard against the fallacy of using the words “child” and “student” interchangeably.
Guessing the Cause: The Blind Man’s Bluff
A pattern appears of have taken hold within media houses of speculating the cause behind a child committing suicide:
The first line of Business Insider reads, “At least 140 teenagers killed themselves in Kerala for trivial reasons in the last six months…”
The Federal quotes police personnel analysing that a 14-year-old boy in Kerala committed suicide because he wasn’t allowed to play football.
In Ludhiana, Indian Express reports that the parents of a 9-year-old girl who committed suicide claim that she did so because she had a spat with her brother over playing games on a mobile phone.
Such speculations, often focused on identifying “the” (singular) reason that led to a child committing suicide by media houses, though perhaps not mal-intended, cut across the length of the spectrum ranging from amateur, to misinformed, reductionist, trivializing, simplified, misleading and, in effect, insensitive. Considering the influence of journalism on public consciousness, such practices not only invisibilise the actual depth and complexity of the pain endured by the child who is no more, but also stunt public mental health awareness and understanding thereby contributing to a culture that is unable to respond to and prevent similar tragedies in the future.
It is crucial to challenge the Kerala police analysis that a child committed suicide because he wasn’t allowed to play football; and to ask Business Insider on what basis do they claim children are committing suicides for “trivial” reasons? What reasons that can lead to suicide are “trivial”? And who is the determiner of what is or isn’t “trivial” for another?
Missing the Psycho-Social Link
Suicides are an expression of psychic pain and distress that, as it is becoming increasingly understood, often operates within a biological-psychological-social-economic matrix. However, most media coverage reviewed approached mental health as if human psychology operates in a vacuum disconnected from socio-economic and systemic realities. This stunted understanding goes on to directly influence policymaking and programmatic responses to child suicides. For example, as in Kerala, steps were taken to provide children counseling. However, the prevention of child suicides may also require providing employment to the child’s parents, help in understanding school subjects, intervention in domestic violence, open discussion of sex and sexuality, etc. Uni-dimensional interventions via psychiatric medication and counseling are unlikely to succeed at a wide scale without state and public driven systemic transformations in favour of economic, social, educational, gender, and sexual equality.
Such an underdeveloped discussion on the mental health of children holds back public awareness on the subject, and provides a scapegoat to the structures of family/ community/ schools/ state (varying from one case to another), to evade their roles and responsibilities in fostering an environment that may have driven a child to such an extreme. The fact that children are finding themselves pushed to an edge where they find suicide to be their least unbearable option is, in most cases, a tragedy created by our entire social fabric rife with its discriminatory patterns, our economic systems and its inequalities, our dominant parenting and schooling methods, and the failure of the state and public infrastructure. It is crucial that social responsibility at large – across the government, schools, neighbourhoods, and families – is taken for the psychological wellbeing of children.
A Sidelining of Experts
While media houses engage in a blind man’s bluff of speculations on why a child committed suicide, looking for singular explanations devoid of nuance, and engage in ignorant conversations on mental health, the voices of mental health experts can only be found few and far between.
It is crucial for reportage to either refrain from such speculations or, with a humble acceptance of human limitations, look towards experts for analysis. It additionally appears to have become very necessary for media houses to conduct intensive and on-going internal mental health awareness capacity building, prior to publishing material, so as to equip their reporters to raise national understanding on the subject.
Conclusion: The Way Forward
The research study headed by DGP R Sreelaekha that had been authorized by the Kerala state government submitted its report on 21st October, 2020. An article by The Federal published as recently as 24th October, 2020, provides an overview of its key findings. The article describes some of the most overarching myths and assumptions about children’s wellbeing that the statistical discoveries of the study has busted:
The study, by and large states the cause of suicides to be “unknown or not clear.” Such a study, by busting myths and providing little to no answers regarding the reasons behind children committing suicides, are bound to unsettle people’s sense of reality and certainty, and leave us with an even more complicated picture. And yet, it shows the way. The study reveals how far a road is yet to be travelled even when it comes to developing a rudimentary understanding of mental health and children’s experiential realities in India, whether within civil society or at the level of policy making. Most importantly perhaps, it shows that the first step to creating an environment that supports children’s mental health lies in unlearning, in busting myths, questioning assumptions, and challenging much of what has culturally been assumed to be correct, true, and “good” for children.
Research, funded by states and privately, conducted at vast scale and in depth, across disciplinary and methodological frameworks, is integral to the way forward that individuals, organisations, and institutions must immediately begin conducting, supporting, and advocating for. Foundations laid by credible research must become the basis of media conversations, policy and law making, financial allocation, and designing of programmes at all levels – individual workers, communities, organisations, and the state. It will be necessary to ensure that research, media coverage, financial and human resource allocation, programme designing and implementation takes place at both, the scale, as well as the multiple layers, that makes up the magnitude and complexity of child suicides. An expression of pain as extreme as suicide by the children of India requires an urgent multi-pronged response, now.
References
https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/kerala-children-die-suicide-lockdown-committee-formed-633003
https://thefederal.com/news/rising-children-suicides-amid-lockdown-triggers-concern-in-kerala/
https://thefederal.com/news/study-on-child-suicides-in-kerala-breaks-these-7-myths/
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