Teen-ager girl student, Anchal Goswami (15), resident of Sambal district of Uttar Pradesh, committed suicide, media reported. Before committing suicide, she wrote a 19-page note addressed to Prime Minister Narender Modi describing the worrisome conditions that prevail in families, societal institutions and the country.
She ended the note stating that she was committing suicide of her free will and no one should be held responsible for it. She apologized from her mother saying that she did not know what was happening to her and the thought gripped her brain that no one wanted to see her alive. She philosophized saying that her body was like cloth which was weak and worn out.
According to WHO, suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people in the age group 15 to 24 and more so among adolescents. According to a rough estimate, 1M adolescents commit suicide every year globally. Often, in most cultures, suicide is viewed as a criminal, immoral and unethical act.
No one, in fact, goes to root causes of suicides among adolescents and often symptoms such as depression, withdrawal, distress, breakdown, emotional pain, or economic hardship, etc., are blamed. Very often solutions like medical treatment, counselling, life-skills training, therapies, help-lines, mental hospitals referrals, etc., are recommended or instituted when symptoms are reported or become evident. Even, the child is blamed for 'lack of coping skill'
by society, educators and caregivers.
If one looks at the incidents of suicide by intelligence and sensitive teen-agers through point of view of idealism, ethics, life-philosophy and spirituality, it is held that their suicide is an attempt to reject absurd and meaninglessness world created and controlled by adults which is full of selfishness, aggression, rivalry, hate and 'jungle raj' requiring brute force to survive by assaulting the human dignity of some who termed 'weak'. Such children, like Anchal (15) see death as the only way out instead by being eliminated by others. They are the push-outs of the brutal and hypocrite society.
According to philosopher Sartre, ‘an absurd person will not commit suicide’ and will like to live even at the cost of others. According to humanists, an idealistic and sensitive teen-ager sees society and leadership consisting hypocrites and he or she looks at the death as 'fascination' that could liberate him or her from people who say something else and do something else. It has been observed that even, religious leaders preach something else and do something else.
Humanistic thinkers, such as Herodotu and Schopenhauer suggest that when for sensitive person take to suicide, it is deemed as an act of the will that rejects life's unethical pleasures and grabbing of power by hook-and-crook.
Suicide by Anchal and similar other teen-agers is due to fact that they find adults hypocrites and they reject alienating everyday ridiculous life being paddled by them.
If one reads Anchal’s 19-page letter from humanistic philosophy point of view, both between-and-beyond lines, it is a wake-up and shake-up call for society, education system and governance for intense reforms.
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