The final story
There lives a storyteller inside every mind. The stories that we create and tell ourselves, about ourselves, help us make sense of our constantly shifting identities and experiences, and justify our being who we are and doing what we do. As the anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson puts it, we "compose" our lives through this "act of creation."
Arghya Biswas, a student of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University in Gopalganj, also told himself a story before committing suicide on November 14. It was unlike stories that freshmen tell themselves—in which they usually appear as happy, excited, fun-loving, or adventurous. In Arghya's story, we have a young man deeply disturbed by his surroundings, crippled by a sense of hopelessness so profound that the only way out of it seemed to be jumping off the roof.
We know about Arghya's story because he shared it via a Facebook post minutes before he made that fatal leap. It was quite elaborate for a suicide note, written lucidly and with barely any typo, and there was no indication of the imminent disaster. In hindsight, it seems like Arghya was trying to make a statement with the final story of his life.
The 353-word note was addressed to Bangladesh ("Priyo Bangladesh"). What follows is a sarcastic, unflattering observation about the current state of affairs in the country, especially the public universities, question paper leaks, murders and abductions, the pervasive corruption, and so on. At the heart of it is what he calls a "spineless" education system that punishes the students for refusing to conform—which was apparently the driving force behind his suicide.
Arghya believed in every word that he said. His conviction that he and others like him were victims of this system was expressed with the visceral intensity of a troubled mind, without recourse to complex reasoning, but one can relate to his sense of inadequacy because he spoke from a common moral ground about issues that are already common knowledge.
There is indeed something amiss with a system in which students end up feeling depressed and overwhelmed. The characters in Arghya's story are real, who in the past were reported to have been involved in activities unbecoming of a teacher, but attempts to make them account for their action fell through because of the immunity that politically connected teachers enjoy in some public institutions.
What I find particularly disturbing is how Arghya, who represents a generation of students growing up in an increasingly unhealthy academic environment in which "success by any means necessary" takes precedence over excellence and moral principles, reacted to the situation. As the growing suicide mortality rate tells us, when feelings of despair and helplessness as powerful as his take root, for whatever reason that may be, unless you know how to overpower them, you're probably just one bad day away from being Arghya.
Arghya's case has provoked a public outcry and discussion about the country's education system, especially the undue pressures that students are subjected to as well as the overriding influence of politics, but it also brought to the limelight the hitherto unexplored effects of this climate on the mental health of those involved, particularly the students.
In Bangladesh, young people are more vulnerable to suicide, although a nationwide survey on suicide has yet to be conducted. According to a report by World Health Organization, the number of deaths by suicide in Bangladesh was 10,167, or 1.40 percent of the total deaths in 2012. The most recent estimate of the annual suicide rate is 39.6 per 100,000 population; however, it remains unknown how many of them are students.
Judging by available media reports on suicide, it is safe to assume that most of the young people (students) who commit suicide are female, victims of sexual harassment, which remains a major cause of suicide across the South Asian region. South Asia accounts for 39 percent of global suicides. However, in Bangladesh, unlike some other countries, that a person's academic life may have something to do with depressive disorders leading to suicide is seldom discussed.
In the last six weeks alone, at least four college students, three of them female, have committed suicide. Relatives are often unwilling to report depression and suicide because of the stigma attached to them. To change this and create an environment in which vulnerable individuals are inspired to find constructive alternatives to depression, Bangladesh needs to recognise the importance of mental health issues and adopt a national suicide prevention strategy.
I often think about the stories that those college students have told themselves during the final hours of their life. Stories about things not working out for them, about a world conspiring against them. In a way, these stories help you make sense of your present predicament and the resultant feelings of resentment or despair. Your brain keeps rewinding that story over and over again. And you wonder what right you have to be alive and pretend everything is okay when, in your mind, everything is clearly not.
I think it's normal to ask that question. Life being too burdensome and all, we all ask that question from time to time. But it's important that you don't answer that question. An unchecked suicidal thought, in the wrong head, might wreck terrible results, and once done, you may never have the opportunity to undo that mistake. The important thing is to understand that killing yourself, however justified it seems at that moment, is not the solution.
Preventing suicide and suicidal thoughts, especially among young people, should be a top priority. We can't expect to do that just by having a restraining order safety-pinned to the chest of a suicide-prone individual.
I think we need, first of all, to acknowledge that suicide is a health problem, and prevention and reduction of suicide should be on the agenda of the healthcare planners. Also, there should be facilities for on-campus psychological counselling in all academic institutions, and toll-free helpline services for people with suicidal tendencies. Social awareness, and acceptance, of mental health issues is also very important as discussing and disclosing depression can help enormously.
Just days before Arghya killed himself, he uploaded a profile picture with a text that reads: "Wait enough to quit?" To anyone aware of how a suicidal mind works, this should be indication enough that he was probably contemplating something. "Quit" is a standard reference to suicide. Clearly, Arghya's family and friends didn't know that, or they could have brought help in time.
A favourable environment in which discussion on mental health issues is welcomed and the needs and challenges of a suicide-prone individual are understood and respected can go a long way in dealing with suicide. We need to start working on that before another young person like Arghya falls victim to our collective failure.
Badiuzzaman Bay is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star.
Email: badiuzzaman.bd@gmail.com