Indian Cocktail – by Ravi Dev
Over the years, I’ve thought a lot about the phenomenon of suicide. It’s not that I’m morbid. As an Indian in Guyana, I’m not sure how one can avoid such thoughts. With almost 200 suicides a year and more than three-quarters of them being Indians, there’s hardly a week you don’t get a call from some friend or acquaintance about someone they or you know who took their life. Who hasn’t been touched?
It’s been so ever since I can remember. Friends from other communities would joke: “What’s the name of an Indian cocktail? Malathion!”
But interesting enough when I started looking into the epidemic, I found that in the villages of the Bhojpuri belt from where most of us had migrated from, suicide had been a rare occurrence. The figures of the 19th century showed that Uttar Pradesh had a rate of 6.3 per 100,000 while in the countries to which we had been exported to labour on the sugar plantations the numbers had skyrocketed to at least ten times that number.
From Fiji to South Africa to the Caribbean, the authorities compiled meticulous records, even as they took no measures to deal specifically with the problem. It was just another factor that convinced them Indian immigration had to continue – to fill the gaps so to speak.
Matters haven’t changed much since, as far as the numbers go. Two years ago, Guyana hit the international news with a piece on Al Jazeera, reporting from Black Bush Polder, that we’d placed among the countries with the highest suicide rates in the world. Officially, by WHO figures, we’re # 3. We don’t need Jim Jones to place us on the suicide watch any longer. But that # 3 position was earned as a country as a whole – with a population of 780,000 – producing a rate of 25/100,000. If, as the studies show, we dis-aggregate the rate for Indians (over three quarters of the victims) then we take the undisputed #1 spot with about 50/100,000.
We’ve been highlighting this fact for the last decade and a half to emphasise that whenever the authorities designed a suicide intervention program, they’d have to ensure that the cultural responses of Indians to the triggering mechanisms for suicide be taken into account. There has unfortunately been a studied refusal to take the hint. Last year, noting that “Multicultural societies require cultural sensitivity in all suicide prevention efforts,” the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) designated the theme for World Suicide Day as: “Preventing Suicide in Multicultural Societies.”
It was emphasised that, “Risk factors for suicide vary across cultural groups. Knowledge about common risk factors in a society often stems from research in majority populations. However, in a multicultural context we need to be aware that some risk factors may play different roles in the suicidal process as well as in suicide prevention for some minority groups compared to the majority population…
“In addition, other factors that might have a different impact on minorities compared to the majority population are attitudes towards suicidal behaviour and suicidal people (e.g. taboo, stigma), religion and spirituality, and family dynamics (gender roles and responsibilities).” It is therefore not surprising that as a result, as is the case in Guyana, “The strategy/program is often aimed at the majority population and a specific cultural perspective or focus is missing.”
One problem arising with the traditional approach in dealing with suicide has been its strong linkage with mental health services. It’s not that the latter are failing people, but that they are not always the right service in the first place. If you are deeply distressed and feeling suicidal, then visiting a place seen a dealing with ‘mad people’ would be the last place you’d want to go. Very few persons who committed suicide sought out available mental health workers.
The government in the last five years has made an attempt to get ordinary individuals within communities trained in a ‘gatekeepers’ program to be available to counsel individuals contemplating suicide. But the initiative appears to have been mothballed for reasons that are not clearly apparent. The former Minister of Health had confessed that funding had always been a constraint but we had hoped with the enormity of the problem, this would have been rectified.
Earlier this month, there was a report of a Peace Corps volunteer working with a local group in Black Bush polder, the Mibicuri Community Developers. He surveyed the community’s specific conclusions as to why they’ve become the ‘suicide nest’ of Guyana. In descending significance these were “the inability to cope, domestic-relational problems, parents disapproving of their children’s boyfriends or girlfriends, alcoholism as a pattern, impulsivity, insufficient money to live on or to repay loans, easy access to agricultural pesticides/poisons, poverty/limited opportunities, manipulation to get what they want from parents and Satan/the Devil tempting them to do it.”
These may be compared to some general factors identified by the IASP – for instance depression, unemployment, poverty, oppression, marginalisation, stigmatisation, or racism. We have to connect the specific and general triggering factors but more importantly identify why the particular response in elicited. Other groups probably face these same challenges but their response is different. An effective intervention program has to answer this ‘why’ and offer alternatives to the “Indian Cocktail”?
Comments
The incidence of suicides in Guyana is certainly very sad and troubling.Thanks to Ravi Dev for informatively spotlighting this social problem. I do not know the specifics, but I guess suicide among the younger people is more prevalent. Of course, there are many circumstances surrounding suicides, but I’d assume domestic conflicts are generally a primary factor. Personnel, agencies, material and resources are needed to effectively address the suicide problem. However, in the meantime, creating more awareness especially in schools, churches, community centers and by way of social media (TV forums, newspapers, etc) may be a good start. Obviously, there is a crying need for help and more effort has to be made by the Government to urgently address this problem. Perhaps appointing a special committee to propose solutions may help decrease the number of suicides.
I have taught high school in Canada for almost thirty years. Drawing from that experience, young people often contemplate suicide for reasons that we as adults don’t take very seriously. As teachers and administrators we are made aware of the signs of suicidal tendencies in students and we act on these immediately by involving specialists to intervene. As well, students engage in these discussions as a group or even individually. Perhaps the school system has to make this a priority as part of their wellness program in their schools in Guyana. if there is no wellness program, it should be developed by professionals in this area and teachers inserviced accordingly.
Thanks for sharing Ravi Dev’s article. Guyana’s high suicidal rate is troubling. It is an alert that all is not well with its most vulnerable citizens.
I don’t know the reasons for such high rate of suicide in Guyana, but what I can say; is, that in Canada, children do have problems and would not contemplate killing themselves; probably remotely.
I was in Guyana for 3 months in 2011 to help the students and teachers in improving their education standards by reading writing and have trusted friends, but I did observe the frequencies of suicide by the young people and some not so young also.
I do agree with Ravi about the reasons for suicides among Indians are the greatest, but also that some Indians, especially the off-springs of Biharis don’t let the enemies get to them, but “kill” it first. Depression is a killer if not treated immediately. I came from Letter Kenny Village where the majority were Bhojpuri; my nana us to sing Bhogpuri and only wore dhotis. He never stressed out and always relaxes. I’ve never heard of a suicide of a young person from my village.
Today the young ones don’t know to wait for tomorrow, but ‘want it now’. No one can have everything immediately and that should be embedded in their belief, but I still don’t know if that would solve the problems. Sometimes I have the feelings that they think that’s the fastest and easiest way out of a disagreement, misunderstandings or probably don’t think that by taking the poison, it is just a threat to my parents and after I woke up, I’ll be able to have things my way.
I really don’t know the answer, but it must be dealt with immediately. Suicide shouldn’t be a normal way of life, but instead the abstract.
When we (my wife and I) were in Guyana, we spent a few weeks at Whim at my wife’s cousin’s home whose son had committed suicide a year earlier. I was shocked to hear how that young man killed himself.
According to his mom and niece, he came home in the afternoon after drinking with a few friends and told his mom that he was going to drink poison and kill himself. The mom and the niece thought that he was joking even after he showed them the bottle. In effect, they ignored his calling for help, so he went to the neighbours and told them the same thing. No one saw the urgency for help.
The young man returned home and stood by their gate and took the bottle out of his pocket and emptied it down his throat. The mom and niece ran when they saw that, but he felt to the ground. They immediately called for help and he was taken to Port Mourant hospital.
He seemed to be ok according to the mom, but after 2 days, he was dead.
These are all tricky to point fingers at someone, but it does happen and it must be prevented in the future.
We cannot “allow” our young people to kill themselves. In the case of my wife’s cousin, she does not know the reasons for her son’s suicide. Isn’t this astonishing!
It is the duty of the researcher to unearth the salient factors that he has drawn frsom his studies of the population in those areas of his research. If a transplanted population over 175 years has accepted the life he or she has adopted in a new situation all is well. People commit suiside for several reasons and once the individual is mentally alert then the Community has no reason to suspect that this individual will be a high risk one for suicide and they will have to watch out for the community. The conditions in Bihar may not have changed over 175 years and so no communal pressures are brought to bear on anyone and so conditions as ill health mentally, depression, endogenous or exogenous may not exist and other forms of mental illness which start up as Stress in the individual and an inability to cope with simple day to day events. This causes the person to trip emotionally and psychologically and there we have a new problem of behaviour kind that will manifest in the aggrieved person. The agricultural farmers also has the easy availability of the toxic substance and this is creating the problem of drinking the easily availabie toxin!
Ravi, thank you for this article. It is well written and indeed an eye opener. I am an Indo Caribbean person who has lived outside of the Caribbean for over forty years, but I do understand and appreciate the problem, as you so eloquently stated it. I too know of individuals who fell prey to the “Indian Cocktail.” It saddens me that our people are in this predicament. I hope that with this awareness, some concrete steps will be taken.
When I was growing up, in those days. Malathion and the suicide cocktail was called “JAGAN MILK STOUT’because a lot of Indian girls was taking it to end their life
The need of the day is for the Social workers and a group of people called Community social workers to go into those high risk areas and do some more work with the people and their children. This effort also calls for the Social psychiatric workers who will visit the homes of such individuals and do some investigative work and then this group will take their findings to the appropriate authorities for further action. Remember a resolution must be found and so the matter must be put to the authorities who know better. The lack of controls on the Chemicals that are sold to farmers and others also must be dealt with because the easy availability of the deadly cocktail adds to the problem. This is rife in all Latin American Countries where the Chemicals are stored for Agricultural purposes.
It is not a nice thing to associate a great leader’s Name with so great and deadly a poison. But that as it may some people who cannot cope with life’s problems blame everyone for their worries. They become depressed due to whatever reason, then they connot cope with the stress factors in life and so some of the turn to the nearest Rum Shop that is so easily available in the villages and they drik their worries out and become chronic alcoholics. Some tirn to the hard drugs and yet others turnout to be the Commercial Sex Workers. This is the deadly game in life and their are many interplaying factors. The lack of jobs, the non availability of money and the many children to bring up in a rural community adds up to the social ills of the Community. Many persons find an easy exit and the tonic by whatever name is called is taken to put all troubles to a permanent rest in the lives of those who committ the suicide.I guess that today’s name of the tonic and cocktail will be different. The Canadian Model for school Counselling programmes to the children will go a far way in helping others not to kill themselves. The first simple steps will be to identify those communities that need help!