The government has done well to decriminalise suicide attempts as any such person trying to end his/her life is legally absolved of any criminal overtones that used to be attached to such acts, making them subject to harassment by police and judicial officials. Those who die by their own hand have passed on, and nothing can be done about them. But it’s in caring for those who survive such foolish bids that a society’s empathy and its care-giving ability should be judged. In putting the Mental Healthcare Bill on the statue book after passage through both Houses of Parliament, we should be seen as a more empathetic nation capable of understanding the problems of the mentally ill.
It’s quite another matter that the sheer numbers of the mentally ill, already running into millions in a nation of a billion and a quarter people, are dumbfounding. Leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi have spoken to try give confidence to people likely to fall into depression and other mental illnesses that aren’t easily treated. We are short of trained counsellors like psychologists and institutions to treat the mentally ill. Chaining them up or giving them electric shocks isn’t the stuff of cinematic imagination. In fact, the bill specifically forbids electric shock therapy for children and it can be used only conditionally on adults. The bill’s intent, aiming for humane treatment, setting up of a mental authority at the Centre and in states, are most laudable. Too often, it’s in the follow-through, in providing what we intend to give, that we fail as a nation.
