This post by Dr Alf is sad but suicide among the young and the impoverished is a global problem stemming from a mismatch between what people can in their straightened circumstances actually achieve and what society holds up as the model for success.
A society like India‘s which has a rigid caste system, people starving juxtaposed against billionaires and too few routes out of poverty is going to be seething with discontent.
This is why the best and the brightest leave the country and end up in Silicon Valley or in entrepreneurial roles around the world.
Those who have yet to make their mark are forced to strive against competition from their own people made stronger by a fast rising population and by the caste system plus innate corruption.
Those three factors between them let alone parental and peer pressure may be enough to drive people to suicide whereas elsewhere people can drink, travel and let off steam in other ways before deciding that it is all too much and killing themselves.
In the West we have the luxury of being able to “manage expectations” although it is becoming increasingly untenable as the wealth gap goes on increasing.
In India, it needs to be a case of leveling up and at a rate of knots because if it is as slow as it has been there will be a lot more disillusioned young people killing themselves.
Similarly with rural Indian girls, the grinding poverty and the culture of rape and debasement of woman combines to create the conditions for suicide which of course includes shame and an inability to ever find a husband after what has happened to them.
Dr Alf's Blog 