In India about 123,000 people take their own lives each year, the second highest total in the world. There is a suicide death in India almost every 4 minutes, and it is the leading cause of death for rural Indians especially women in early adulthood. This book presents a comprehensive analysis of suicide in India based on original research as well as existing studies, and looks at the issue in an international, sociological and historical context. The author looks at the reliability of suicide data in India, and goes on to discuss various factors relating to suicide, including age, gender, education and marriage. Among its findings, the book exposes a hidden youth suicide ‘crisis’ in India which is argued to be far more serious than the better known crisis of farmer suicides. The book dispels many myths that are commonly associated with suicide, and highlights a neglected public health problem. Suicide in the region of Pondicherry is looked at in detail, as well as in the Indian Diaspora. This book is a useful contribution to South Asian Studies, as well as studies in Mental Health and Sociology.

"A timely book that can help us have potentially life-saving conversations" - DEEPIKA PADUKONE, Actor & Founder, LiveLoveLaugh “A shocking fact and huge wake-up call is that suicide is the leading cause of death for young Indians. As a country — across all our expertise and fields of interest — we need to pay closer attention, and this book urges us to do just that, with clear policy level suggestions and a call to action.” -ABHINAV BINDRA In India we tend to have a fatalistic attitude towards suicide, tending to believe that nothing can be done to prevent it, focusing only on the politically volatile issue of farmer suicides, or periodically, when there is a death by suicide of a prominent personality or suicides in vulnerable groups (for example, students especially after Board exam results), there is a hue and cry in the popular press with opinion makers demanding immediate action. Why should you care? Because a disproportionate number of young Indians die by suicide and these are preventable deaths. The resulting knee-jerk reaction from policymakers is to offer some immediate solutions (appointing counsellors in colleges, etc.) which have little evidence of success. After a while, everyone forgets the issue, until the next such event and the cycle repeats itself. This book aims to present evidence-based strategies to tackle suicide, using interviews, case studies and conversations that lay readers can make sense of, while proposing an outline of steps that policymakers, journalists and key stakeholder groups can collaborate on to provide better solutions and save precious lives in India.

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject Ethnology / Cultural Anthropology, grade: 2,3, University of Heidelberg (Südasien Institut, Abteilung Ethnologie), course: Gender, Gesundheit und Politik in Südasien, language: English, abstract: Suicide is the intentional destruction of one ́s own life. The most people who commit suicide do it with the hope for rescue, because in reality they don’t want die. This self-destroying act is rather a cry for help and a desperate attempt to change hopeless situtations. Only less of all suicides happen deliberate without chance for help. In general men use harder methods to kill themselves than women, e.g. very often men shoot or hang themselves and women use more likely an overdose of sleeping pills (Digel, Werner (Hg.), Kwiatkowski, Gerhart (Hg.) 1987: 96). This informations would stand for that men are more determined to die definite than women who more likely hope for rescue. Indeed the rate of suicide committed by men is in the most countries in general higher than that of women (www : WHO 2001 b). The general causes of suicide and high- risk groups are mostly aged people, divorced, unemployed, social isolated, addict (especially alcoholics), psychically unbalanced and those who already attempted suicide in the past. Problems of women are often lovesickness, marital and family conflicts, problems of men are economic and social (especially professional) difficulties. The best prevention against suicides is the support of social relationships and organizations, which should be accessible for all people who need help (Digel, Werner (Hg.), Kwiatkowski, Gerhart (Hg.) 1987: 96). In the following chapters I descibe different kind of suicide in India. After general informations about suicide, I explain suicide in the context of religion, politic and society. Therefore I make following categories: a) religious suicide, b) political suicide, and c) social suicide. The chapter about social suicide is more detailed. Social suicide is seen as a public health problem. Positive changes can be achieved through prevention and care programs which I deal with at the end of this essay. I will not make a detailed comparing between India and other countries. I make no specific separation or detailed comparing between different groups, like young-old, men-women, different castes, different social strata, etc. My informations are hold very general.

Every year, about 30,000 people die by suicide in the U.S., and some 650,000 receive emergency treatment after a suicide attempt. Often, those most at risk are the least able to access professional help. Reducing Suicide provides a blueprint for addressing this tragic and costly problem: how we can build an appropriate infrastructure, conduct needed research, and improve our ability to recognize suicide risk and effectively intervene. Rich in data, the book also strikes an intensely personal chord, featuring compelling quotes about people's experience with suicide. The book explores the factors that raise a person's risk of suicide: psychological and biological factors including substance abuse, the link between childhood trauma and later suicide, and the impact of family life, economic status, religion, and other social and cultural conditions. The authors review the effectiveness of existing interventions, including mental health practitioners' ability to assess suicide risk among patients. They present lessons learned from the Air Force suicide prevention program and other prevention initiatives. And they identify barriers to effective research and treatment. This new volume will be of special interest to policy makers, administrators, researchers, practitioners, and journalists working in the field of mental health.

Illustrations: 14 B/w Illustrations Description: There is no human phenomenon which is more baffling than Suicide. It has always puzzled and intrigued the thinking mind that man, in a moment of frenzy, should kill himself and in one stroke end that mighty dream of his-the life-which he has so selfishly built. To this day, there is not a single undivided opinion on suicide. Some have commended it: others have condemned it. Even our ancient seers and philosophers have taken sides on the issue. But suicide has continued unabated and so also its implications on society. Here is an illuminating book which has this unusual subject as the topic of its study and tackles it from every conceivable angle. In it, origins of suicide have been traced in history, both remote and recent; its religious manifestations have been discussed in detail; its modes, past and present, as current in various lands, have been outlines; views, for and against, have been presented and statistics quoted. More than all, it emphasises the need for positive action in India in planning and executing measures to curb the evil of self-annihilation.

Once celebrated as a model development for its progressive social indicators, the southern Indian state of Kerala has earned the new distinction as the nation’s suicide capital, with suicide rates soaring to triple the national average since 1990. Rather than an aberration on the path to development and modernity, Keralites understand this crisis to be the bitter fruit borne of these historical struggles and the aspirational dilemmas they have produced in everyday life. Suicide, therefore, offers a powerful lens onto the experiential and affective dimensions of development and global change in the postcolonial world. In the long shadow of fear and uncertainty that suicide casts in Kerala, living acquires new meaning and contours. In this powerful ethnography, Jocelyn Chua draws on years of fieldwork to broaden the field of vision beyond suicide as the termination of life, considering how suicide generates new ways of living in these anxious times.

Part of the authoritative Oxford Textbooks in Psychiatry series, the new edition of the Oxford Textbook of Suicidology and Suicide Prevention remains a key text in the field of suicidology, fully updated with new chapters devoted to major psychiatric disorders and their relation to suicide.