So why do people commit suicide, and who is to blame for it?

This is the most significant question that people have after the deed is done. Various reasons are cited - financial difficulties, relationship problems, performance not being up to one's expectations (particularly true for students), inability to tolerate some grievous pain, etc. Sometimes people leave notes, but notes never tell the full story.  And sometimes not even that, and we never know.  People friends found absolutely normal the day before, people who laughed and joked around the night before, have been known to take their lives. Of course nothing can really be reason enough to kill yourself, no one would in their good senses, but plenty of people lose their senses when confronted with really difficult situations. This is a very human thing to do.  Can the surrounding society be held responsible, even be blamed, for suicides?

A student in Rutgers recently committed suicide because he could not take the humiliation of  being harassed about his homosexuality. A friend we had in high school burnt himself to death and refused to give a reason for why he had done it even when he was found in a critical stage and taken to the hospital. People suspect that he was gay, and somehow had been unable to come to terms with this in a repressive Indian setting.  In the former case, specific individuals or groups of individuals could be held responsible for inducement to suicide. Although they were probably not aware of the full repercussions of their actions, their actions were reprehensible and criminal and deserve to be tried in a court of law. In both cases,  egregious social attitudes can be held responsible.  These at least are identifiable problems, and intellectuals and leaders of society need to work on these social attitudes through sustained activism at all levels.  This at least is being done in the case of homosexual rights.

Sometimes it is harder to pin down the blame.  The recent case in India where a girl decided to hang herself, to all appearances because she could not take the humiliation of being publicly dumped by her boyfriend. In an understandably emotional response from the girl's family, they have pressed charges against this supposed ex-boyfriend.  If you read the story, you will no doubt agree that the manner in which the boy had gone about this was extremely insensitive,  and speaks volumes about his character and insecurity. Still holding him criminally responsible for this sounds a tad over-the-top. This is one of the murkier aspects of relationships anyway.  No third party can completely know what went on between the two, and consequently even egregiously insensitive louts have to be given the benefit of doubt (sigh - don't get me started on the unpleasant, unfair, aspects of relationships -  I can anticipate all of if without ever being in any). 

In a previous post, I have made the point that suicidal tendencies, or depression in general, needs to be seen and treated as a disease. In some cases it can be an epidemic.  Once a "culture of suicide" is established in a society, it can be monstrously self-propagating. As in many other posts on other examples of collective extreme tendencies in a society, I will cite the case of Japan. The ancient honor codes of Japan, a classic example of a 'shame society' taught people to prefer death over dishonor.  This tradition has been compounded by modern development and industrialization that have caused family bonds to weaken and individual alienation to increase.  Suicide can at times be strangely fashionable. An author wrote a bestselling book about 101 best ways to kill yourself in Japan.  You must have also heard of the various death cults - religious or other kinds of crazies - that committed suicide en masse hoping that a comet would deliver them to a Utopian land if they killed themselves at some particular time.  Then there are ideologically brainwashed suicide bombers too. Human beings are good followers. I think a similar culture of suicide is also in place in my alma mater.  People have no lack of precedents. Precedents sometimes validate an act, particularly if  it can be seen as a kind of martyrdom in some forms of discourse.

A disease can be combated on several fronts, both the personal and the environmental, even if it is a disease whose causes and cures are not very well-understood. While the individual's treatment has to be based on psychiatry, the social factors have to be dealt with through activism. While the college administrators can do little about the personal factors, they have no excuse to live in denial and not address some of the negative aspects of the establishment that could be creating an unhealthy environment conducive to this disease.  A primer for all administrators and faculty members on psychology issues to create a more sensitive and understanding environment on campus, reforming the draconian grading system, and  having a professional counselling system in place, could be good places to start. Till some of that happens, the administration will have to share part of the blame for these recurring incidents.