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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Debate: Are Some Suicides More Important Than Others? -Jahnavi Sen

Debate: Are Some Suicides More Important Than Others? -Jahnavi Sen

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published Published on May 16, 2016   modified Modified on May 16, 2016
-TheWire.in

According to NCRB data for 2014, the suicide rate for ‘housewives’ was more than double that of farmers, though the latter gets far more media attention. What does this really indicate?

In 2014, National Crime Records Bureau data showed that 20,148 housewives took then own lives across the country. This amounts to approximately 18% of all suicides that year.

A recent article in the Economic and Political Weekly by political scientist Peter Mayer takes this data as the basis for questioning why media coverage on suicide by housewives is strikingly low. He compares coverage on farmers’ suicides to that of “housewives”, saying that the Indian media has a sensationalist, stereotyped approach to covering farmers’ suicides that does not follow any ethical guidelines.

When talking about farmers’ suicides, Mayer argues that the media almost never treats the individual suicide in question as the principal subject. Rather, it is an example to highlight the plight of a larger section of workers. He compares the vignettes from surviving family members to pictures of malnourished children from Africa – portrayals that have been criticised for their stereotypical nature and lack of complexity, and even for reinforcing regional hierarchies.

Mayer also makes the point that the media would have you believe that all farmers who take their lives are male, based mainly in central India, and are driven to suicide because of economic distress. None of these inferences are factual, he goes on to say. The highest number of farmer suicides are in fact in the south. NCRB data show that the suicide rate of female farmers was only very slightly lower than their male counterparts in 1997, though the gap between the two has grown dramatically in recent times. However, in 2014, the suicide rates of both male and female agricultural labourers were higher than for farm owners – something that is “invisibilised” in discussions.

Comparing the 2014 number for housewife suicides (20,148) to the number of farmer suicides in that same year yields an answer very different from the one media reports articulate, Mayer argues. The number of housewife suicides is 250% higher than the number of farmer suicides (5,650 in 2014). In the same year, the suicide rate for housewives was 13.3 per lakh, and the equivalent for self-employed in agriculture was 6.3 (male) and 1.4 (female).

Yet media coverage on the suicides of married women remains close to zero, Mayer argues.

Please click here to read more.

TheWire.in, 15 May, 2016, http://thewire.in/2016/05/15/debate-are-some-suicides-more-important-than-others-30016/


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