A DEEP ANALYSIS OF DRIVING TO SUICIDE: FROM BULLYING TO PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURES by Rahul Yadav & Ranjeet Singh Choudhary

Posted on: November 18, 2020 Posted by: admin Comments: 0

Author : Rahul Yadav, Student at Manipal University, Jaipur.

Co-Author : Ranjeet Singh Choudhary, Student at Manipal University, Jaipur.

ABSTRACT

“Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” The aim of this paper is to describe the factors leading to suicide. Although many reasons make someone commit suicide in this paper, the major focus is on bullying and how it gradually leads to psychological torture to a person. This paper will address the problems that how suicide is not only committed by weak people but also the strong ones. It will also cover the ways of how to tackle if such a situation arises and which organizations help in guiding a way out of it. The methodology used in this paper is purely qualitative. There is help taken from references of books, journals, articles, research papers, and magazines. It will help in creating a deeper understanding of this issue as the more we talk about it, the lesser it happens. There are many laws to stop it but the real change can only be brought by the victims when they start raising their voices.

Keywords: Suicide, Self-harm, Bullying, Torture, Killing, Depression, Suicidal Behavior, etc.

INTRODUCTION

What is suicide? In literal terms, ‘sui’ means self, and ‘cide’ means killing. Therefore, suicide means the act of killing oneself. In other words, the act or instance where a person takes his/her own life with their own will and intentionally is known as suicide. Suicide is rarely the victim’s fault but of his/her surroundings or other people. It is hard to imagine the intensity of harm caused to a person that drives him/her to commit suicide. In this paper, it will be explained what are the reasons for a person’s committing suicide and there are many. But one of the major reasons why a person is forced to kill himself is bullying.

According to its definition, bullying is an act which is committed by a group of people or an individual where they cause torture to others in form of words or action. It mostly comes from the place where the bully considers himself/herself to be in a dominating position, where they think they can intimidate others to control them. It gives them a sense of power but mostly it is an act of consciousness to not let anyone affect them in any way or to bring out the reality hidden behind the mask of intimidation. They have the intention to hurt others physically, mentally, or sometimes both.

In this case, the person who is bullied faces intense psychological pressure which they are not able to handle. As stated above, they see it as permanent solutions to their temporary problems. Instead of facing it, they concentrate on how to avoid it forever. It may seem to some people that what they are going through is trivial or of less-importance but only the victims can know what it is doing to them.

Bullying does not necessarily mean that a student is getting bullied by his/her teachers. It comes in various other forms as well. It begins from an early stage of a person’s life. Sometimes it comes in the form of sexual harassment or physical assault at home and other times it happens when getting ill-treatment from spouses and in-laws which happen mostly with women. Bullying can be both physical and mental and it can happen to anyone. The consequences that the victim faces lead them straight into depression and mental disorder, which makes them act to commit suicide.

Ragging and bullying cannot be replaced. The degree and severity vary, however. Ragging is like a culture in schools and universities in particular. However, ragging took the faces and later turned into illegal activities. There were occasions when ragging. The renowned colleges in India have a storming past and suicide students. Ragging is the type of contact used by older adults to communicate with their young adults but also becomes so inhuman that many students have been killed. More factors contribute to suicide. There are more factors. Depression, home challenges, abuse background and psychologically or physically frail, and so on may be factors. Parents and teachers should be sensitized, so there is no drop in cases, despite strict laws. Knowledge is the best way to avoid it; the right session needs to be organized; a group of parents and teachers needs to be set up so that parents can inform on all of their children’s activities. This should particularly be done at the university level.

STAGES OF BULLYING

Bullying implies the physical or mental bullying of a person on a variety of occasions. It encompasses all interventions that aim to manipulate a victim’s mind including threats, rumors, actions of ignorance, physically or verbally. Over time, cyberbullying, which contributed to the deaths of several victims, is one of the most common forms of bullying. Some bullying can be easily identified as physical torture, while some happen secretly through social media, personal commentaries on the caste, a physical thing that is emotionally harmful.

Stated below are some of the places where bullying begins and impacts an individual. It is stated in a particular order as that is how bullying continues in the victim’s life:

Bullying at home: It is a surprise that bullying is more likely to happen at home than in other places. It begins at one’s own home and continues forever. It can be in the form of verbal abuse, physical beating, or sometimes even willful negligence can lead to bullying. Its psychological impact is so intense that it stays forever with the victim’s life. To look at the psychological state of the bully, it is likely to be found that once he/she has also been a victim of bullying in their childhood. In their childhood, when the abuse happened, it maimed them for their whole life leading them to believe that this is the right thing to do. Its after-impacts are depression, mental disorder, and no self-worth. Women and children are the victims of abuse generally as they are established to be the weaker section by society. Men are forced to believe that they are the higher authority and physical strength is their weapon to dominate others.
Bullying at school: School is considered to be the second home of a child. It is expected to be safe and healthy for children as it has an environment where children are supposed to grow and explore themselves. But sometimes they have to face the terror of getting bullied either by their classmates, seniors, or teachers. Bullying becomes an obstacle for students in their mental and physical growth. While they are in their learning stage, their minds are not completely developed. They adapt to what they see and the slightest things matter a lot to them. If they see they are getting bullied then they think of themselves as the weaker one. Their reaction to it is either by converting into a bully themselves or to convert into the students left alone wanting to commit suicide. The teachers and institutions also play a major role in this aspect. There are times when they know that some students are getting bullied but they do not act against it. It gives motivation to the bullies to carry on with their threat activities. It is now mandatory to form a committee in CBSE schools to tackle the situations of bullying and ragging. Teachers are own restricted to hit students as there is a chance that a sense of fear might be established in his/her mind. Their silence becomes the power of bullies and the weakness of the children.
Bullying at college: Now that students have passed their learning and developing age, they become rigid in college. There is a lot to learn but mostly their minds are made-up. Students have inexplicable freedom and many different ways to get out of their wrong-doings. It becomes even more dangerous than before because the pattern has completely changed. They have become an adult now and certain responsibilities are dawned upon them. Due to college being far-away, many students live at hostel or PG and for some of them; it is their first time living so away from their families. It is not easy to cope up with so many things at the same time. It has now become a tradition for seniors to take ragging of the new-comers. Playful ragging is never bad as it opens up a student but when it becomes more than that then it crosses the boundaries of limitations. If the bullying comes from roommates then it becomes impossible to escape. This is the reason why there are anti-ragging affidavits signed by everyone and there are so many laws imposed to tackle such a situation. It also develops fear in the minds of parents that whether they should send their children especially girls to far-away colleges. These harmful traditions affect the minds of young people in such a manner that they never fully recover from such incidents. Something so shocking yet common is the death of students due to ragging either by killing or by committing suicide.
Bullying at the office: An office or a workplace is considered to be a sacred place there is an essential need for professionalism and employees expect it to be maintained. But this is not the case every time. The employees get exploited by their employers of senior associates. They have to deal with it or else, it harms their professional image. Due to the sick mindset of society, it is considered to be part of the experience that everyone has to face at some point in their lives. Bullying can be in the form of sexual harassment as well. If any sort of physical or mental assault happens, the victim is asked to be quiet about it otherwise his/her job is taken away from them. The mental pressure of handling such things without letting anyone know paves their way to commit suicide. Not living up to the expectations of certain people lead them to believe that they will not get any better job than this. The victims must speak as in doing so the bully will stop his/her practices. It is not just the responsibility of victims to report but also of the seniors and employers to check on their fellow employees. Certain guidelines should be set so that the bullies can know their boundaries and get punishment accordingly suitable.

TYPES/MODES OF BULLYING

In the afore-stated paragraphs, it is stated that where does bullying start? It talks about different places where bullying takes place but there needs to be further bifurcation with it. In these places, bullying takes place in various forms. It can be physical, verbal, mental, social, and cyberbullying.

Physical bullying– When there is the use of physical strength to harm a person then it is physical bullying. It consists of hitting a person, kicking a person, pinching him/her, or any physical violence. Bullying can also happen when there is the harm caused to the property to that individual. It does not have a strong punch or casual blow as anything which happens against the will of an individual comes under the criteria of bullying.

Verbal bullying- It is a misconception that only physical bullying hurts. While physical bullying affects the body of an individual or his property verbal bullying results in affecting the mind of that individual. It is in the form of verbal insults, verbal abuse, verbal rumors, racist remarks, homophobic remarks, sexist remarks, and cat-calling names. It seems harmless at first but slowly it leads to devastating effects.

Mental bullying– Mental bullying happens when there is willful negligence or gross misconduct from the bully’s side. It happens a lot when the bullies do not even speak but the victim does what the bullies want. It happens mostly between husband and wife. The husband has been told since childhood that he is the supreme authority and should always control his wife. This leads him to take control by establishing his position through gestures, eye expressions, and sometimes no talking.

Social bullying– The only purpose of this bullying is to cause harm to someone’s reputation. It cannot be identified very easily as there is no physical damage but social damage. There needs not to be involvement of the victim as well as it can happen behind his/her back as well. It is in the form of causing fake rumors about the person, mimicry, bad facial expressions, and social exclusion.

LAWS TO PREVENT BULLYING

There is no such rule that those who are weak, they commit suicide and those who are strong can cope up with it. To victims, it seems like they are in a deadlock with no way out but this is not the reality. The most important step is to raise voice against bullying. If the aggrieved starts raising his/her voice then the bully will realize that their acts have consequences. It will stop the bullies from bullying. But this is not the only way as there are certain laws as well which are anti-bullying and can help the victim at different times and situations. To prevent a child from physical assault, there are Child Protection Laws, to protect women from physical and psychological torture; there are Women Safety Laws, to prevent ragging of students or children, there are Anti-ragging laws, and to prevent social networking bullies, there is Cyberbullying laws and Information Technology Laws. Also, there are certain laws and provisions in the Indian Penal Code for the protection of every individual. Section-306 of the Indian Penal Code deals with the Abetment of Suicide. Therefore if any individual forces a person or creates a situation where the victim sees himself/herself to be left with just one option which is committing suicide then the bully will be held liable. The Constitution of India guarantees the right to life to everyone where the right to equality and the right to life with dignity come hand in hand. These laws make sure that every person gets a respectful life; a life we all deserve. Again, it comes to the point that the aggrieved have to raise their voices or their problems will go unnoticed. The aim is to prevent suicides at all costs but is only starts with one big step at a time.

CONCLUSION

Many factors can lead to victims being forced to attempt suicide. An impoverished and desperate condition brings the victim closer to suicide ideation. Family, mentors, and social groups are also the role played here. The study indicates that individuals who interact less or were much susceptible. Parents or any wisher of a child should build such an environment that the child cannot get tired of sharing anything with them, are the first and foremost task here. In this special issue, we aim to improve suicide awareness by defining unique psychological features that can promote specific suicide prevention, strategies, and services. Improving our understanding of these issues will allow clinicians and researchers to develop specific strategies and approaches for preventing these diseases, which eventually leads to lower suicide rates around the globe.