The devil in the room

 

I read an article today about the devastating effects of the Delhi riots on the mental health of the survivors. It was written that most of them were scared, unable to think normally, and ruminate a lot about past events. They are poor and do not even have a home for themselves to live. The fear of recurrent persecution hangs like a sword on their heads. There were some volunteers who were providing these people with psychosocial support. The general consensus is that it may take years for the people to get back to normalcy if it is at all possible.

What a terrible thing we do to people! Anyone who has had mental health problems knows how difficult it is to navigate the world when the mind stops behaving normally. It is as if thorns are pricking your head all the while. Added to that the inability of the people around to grasp your issues and be empathetic. The general idea circulating around is that the other person is ill and should be left alone. Or even worse the angst on the person on why he or she is not doing what the world expects them to do!

What occurred to me is how much as a country we have put this problem under the carpet. I am getting this feeling that a good part of the lack of productivity in India could be because of the mental health issues of people, workers in particular have not been considered. Nowhere in economic models do we see any variable that corresponds to high mental functioning. Mental health conditions are hardly taken into consideration while determining human capital. Nowhere in the speeches of the people in power, we find a mention of the fact that good mental health is a priority. This issue is not at all discussed anywhere except a few organizations and volunteers who take up the matter in their hands.

It’s a terrible mistake. Because bad mental health is not because of weakness or biology. A large factor that determines the mental health of a person is the environment the person lives in. In an unfriendly environment where coercion, mistrust, uncertainty, or violence prevail, mental health suffers. Conditions of discrimination are ripe for deteriorating mental health. Be it, women, in households, students in intuitions, workers in factories, oppression due to caste, police brutality, are ideal grounds for the mind to give up functioning normally. As a society, it is possible to get rid of these ailments we have. How little we are doing to get them off in a real sense.

I think its high time such discussions take the center stage. Politicians, higher education institutions, schools, offices, the government have to realize that we have a devil in the room here. Empathy and compassion should be a necessary trait for a person to rise above the ladder. As of now intelligence and compliance seem to be the two biggest traits needed for these. A good example of this is the New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern. She has empathy in her, she cares for her people in the real sense of the world. New Zealand has taken appreciable steps to raise their mental health status. We need more leaders like her, not the kind of leaders we have who rise up with the help of a Machiavellian strategy. Our leaders add to the mental health burden of people. Power in India, in my opinion, adds to this problem. People in positions of power are not trained to feel empathetic. It’s an important flaw we have to mend.

Finally there have been many Delhi’s before. And if we do not demand more empathy in our leaders and positions of power, there will be more Delhi’s in the future. We don’t in fact need a Delhi to talk about mental health. If you look around our society, there are a number of silent sufferers. It’s a shame we as a society can allow this. The devil has to vanish.