Priya Ganapati in Bombay

Consider the following:

March 2, 2001: Shantibhai Narayan Jagda and his two daughters died after consuming tea laced with poison. Jagda worked at a jewellery shop in Bombay. His suicide note said that he had lost 1,700 gms of gold worth Rs 65,000 and was immersed in debt. Unable to pay up, he decided to end life.
March 8, 2001:V K Agarwal and his wife, Ramkali, consumed poison at Paharganj, New Delhi. The couple had allegedly siphoned off Rs 7 million from the Bharati Bank Karamchari Sahkhari Samiti and invested in the stock market. The subsequent crash in the market wiped off their investments, leaving them with no other alternative but suicide.
March 18, 2001: Abhishek Banka, a speculator at the Calcutta Stock Exchange, drowned to death in the Hooghly in Calcutta. Banka was burdened with a liability of Rs 3.7 million after a recent slump at the CSE. A few hours after his body was found, his wife, Sona, jumped to death from her father's ninth floor flat.
March 21, 2001: Sanjay Agarwal, a stock broker, and his family committed suicide by hanging themselves from the ceiling of their houses in West Delhi.
March 22, 2001: Virender Kumar Maini, a retired official of the State Bank of India ended his life. He was suffering from depression due to losses suffered in the recent stock market crash.
March 23, 2001:A family of three killed themselves in Delhi.

In the last two months over fifteen suicides have been reported from across the country. Unofficial estimates put the death toll at over 25 in March itself.

It would be easy to dismiss these deaths as those born out of greed, excessive desire, temptation and individual failures. But, if one examines these cases carefully, one finds that Shantibhai Narayan Jagda, Abhishek Banka, V K Agarwal and Virendra Kumar Maini were middle-class people who were caught in the vortex of forces beyond their control. Forces that psychiatrists label as 'consumerism'.

Consumerism is economically manifested in the chronic purchasing of new goods and services, with little attention to their true need.

It is driven by huge sums spent on advertising designed to create a desire to follow trends and a personal self-reward system based on acquisition. Naturally, materialism ends up as the result of consumerism.

Dr Amresh Shrivastava, psychiatrist and convenor of Prerana, says, "Increased consumerism adds to a lot of stress for people have to cope with a different kind of lifestyle whose benchmark has been set by their desires. And then they are forever caught in a struggle to fulfil these desires."

"Consumerism is that when the market forces drive people to change their lifestyles. There is a direct link between such extreme steps and the lure of low-interest loans to support a certain kind of lifestyle: most fall into this consumerist trap. This culture is what induces people to attempt suicide when they cannot keep pace with it," he fumes.

Prerna has been running a helpline to offer sage counsel against suicide for the last five years. The non-governmental organisation has a database built over the last five years that lists out the reasons due to which people attempt suicide.

"The number one reason for people attempting suicide is relationship problems. And the second most frequent cause is economic woes. Under economic problems we have seen that usually excessive borrowing and then inability to pay up causes people to attempt suicide. Around four to five years ago, when there was a stockmarket slowdown, about 16-17 per cent of those attempting suicide did so because of their inability to repay loans. Then too we had seen a spurt in suicides," Shrivastava says.

Consumerism interferes with the workings of the society. It replaces normal desire for an adequate supply of life's necessities, community life, a stable family and healthy relationships with an artificial and insatiable quest for things and the money to buy them.

And one of the most dangerous things that comes about is that this burning desire mixed with the inability to fulfil their need sets people against themselves.

Thirty-three-year-old Shashi Sadh killed himself by jumping from the 12th floor of the Sales Tax Building in Delhi on March 28. His wife Bharti and eight-year-old son Anshul were also found dead at their residence. Sadh, a spare parts trader, had invested money in a chemical business and suffered heavy losses. He was also suspected to have had run-ins with his father-in-law who was a co-investor in the business.

So, what is it that drives a man to the brink? What does make one want to kill himself and his family?

Shrivastava sketches out the psychological profile.

"These are people who are in a rush to make money. They are ambitious. Impatient. And probably have had underlying depression that eventually pushes them over the edge," he says.

According to Shrivastava, it is the surfeit of choices available to the consumer that is responsible for the increase in aspirations. He blames liberalisation and the opening up of the economy for this.

"Since 1985, we have been seeing this trend of people wanting to live beyond their means and then getting frustrated when they were unable to do so. The sudden opening up of an insulated economy definitely has a link to the suicide rate. People are not prepared for it. Suddenly, over Rs 1,000 billion is pumped into the economy and a large part of this is focussed on the retail consumer," he says.

But are Shrivastava's fears well-founded? Is the consumerist culture really seeping into our economy and with it slowly bringing about a sociological change in our society?

Check out the three-month-old results of the National Sample Survey (NSS) 55th round on household consumer expenditure in 1999-2000.

As per the results of the survey, the average monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE) for urban India has increased by 15.6 per cent and for rural India by 8 per cent over the last five years.

The NSS survey concentrates mainly on indicators of living standards like food, fuel, clothing, rent and durable goods. It is, therefore, considered a major indication of the levels of consumerism in our society.

In urban India, the percentage of expenditure on food has declined from 56.4 per cent to 54.7 per cent and finally to 48.1 per cent through three phases of 1987-88 (pre-liberalisation), 1993-94 (early liberalisation period) and 1999-2000, respectively. Correspondingly, the expenditure on non-food items has grown during this ten-year period.

Similar statistics exist for the rural sector, too. Though the decline there has been comparatively slower, the expenditure on food in rural sector has fallen from 64 per cent in 1987-88 to 59.4 per cent in 1999-2000.

Major expenditure on non-food items by both the population groups includes clothing, tobacco, intoxicants and consumer durables. And this increase in non-food expenditure is being viewed as an indication of growing consumerism.

However, Vinod Vyasulu, consulting economists and former director of Institute of Public Enterprise, dismisses negative sentiments surrounding liberalisation and its effect on society as bugaboo.

"Liberalisation may increase consumerism. It definitely brings about some changes. But this is not just due to the economy being opened up. There is the additional influence of television and the media which portrays a certain kind of lifestyle that people aspire to. But to blame suicidal tendencies on market forces is incorrect," he says.

Vyasulu is clear that the inability to keep up with the system is clearly the individual's failure and not the fault of the system itself.

"I am worried about people saying that foreign goods, foreign travel, etc are responsible for ripping the moral fibre of our society. Yes, economics says that in a liberalised market a consumer has many choices, but it also says that the consumer has to make rational decisions. Economics cannot be held responsible for a narrow class of people unable to cope with the system," he defends.

Vyasulu sees the situation purely from an economist's point of view. His contention is that liberalisation of the economy will affect the Indian industry in the sense that it may not be able to compete in an open market.

"This may have affect the people working in those industries. But I fail to see persuasive logic in linking the recent spate of suicides to the negative effects of liberalisation," he declares.

But Shrivastava is clear that liberalisation has brought responsibilities that are not yet clear to an individual.

"The onus now lies on the individual. People have to realise that they must not fall into a consumerist trap and must learn to assert themselves against the market forces. They should not put everything they have at stake for material gains. And most importantly, individuals must realise the need to go for help when they are unable to cope with the system," he says.

And it is here that Shrivastava blames the government. He feels that, unlike highly capitalistic countries which sport a strong mental health support network, India spends very little on ensuring the mental health of its citizens. He complains that the entire focus on health is restricted to building hospitals and dispensaries.

"There is a strong network of psychiatric counselling available to everyone in the US. But here we do not have such a social security network. We need a support system that guys who are not able to cope with the present system can fall back on," Shrivastava says.

"The government needs to really spend more money to ensure that proper counseling and psychiatric help is available to everyone. Health is not just about building hospitals. The government should look into the mental aspects of health care and for that it has to up its spending in the health sector. At least 10 per cent of our GDP should be spent on healthcare," he suggests.

Today, India spends less than 3 per cent of its GDP on health. A very miniscule proportion of this estimated to go towards ensuring proper psychiatric help.

Meanwhile on March 27, Vimal Kumar Chaudhary, a Bombay broker was reported missing. The police allege that his disappearance is linked to the recent problems plaguing the stock market.

The search for him is on...

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