You've got a suicide note !

“It appears I am destined for something; I will live.” - Robert Clive

In a recent alarming study, The Economics of Suicide, researchers have tried t unravel as to why trying to kill yourself may be a smart business decision. Here’s an excerpt from Slate on the economics of suicide:

Marcotte’s study found that after people attempt suicide and fail, their incomes increase by an average of 20.6 percent compared to peers who seriously contemplate suicide but never make an attempt. In fact, the more serious the attempt, the larger the boost—”hard-suicide” attempts, in which luck is the only reason the attempts fail, are associated with a 36.3 percent increase in income. (The presence of non attempters as a control group suggests the suicide effort is the root cause of the boost.)

The economics of suicide were largely ignored in the ensuing decades. But last year Dave Marcotte, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, pushed the field forward when he wondered what happens to people like Jones who attempt, but do not achieve, suicide.* There are about 20 attempts for every successful suicide. (Approximately 2.9 percent of the U.S. population has attempted suicide—1,760 attempts per day.). Previous studies had demonstrated that as personal incomes rise, the propensity for suicide falls (presumably, money does buy some happiness). Marcotte's insight was that individuals contemplating suicide do not just choose between life and death. Rather, they choose between three alternatives: life, death, and the gray area of unsuccessful suicide, which may be negative (expensive injury and permanent disability) or positive (a "cry for help" that elicits attention).

Why should suicide be an economic boon? Once you attempt suicide you suddenly have access to lots of resources—medical care, psychiatric attention, familial love and concern—that were previously expensive or unavailable. Doubters may ask why the depressed don't seek out resources earlier. But studies have demonstrated that psychological and familial resources become "cheaper" after a suicide attempt: It is difficult to find free medical care when you are sad, but once you try to kill yourself, it's forced on you. Read more.

But take a look at this with reference to India! You’ll be shocked! 1,00,248 farmers have committed suicide between 1993 and 2003. 195 farmers committed suicide after the PM’s two day-visit to Vidarbha. Ninety committed suicide in July and 105 in August, 2007. All these suicides were unfortunately successful and couldn’t quite fit in the report cited above. Even the unsuccessful ones have not brought in any ray of hope for hapless debt ridden producers of India.

Tehelka quotes

that the overwhelming cause of death is debt, sometimes less than Rs 10,000. While repayment of his(farmer) debt is impossible, he still requires money to feed his family, and prepare for the next sowing season. Blacklisted by the bank, or offered only a portion of his requirement, he must turn with leaden feet towards a private moneylender. Whoever this may be, he will possesses the ability to wring personal advantage from desperation — a first right on produce; a land sale deed, which may not be returned even after a debt is repaid.

Mainstream quotes,

that Most farmers’ suicides are desperation-driven due to heavy debt combined with inability to face usurious creditors, many of whom keep harassing his family members with insults and threats. He sees no way out of the debt-trap situation, because only a fresh, larger loan can pay off a previous one that has bloated due to unpaid interest, and he has already pledged his wife’s jewels, his land and even household utensils as security for previous loans. Money borrowed for social reasons usually leads to ruination, which is more rapid if a crop, the expected income from which is to service the loan, fails due to meteorological or technical causes. But excluding the social-cause loans, poor farmers’ survival-cause loans are on the order of several thousands to purchase seed or fertilisers and pesticides or draft or milch animals, or ten-twenty thousand to drill a borewell and buy a pump.

Mint adds

that amid concerns over suicides by debt-ridden farmers, RBI governor Y V Reddy has said the problem “goes beyond credit” and blamed the lack of risk mitigation mechanisms against natural calamities and other failures like pesticides for the crises. In India, Reddy says, there are not enough risk mitigating mechanisms either against natural calamities or against failures like seeds or pesticides or power supply by the government or water supply. “There are so many uncertainties, there are so many risks,” he said. Reddy says financial penetration doesn’t not mean just credit. “It is transactions and as people are moving in we have to see the whole penetration of the banking system.” Bank lending to agriculture is 18% but the RBI chief pointed out and that “in aggregate the rural areas give more deposits and take less money”.

So which ever way you look at it, whatever perspectives you may delve deep into, role of economics is a paradox of sorts when you talk about suicides. If you escape it(suicide), you’ll be well off, as the report points out. If you’re successful and that too in country like India, you’ll not just leave behind a family but also more economists working out the number game and politicians banking on their vote-numbers game. The eternal tussle between life and death will go on and who ever wins numbers will emerge. For the lucky ones numbers will be encouraging, for others numbers will just be a mere statistic left to languish in books, reports, news etc. leaving behind the trail of oblivious families in some forgotten village trying to make a living and remembering the dear ones who left.

At the "dead end" of the day numbers will resurrect from the ashes like some Egyptian mythic and shout silently.

Because numbers never die! People Do!