India has a population of over 1.2 billion people, but only about 47 mental hospitals to care for its citizens with psychological health problems.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that with over 135,000 suicides per year, India is the country with the highest suicide rate in the world.
The fact that untreated mental illness accounts for the deaths of mostly young women is intriguing. But what measures has the Indian government taken to reduce this staggering number?
According to a 2014 piece by the New York Times, the Indian government adopted a new policy allowing for universal mental health services in response to the country’s widespread health crisis and the country’s alarmingly high suicide rates.
Providing access to psychiatric hospitals for those with mental illness is a good first step, but the real issue lies with the staff themselves.
A VICE investigation found that women are often mistreated in India’s psychiatric facilities. This is a problem that is widespread and affects the entire country. Women are often kept in psychiatric hospitals for most, if not all, of their lives and subjected to abuse, while men in similar facilities are free to depart.
It’s a crippling fact that many young women in India have nowhere to turn due to the country’s mental health policies. VICE went to Maharashtra, a western state in India, in October 2015 to look into the abuse of women there.
VICE found that women with mental illness in western India had no legal protections or personal autonomy. Men, on the other hand, were treated less unfairly and were sometimes given less commitments.
Still, misogyny is only part of the issue.
The majority of Indians still hold strong superstitious beliefs in the paranormal and spirituality. People in many parts of India still attribute mental illness to pseudoscientific phenomena and spiritual causes.
Right now, there is very little that can be done to address this problem. We could only hope that India’s future mental health policies would begin to minimize a problem that has affected the population for centuries.
