#365DaysOfWriting – Day Ninety-Seven
Mental health care isn’t really taken seriously in our country.
My sister and good friend Divya has written an excellent article on the passing of the Mental Health Care Bill in the Rajya Sabha, which happened last week. You can read her article here.
In it, she makes many valid points, but two points that particularly caught my eye were these:
- Suicide is decriminalised: “The new law actually recognises suicide as a cry for help, and stresses on the immediate need to reach out and help the person overcome their issues. It does not treat the person as a criminal.” A very important point, and hopefully it allows people to come to the forefront more. Maybe we’re light years away from people openly discussing their mental issues in India, but this is a start.
- Mental health is taken seriously: “The bill identifies inhuman and degrading treatment of the mentally ill as a crime, and for the first time, tackles the issue of mentally ill patients often admitted in institutionalised care forcibly, against their will.” Again, people with issues are often scoffed at in our country (how can one of our own be ‘not right in the head’, right). But I hope they do take this point very, very seriously. People in India need to be educated and sensitised to the issue of mental health (as it is with a lot of things).
And yet, even these are barely baby steps. Implementing the bill, as always, is the hardest part. I’ll give you a little example to illustrate my example: my younger brother is autistic, and hates changing a schedule once his mind his set. Today at the mall, I just gave him a gentle suggestion of going to a different restaurant than the one we originally planned to go to. He didn’t like that at all and threw a little tantrum right in the middle of the mall. I calmed him down almost instantly, but there were raised eyebrows and heads being shaken as we were walking away. I gave a couple of those people the worst stink eye they would’ve ever gotten in their lives. Clearly, it’s ignorance, leading to a complete lack of empathy. And this is just probably 1% of the spectrum of mental health. India has a long, long way to go.
