CHAPTER XX.

SUICIDE IN BRITISH INDIA.

The information conveyed in the preceding pages, in reference to suicide in England, and in the countries of Europe, applies in a small degree only to Hindostan. In this vast tract of country, including many separate states, some of which are still under native rulers, and in which very different religious beliefs exist, and are practised side by side, the suicidal tendencies are very varied. The habits and customs of the several races are so entirely distinct in many points, that no surprise need be felt when we observe the very different attitudes these hold in respect to self-destruction. The Mohammedan races avoid it; the Brahmins encourage it in their religious customs, and in their social life; whilst the floating British population exhibits a slightly higher rate than that of the British at home.

The laws respecting suicide in the districts under British rule, are enacted by the Indian Penal Code, cap. xvi., ss. 300, 305, 306, 309.

For other regulations refer to s. 19 of Reg. xix. of 1807; and Nizamut Adawlut Reports, Vol. iii. of 1833.

The average suicide rate for India, as a whole, I estimate at 40 per million; the rate for the city of Calcutta alone was estimated some years ago as high as one in 2,000.

Statistics of suicide are unfortunately even less reliable in respect to India than they are in regard to Europe, for it is to be feared that a very large number of murders are hidden by want of evidence, and by false statements, under the garb of voluntary death. The Hindoos of the lower class have the very faintest idea of the value of truth for its own sake, and Hindoo evidence can be manufactured at a low price in any quantity.

The causation of the suicides of the natives of Hindostan falls into four chief divisions (Chevers), upon each of which I add a few remarks.

REVENGE OR ACCUSATION.

Although less common at the present time than formerly, cases are still seen in which a man or woman will commit suicide to spite another, and call down the opprobrium of the neighbours on him for some injury, or fancied slight, such deaths were called _chandi_, or self-immolation; the Rajpoot class greatly practised it; they would protest against a decree, and then stab themselves as a final protest. Another form was _dhurna_, sitting at an enemy’s door and waiting for death by starvation, hoping to bring down a curse on the offender. The erection of a _koor_, or wood pile, for conflagration, and self-burning thereon, with or without the offering of some animal, was also a process designed to invoke curses on an opponent. Cases have also been observed is which a man has cut his throat in a neighbour’s house, so that the neighbour might be accused of murder, and so be made to suffer the penalty for that crime. A fakir has been known to set himself on fire, to excite charity; and a Brahmin has thrown himself into a well, that his ghost might haunt the owner of it.─Esdaile.

RELIGION.

The Brahmin religion has had for ages a tenet that self-sacrifice is the most acceptable offering to deity, and five modes of great sanctity are enumerated: 1. Starvation; 2. Burying alive; 3. Drowning in the Ganges; 4. Covering the body with dried cow dung, and setting it on fire; and 5. Cutting the throat at the mouth of the Ganges. See the “Ayeen Akbery.” To throw oneself off the precipices of the Mahadeo hills was also a sacred act (Sleeman), and perhaps above all was deemed the death by crushing under the wheels of the Car of Juggernath.

A collateral religious rite is _sati_, or the enforced burning of widows after the death of the husband; this martyrdom is now almost extinct, except perhaps in the native-governed states. It was very prevalent as late as 1803, in which year no less than 275 wives were burned within 30 miles of Calcutta.

A male Hindoo will also occasionally burn himself on a wood pile even now, just as did Calanus in the time of Alexander the Great. See “Friend of India,” 1866.

Forbes describes several cases in which Brahmin devotees forced themselves to continue eating until their deaths took place.

PHYSICAL SUFFERING.

Suicide as a means of relief from pain and disease is common in Bengal; the sacred books named the Shastras inculcate the doctrine of its propriety in such cases. In former times these deaths took place with public ceremonials, but are now perforce privately completed. Intestinal worms seem to produce great physical pain and discomfort among the poor rice-eating Bengalese, and suicide is not infrequent from this cause.─Woodford.

GRIEF, SHAME, AND JEALOUSY.

The Hindoos seem to be very sensitive to some trifling annoyances, which the Englishman would take no notice of, and suicides are not uncommonly the effect of insults and imputations. Thus, the Commissioner of the Chota Nagpore district mentioned the case of a woman who poisoned herself because her husband complained of her untidiness, and another because she was asked to feed her own child, instead of being provided with a nurse. A wife killed herself because a friend told her that her husband was illegitimate.─Bellasis.

Forbes mentions that when he was at Dhuboy suicide was very common among Hindoo widows of the upper classes, who being interdicted from marriage threw themselves into the wells after perceiving the results of their imprudences. Jealousy is also a very fertile cause of suicide among Hindoo women.

The means used for committing suicide in India are among females almost always drowning, especially in wells, and among the males drowning and hanging are about equally common.─Muir of Madras.