Bidisha Bezbaruah suicide case: Why arresting the husband of the Assamese actress is unfair

Arresting the husband of a woman who commits suicide is grossly unfair. By all means call him to the cop station to ask him some questions that rule out any foul play or his complicity in making a murder look like a suicide. But to haul him off unceremoniously because he is suspected of having had an extra marital affair is ridiculous and makes a mockery of our laws with reference to taking your own life. If having a fling or being unfaithful was the yardstick, we’d have millions of Indians being carted off because cheating on your spouse isn’t exactly rare. [caption id=“attachment_3828321” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Bidisha Bezbaruah.[/caption] In the case of the Assamese actress Bidisha Bezbaruah, who killed herself allegedly because her husband was cavorting with another woman, arresting the husband only underscores how killing yourself can become a weapon for revenge. The man is now harassed for an indiscretion that innumerable men and women engage in but are perfectly free to work it out because their partner has not self-destructed. But if he or she shuffles off the mortal coil the partner has to face the discordant music. In this case, Nisheet Jha ( earlier reports stated his name was Nisheet Jain), wasn’t in the same city. His infidelity is not guilt. Our approach to suicide is pretty clumsy. We decriminalised attempted suicide in 2016 in order to help the mentally ill and save them from prosecution. So how can you arrest a person if the act is no longer criminal? Yes, of course Bidisha Bezbaruah’s death is tragic, and causing grief to another human being should be condemned, but if the law has been so ratified then the surviving partner cannot be held culpable. It is a hard world out there and unhappiness is part of it. We can’t go around arresting people because someone decides to do himself or herself in. Those who destroy themselves are turned into martyrs and much is made of their act, driven as they are by despair, prejudice, racial discrimination and failure. The last is always somebody else’s fault and today’s youth has begun to believe that this is now a legitimate way to get even and attract posthumous attention. What is forgotten in the process of allowing suicide to be acceptable is that it is perhaps the most selfish, self-indulgent, vengeful act possible. You take your own life, you scar your loved ones and you give futility a whole new meaning. Every such action reinforces the belief that suicide is now a great way to make a point and, whether a jilted lover or a student with a lost cause, more of it is occurring because it is becoming fashionable, socially acceptable and in some cases, even heroic. Where there is no mental aberration or a side effect of medicine, it is also the coward’s way out. On this canvas we are faced by a cluster of modern ailments of the mind like depression, anxiety, ADHD and dozens of other stress related conditions, especially in senior students where it is encouraged to go onto psychiatric treatments and begin prescription drug regimens pushed like candy by the pharmaceutical cabal. You are the odd one out if you are not on one of these heavy duty ‘dependency’ tablets. That each one of them messes with the mind and sparks increased ‘suicidal’ tendencies only makes things so much worse if we continue to give suicide a good name. There is nothing good about it.