Hindu
Business Line: Mumbai: Tuesday, 14 October 2014.
A large
number of employees at the Department of Atomic Energy are taking their own
lives, raising uncomfortable questions
When Homi J
Bhabha died in Air India Flight 101, which crashed in January 1966 near Mont Blanc
in the Swiss Alps, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi called his untimely demise a
blow to India. The tragic death of India’s foremost nuclear scientist came at a
crucial time for India’s atomic energy programme, which was just taking off.
Conspiracy theorists pointed to possible sabotage by the CIA, aimed at
obstructing India’s nuclear programme.
Nearly 50
years later, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and its parent, the
Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), are again trying to cope with untimely
deaths of key personnel this time, in a spate of suicides. A DAE response to
an RTI query filed by activist Chetan Kothari said 197 employees committed
suicide across the Department’s 32 centres in the years between 1995 and 2010
(March). Those who died were between 29 and 50 years of age.
At BARC
alone, three scientists committed suicide in March-April 2010. The issue found
voice in Parliament, where it was flagged in Lok Sabha by Independent MP Inder
Singh Namdhari and the Congress’ Anto Antony in 2011. But apart from the stray
questions in the legislature, the high number of suicides has not stirred the
national consciousness. Nor has it provoked debate among a public which is
otherwise taken up with Bhabha’s legacy. Startlingly little has been done to
investigate these deaths in a community that is integral to India’s defence
capability and energy security (See: Of mysterious deaths).
The issue
raises some questions: Do the high number of deaths reflect the seemingly dark
work environs of the Indian nuclear programme? Or does it reflect the frail
side of the Indian psyche?
Counting
deaths:
In December
2010, CPI(M)’s P Rajeev asked in Rajya Sabha whether the number of suicides was
increasing at nuclear facilities and whether the departments had conducted
inquiries into the matter, one of the few times when the matter came up for a
debate at the national level. V Narayanaswamy, the then Minister of State for
Planning and Parliamentary Affairs responded that the cases of unnatural deaths
between 2005 and 2010 in the DAE had been analysed to find an answer. He said
that of a total of 29 deaths, 22 were alleged to be suicides. Of the 22, one
person had committed suicide as a result of work-related discomfort and the
others because of personal or family reasons, the Minister added.
In the same
year, a member of the Shiv Sena picked up the issue and quoted Kothari’s RTI’s
figure in the Maharashtra Legislative Council, saying it was important to get
to the bottom of the matter.
To cite a few
cases: At BARC, five scientists committed suicide by hanging: Avdesh Chandra in
2000; Titus Pal, Ashutosh Sharma, and Soumik Chowdhary in 2010; and Uma Rao, a
retired scientist, in 2011. Apart from them, Akshay P Chavan, an employee,
allegedly committed suicide by jumping from the balcony of his flat in April
2010. Likewise, Subhash Sonawane, a tradesman of the waste management division,
was suspected to have committed suicide in April 2010. According to BARC
officials, Sonawane was undergoing treatment for schizophrenia. His body was
recovered from a well in Mumbai’s Anushakti Nagar.
A slew of
suicides has been witnessed in other DAE centres as well. In 2008, Jaswant Rao,
an assistant mechanical engineer in Indian Rare Earths, was suspected to have
taken his life. Scientist Dalia Nayak of Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics,
Kolkata, allegedly committed suicide by swallowing mercuric chloride in 2009. A
year later, Tirumala Prasad Tenka, a scientist with the Raja Ramanna Centre for
Advanced Technology at Indore, hung himself at his residence. In a suicide note
he had alleged abuse by seniors.
Finding
the reason:
Sekhar Basu,
Director of BARC, argues that the percentage of suicides among the fraternity
is in keeping with the national average. Referring to data from 19 centres of
the DAE, while speaking to BusinessLine, he says, “The number of deaths due to
suicide is less than 100 (69 to be precise) over a period of 20 years and over
60,000 employees work at the DAE. So, this would amount to about six deaths per
lakh per year. To the best of my knowledge the number of suicides is much more
in the Indian population, involving different ages, regions, demographic
backgrounds and gender.”
The rate of
suicide in India (2012 data) is 20.9 per 100,000, across all age groups,
according to the WHO’s Preventing Suicide
report. Given this, around 200 suicides occurring over 20 years does not
seem statistically alarming.
Psychiatrist
Lakshmi Vijaykumar, member of WHO’s International Network on Suicide Prevention
and Research, and one of the editors of the report, agrees. At the same time,
for an organisation as important as DAE, the chain of events should be
worrying. Hence, she believes that each suicide is important and the underlying
reasons need to be looked into.
Vijayakumar,
who is also the founder of Sneha, a suicide prevention organisation in Chennai,
says, “The reasons for committing suicide are complex, there is no ‘one’ cause
for it,” she adds, “since suicide is multi-determined and results from the
interplay of various factors”. These include biological (genetic disposition to
mental disorders), psychological and environmental stressors (work and
family-related).
According to
the National Crime Records Bureau there is no single reason for suicide. In
fact, ‘other causes’ (34.8 per cent) dominate family problems (24 per cent),
illness (19.8 per cent), and failure in romantic relationships (3.3 per cent).
For about 40 per cent of the suicides there is no identifiable cause. “Hence,
we tend to rely on what are called psychological autopsy studies, which look at
each suicide from psychological and social angles to arrive at some
conclusion,” she adds.
As for the
nuclear fraternity, Vijayakumar says individuals predisposed to depression and
suicidal tendencies may find these exacerbated or triggered by the stress of
working in a high-pressure job, as well as by the chemicals and materials he or
she interacts with in the work environment. It is no secret that the work
environment at many of India’s organisations that are conducting sensitive
operations is stressful (See: ‘It’s a bit like a pressure cooker’).
Mindful of
the increasing number of suicides, the DAE has since 2010 made it mandatory for
all job applicants to pass a psychological test before being hired. But it is
unclear if anything has been done to check on mental health once people are
hired.
.JPG)
.JPG)
