Love has undergone many moods in the great Indian story. It is equal parts censured as it is revered – but it is still there, underpinning all else. In contemporary India, it is often treated as a side-effect to a greater purpose. It’s an ever-present part of the Indian narrative, intertwined as it is, with the oldest of tales. But perhaps never in its thousand years of history has it undergone as much of a revolution in India as it does today.
India’s demographic dividend, half the population being under the age of 26, makes it ripe for an economic revolution. We know that the workforce will reach record numbers, that the youth will power the economic engine. But we seldom discuss the effect that love and youth will have in tandem. For young people do not live the prime of their lives without seeking true love.
We know how many will be unemployed, but not how many will experience love. And to find a metric, tragically, India’s 131,666 suicides in 2014 become a revealing statistic.
The National Crime Records Bureau categorizes suicides by their cause – the suicide rate over ‘love affairs’ is nearly double that of ‘unemployment’ and more than double that of ‘poverty’. There are bigger problems than love, unemployment and poverty when it comes to motivating suicide, but it is surprising nonetheless that love and the failure thereof beats poverty by such a wide margin.
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