India Uncut

Suicide attempts are often a cry for attention, and while they mostly indicate genuine distress, sometimes they are manipulatively used as a tool to bring the spotlight on oneself. Nothing illustrates this as well as what a certain Mr Gulabrao Gawande got up to recently. Rediff reports:

Shiv Sena legislator from Akot, Gulabrao Gawande on Tuesday created a sensation in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in Nagpur when he poured kerosene on himself and attempted to consume poison, to protest the Democratic Front government's "apathy" towards the large number of suicides by farmers in the region.

[...]

Gawande suddenly moved into the well of the House with a bottle of kerosene in one hand and a poisonous liquid on the other. He poured kerosene on himself and tried to consume the poison but was overpowered by the members of both benches and the bottles were snatched.

Now, if he really wanted to die, he could have lit himself after pouring the kerosene. Or he could have drunk the poison to begin with. His failure to kill himself is a sign of either great ineptitude or great melodrama, and I hope his constituents will take note of the matter and vote for someone competent, who can actually address the policies that affect their lives instead of enacting such stunts.

And if it so happens that Mr Gawande tries this again, I suggest that someone finds a match for him.