Consider that statistically speaking that you are one of those people that you just shook hands with who will likely experience a mental illness at some point of time in your lifetime. According to the WHO report of 2020 7.5 % of Indians experience some psychological problem that’s a high prevalence of mental illness yet why is it something were still afraid to talk about?

We can talk about other diseases like cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses, and while all these are important. We often forget or don’t realize that mental illness is among the number one causes of disability in our country.

Depression is the number one cause of disability worldwide, because of which suicide rates continue to climb among adults, adolescents, and even children. Consistently we see the deficiency of celebrates and unmistakable figures to do self-destruction however, we actually need more fortitude to discuss psychological maladjustment. Indeed, even liberal judgment is a characteristic piece of our human condition. In any case, when that judgment increases rapidly to unfairness, bias unkindness even it turns into a favorable place for shame.
Stigma is known as a market shame because of generalizations and misconceptions.

In our day-to-day life psychological sickness is criticized more than some other ailment or condition. We can see the instances of disgrace each and every day and we probably won't understand what stigma seems like. Peruse the news, scroll web-based media catch the discussion in the city or at work you will undoubtedly hear an illustration of disgrace and those people who face the barrier to get the assistance that they need it and it makes a greater weight of untreated psychological maladjustment for our general public.

Problems:
There are many factors onset of mental illness maybe it biological, environmental, social, genetic stress, trauma we still don’t quite understand the interplay of all of these in our brains as we cannot see them. Nobody understands the pain from which these people are suffering but if they are not able to come out of this situation then society has already framed its opinion that those people are having weak willpower, are lazy, stupid, or have other personality flaws but society never judge the people who have other diseases like broken legs, cancer, etc.
Still today there is so much stigma related to mental illness.

Even today some people miss interrupting mental illness as caught by spirits and ghosts, many people are tying the patience with chain. Illiteracy and ignorance are the main reason behind this. It is observed that many educated people want to stay away from people with mental illness and some of them even feel that they may catch mental illness if they communicate with the people who are suffering from mental illnesses.

Although they are educated still, they have the wrong notion of that. Another problem is that many people don’t even seek help from the professionals if they are facing any mental illness issues like depression, anxiety, etc because of people having fear of being judged and labeled.

Amendment under the Mental Health Act
Under section 309 0f IPC says that:
Attempt to commit suicide – whoever tries to end his/her life and does any demonstration towards the commission of such offense will be culpable with basic detainment for the term which may stretch out to one year or with fine, or both.

Anyone who remains alive even after taking his/her life can be penalized under section 309 IPC.

Indian government introduced the mental health care act,2017, which replaced the mental health act of 1987.

This demonstration brought a lot of changes such as:
Under mental health care act 2017states that presumption of server stress in case of attempt to commit suicide.

Section 115(1) – notwithstanding anything contained in section 309 of the IPC any person who attempts to commit suicide shall be presumed, unless proved otherwise, to have severe stress and shall not be tried and punishable under the said code.

Section 115(2) – the appropriate government shall have a duty to provide care, treatment, and rehabilitation to a person, having severe stress and who attempts to commit suicide, to reduce the risk of recurrence of attempt to commit suicide.
(source: mental healthcare bare act 2007)

So here the mental health act 2017 section 115 tries to decimalize the attempt to suicide. Here the section clearly says whoever attempts to commit suicide are having severe stress and shall be presumed otherwise, shall not be punished. But if in the investigation if the police are able to prove that attempt of suicide was not due to the severe stress then section 309 of IPC is applicable. However, it also says that the government should take proper majors so that the risk of re attempting suicide can be reduced. People who are suffering from certain mental illnesses commit suicide but what they need is aid and encouragement.

• The mental health act 2017 got assumption of serious pressure the instance of seek to self-destruction.
• It also provides the steps to step guard the rights of the individuals with psychological sickness like treating them with dignity instead of tying them with chains and explaining to them about the treatment options, etc.
• This act also brought programs to tackle the stigma related to the mental illnesses

Measures to be taken:

• Need to recruit more mental care professionals:
  There is a less rate of health care professionals in India and the situation is even worst with regards to emotional well-being care experts. So, more and more people should be trained to treat people with mental health.
   
• Gap to be filled between the rural and urban sector:
  Many rural areas don’t have the access to mental health care facilities as much as urban areas, so this gap should be filled proper distributions of counsellor’s and other health care professionals are needed.
   
• Requirements of funding:
  Indian govt spends less than 1% of GDP on mental health care. So, more funding should be provided in this sector and infrastructure should also be improved.
   
• Needs to provide counsellors in all schools, colleges, and workplaces:
  Because in all sectors people are going through stress. Some have stress related to academic pressure some have the stress of not having jobs, some are going through other mental trauma or depression .so there is the need to hire these mental counsellors to help them so that they can cope up with stress.

Conclusion:
So, from the above discussion I come to the conclusion that the situations have improved a lot in dealing with mental health issues but still, we have a long way to go. Even though the mental health act brought many programs to roll out mental illness still there is so much stigma associated with mental illness and still there are many more improvements to be done. Societies needs to pay more attention towards this and try to accept them therefore, they don’t feel ignored and so, more and more mental health programs should be conducted to educate people on mental health and encourage them from seeking help.

Written By: Purwa Bala