It was 2am when the phone rang at the One Stop Centre (Sakhi) in Bhopal. Shabana, who had just turned 21, was manning the call desk of the toll-free government helpline number 181―a 24x7 service for women affected by violence―that night. It was mid December and the temperature had dropped to 9ºC. Shabana thought of making herself a cup of tea, but there was no milk. There was no time either; she was trying hard to focus on preparing for her psychology exam due later that morning―this meant she would have to go straight from the centre after pulling off a gruelling eight-hour night shift. Even as staying awake became a challenge, these late-night calls did their job to keep her on her toes.
As she answered the call, Shabana clenched her fists. A woman on the line was begging her to save her from her husband. “Madam, please help me,” said the distraught woman. “I have somehow been able to snatch his phone and make this call. I have been dialling 100 for the past one hour in vain. If you don't help me, he will kill me. He has already thrashed me with his belt and I am in so much pain. I am standing on the road right now; I am cold and alone. But I know for sure if I go back, I might lose my life. Please help me.” Shabana calmly replied, “Yes, ma’am. I will help you, but where are you right now?” The lady had just mentioned the area when suddenly the line went blank.
Shabana identified this as a “bad case of domestic violence and abuse” and knew she had to act fast. There was no way Shabana could have called back on the number lest the husband answered the call. She frantically tried calling the police station, but the calls went unanswered. She then rang up the inspector on duty, which was against protocol, but by then Shabana “didn't care”. The couple was immediately brought to the police station. The woman, however, called the helpline again, this time from the police station. “They are sending me home, but what if I get beaten up again?” she asked. Shabana explained, “The police is responsible for anything that will happen to you from now on. Don’t worry. He won’t harm you because he knows he is being watched. Please go home.”
A year into her job, Shabana is still learning to answer these frantic calls for help all on her own, without fear. Especially because she has seen fear up close―as a 19-year-old, she narrowly escaped a forced marriage and a death threat from her own family, and found refuge at the centre.
In Pune, Aneet Matwankar, 51, logs in to the 24x7 Crisis Line to receive calls while she is home with her family, including her dog. Her time slot for the day is from 12pm to 4pm and she keeps to a quiet room to take calls without interruptions. The Crisis Line is run by AKS Foundation, an NGO that addresses issues of gender violence. It operates remotely on six slots of four hours each. For each slot, there are at least two call responders. THE WEEK observed some of the calls the Crisis Line received in one slot, with the consent of the callers. The helpline received close to 20 calls in four hours. One of the calls was from a youth, aged 18 or 19. He wanted Matwankar to counsel his sister, who was living with him and his mother after her divorce. “She lives life on her own terms and bullies us, disrespects my mother, refuses to help with household chores and, being an advocate, threatens to file a case of abuse against us every now and then,” he said. “She also threatens us saying she will kill herself if we ask her whereabouts. Please counsel her because she is not listening to us.” Matwankar told him that the helpline will not initiate a call in this case and asked him to get his sister to call back. This call went on for close to 40 minutes, as the young man kept trying to find another way out because he knew his sister would never agree to call. The call ended with the man grudgingly saying that he would try to persuade his sister. In such cases, how does one process the feelings of the victim? How does one discern right from wrong in that crucial moment?
“It is challenging,” agrees Matwankar. “I was also thinking on my feet as the conversation went along, but there are times when there is so little we can do, except hear them out and provide emotional support. There is so much frustration at the helplessness.” After two hours of listening to such conversations, this correspondent was drained. “Sometimes these calls become a trigger for me because in the process we tend to absorb a little bit of pain from the other side,” says Matwankar. “It can get very draining, both physically and mentally.”
But Prajakta Shingale (name changed), who works for a suicide helpline in Mumbai, says she has trained her “mind to switch on and switch off as and when required. But the problem arises when the caller is a minor because in that case you cannot leave the decision-making in their hands”. Shingale, 25, recently counselled a young girl from taking her life for failing to clear her police recruitment exams. “I thought the best way to make her understand was to give my example―how I came back from the brink after slashing my wrist for failing my Class 10 exams,” says Shingale, who eventually cleared her exams. “I told her that in hindsight it was a stupid thing to do. She needs to move on and look for options and explain to her family that there are more choices.”
Crisis helplines in India address issues such as sexual abuse, domestic violence, verbal abuse, physical torture, emotional and mental trauma, frustration resulting from long working hours and academic stress. People call from their homes before someone’s return, from washrooms at work or from discrete corners, so as not to be heard by their tormentors. The callers typically represent some of the most vulnerable―women, children, adolescents, all largely expressing the desire to seek help in breaking free or bringing the perpetrator to justice or simply wanting to know if at all there is a way out. THE WEEK spent hours listening in on calls, both in person and remotely, at more than two such centres and observed how those who lend more than just an ear help provide a lasting solution or at least some succour to the caller on the other end.
Raksha Rathod, a young mother of three, still remembers her first call. It was from a 23-year-old woman who was standing on the rail tracks waiting for a train to run her over. The woman had called on the 181 helpline, expressing anguish over the abuse she had received from her husband. Rathod knew from experience―she, too, had been in an abusive relationship―what to do next. She immediately rang up the police station and gave them the woman’s location. The police reached the location in 10 minutes and saved her. Rathod then asked the woman to come down to the centre for counselling, just like she had.
Researchers from NIMHANS in Bengaluru carried out a study to understand how 24-hour helplines may be useful for mothers with perinatal mental illness. A dedicated helpline was started in April 2015. As many as 113 mothers who were admitted to the mother-baby unit from June 2015 to December 2016 were part of the study. The helpline received 248 calls, of which 104 were made by mothers, 120 by spouses and the rest by relatives; 51 of the 113 mothers had made the call. The calls pertained to medication, sleep problems, planning pregnancies, symptom exacerbation, domestic violence and suicidal ideation. A majority of the callers found the helpline useful: 91 per cent said they got help, and 95 per cent said they would recommend it to others. However, among those who did not call, one woman died of suicide, as she did not have access to a phone and the family did not choose to call.
Another study was conducted from May 2019 to May 2020 to understand the impact and efficacy of a 24x7 helpline run by the department of psychiatry of a tertiary care teaching hospital for mental health issues. It was found that 52 per cent calls pertained to stress, followed by depression and interpersonal relationship conflicts. Students with stress issues (41 per cent) approached the helpline most, followed by adults with work-related stress issues (26 per cent).
Psychologist Madhuri Tembe, who started out as a counsellor with the iCALL helpline―set up inside the campus of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai―before becoming programme associate, says it receives almost 5,000 calls, 2,000 emails and 1,000 chat messages each month. “All our counsellors have at least a master’s degree in applied psychology from a recognised university with counselling or clinical specialisation,” says Aparna Joshi, who heads iCALL. “We are not a volunteer-driven helpline. Many other helplines in India that are professionally run are not necessarily run by psychologists.” One Stop Centres are run by volunteers, she adds, who need not be qualified counsellors.
Supervisors check call quality on a daily basis, says Tembe. “iCALL offers counselling services for more than 22 concerns like emotional distress, career-related challenges, academic issues, relationship concerns, work-life challenges, mental health issues, suicidal thoughts, non-suicidal self injury, violence and so on,” she explains. “When people call a helpline, they directly get connected to the counsellors. There is no control on what kind of issues the counsellor will address in their counselling session. Thus they need to be prepared to address all issues.” When callers use a helpline, counsellors are trained to spend enough time to build rapport with the clients so that they can share their distress openly. After this, the counsellor spends time assessing the nature and intensity of the client’s distress, and based on that, provides psychosocial interventions, getting them connected with on-ground services and followup sessions.
Many a time though, responders, especially in government and public setups, learn on the job. Take, for instance, the 10-odd young women working as call responders at the police control room in Bhopal. THE WEEK met them in the presence of Deputy Superintendent of Police Shivkumar Gupta. A sentiment shared by this group of women, aged between 18 and 22 years, was that they all wanted to make something of themselves. One of them said that she had become “self-aware” after working at the police control room, “learnt the good from the bad and knows how to assert her rights”.
The day-to-day running of the helpline has been outsourced to BVG Group, a private company. “On an average, there are close to 100 calls in one shift and close to 240 responders,” says Gupta. This DIAL 100 helpline in Bhopal was the first such centre to be established in the country, in 2015. Once the calls are received and the problem acknowledged and addressed, they are forwarded to first response vehicles―a fleet of 100 cars, with police personnel in civilian clothes, located at pre-decided nodal points across the state. These then go immediately to the location of the caller. Each call must last no more than three minutes; if it goes beyond, it is a red flag. How do these young women manage to be quick and thorough? “We are trained to respond to calls as SOS alarms,” says a woman, who is a commerce graduate. “There are no long conversations because most of these are people who want immediate help. So this is not about leisurely chats. Earlier, I used to wonder about each case, but now I am more impersonal. I have been trained to simply move from call to call, without taking anything to heart.”
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When Ankita Agarwal, 47, called up the 181 helpline, she was at the end of her tether. “I have tried to tolerate it all these years but that day I was desperate,” she says. “There was just no help and the only way I could see was to call the helpline in the hope that they'd be able to provide a permanent solution to my problem.” For the first time, she vented out her pain from years of verbal abuse by her husband of close to 25 years. “I told them how he verbally abuses me in private, in public, at ceremonies, unmindful of where we are,” she says. “I feel trapped; he has barred me from taking my belongings with me. My 17-year-old son has gone into depression.” Unfortunately, there is no quick fix to issues like hers. She was told it could take years to find the permanent fix she was looking for. “I wanted some very real-time solution because I could no longer live under the same roof with him. But they could offer no help,” she laments. “They simply called me to the One Stop Centre and guided me with a legal route I can take. But these decisions take so long. What can I do in the meantime? I am back to square one.”
While Harpreet Kalra, supervisor and coordinator at AKS Foundation, says that the idea is to not offer advice or solutions to the caller but to just listen and validate their feelings, Matwankar says that the usual protocol at Crisis Line is to talk to the caller, provide the location of the nearest One Stop Centre or schedule a counselling service or legal help, if they want, for later. “Mostly they just want to be heard and we cannot sort everything out in their life or give solutions,” she says. “We can only hold their hand for some time and make them feel empowered by offering them options for legal advice or counselling. The counsellor helps them process their feelings and makes them stand up for themselves.”
Agarwal agrees that the helpline did feel like a sponge that absorbed all her pent-up feelings. “You know there is someone who will listen to you all you want; they won't hang up until you are done and that alone is good enough,” she says. Apart from comfort, helplines can also bring in clarity, especially when the caller has exhausted all options, like in the case of Himani (name changed). The 21-year-old called on the AKS helpline, almost pleading to “do something about the man who was blackmailing her on social media”. She was being threatened that her sensitive pictures would be uploaded online and made to go viral. She broke down on call, anxious that her family would come to know, and urged for “some such mechanism that can stop my ex from stalking and intimidating me”. Matwankar tried to probe further, but Himani was in a rush to know a way out of the mess. So Matwankar suggested she visit the nearby police station and file a complaint against her ex on charges of blackmailing and report the matter to the cyber crime cell. Matwankar also told her that there was no need for her to involve her parents and she could do this without letting anyone know. Himani, apparently relieved, promised to call immediately. That call never came, and responders are not allowed to call back without permission.
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That clarity though comes with experience. Anshit Baxi from CEHAT (Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes) discusses his vulnerability as an adviser for the past six months. “I remember how so many times I had to pass on calls to my supervisor, because women would just not talk on hearing my voice,” he recalls. “When I was new, it was all the more of a problem because I wasn't well-versed myself.” He recounts the instance of a 35-year-old married woman abandoned by her family on the road late at night. “I was completely lost on what advice to give her because there was no police station close by and she was so emotionally charged that I didn't know how to handle that call. I will never forget that. I wonder how she is doing now,” he says, his voice low. Another such instance was when a woman was unable to convince the police to file a missing complaint for her husband. “Maybe I could have pressured the police into taking action, even if just to settle her nerves,” says Baxi in hindsight. It is in such times that supervisors come into the picture.
“When my counsellors, who come from diverse backgrounds and ages, ask me what is the point of just listening to the callers and not being able to provide any real solution, I say, ‘you can't do much from so far away. The only solace is that you are able to hear them out when they have no one else to talk to.’ Initially it troubles you, but then you start taking care of yourself,” says Kalra. “I tell my volunteers to reach out when a call is difficult and process their hurt to supervisors. This is why we do these four-hour shifts because nobody can be on these calls for longer. It will drain you out.”
Soumya Saxena from ActionAid India says two people who work in round-the-clock shifts on their call desk are called multipurpose workers. But she rues the fact that salaries are not up to the mark and the call responders do not get adequate leaves. “So we work around the system so that everyone gets a leave and a breather in between work,” she says. “These women might not have great qualifications, but that is not even necessary. We train them for empathy, knowledge and computer skills.”
What they are not, and cannot be, trained for is their commitment to their work. It, perhaps, comes naturally. “Whether I am attending a wedding or a funeral, the handset is always with me,” says Chitra Joshi from DILASA, who works with victims of domestic violence. “Everyone around me knows that I work for a crisis helpline, and whenever there is a distress call, I must answer it. It could go on for hours or get over in seconds, but I cannot control that.” Joshi, who is in her 40s, recalls getting a call during a family function. “I left everything and attended it,” she says. “But I am not complaining. There is a thrill in this. When we listen to other people's troubles and anguish, our own seem to be trivial in comparison.”