Alarming accounts of student suicides persistently emerge from various parts of India, reflecting the challenges they face in coping with escalating stress and a perceived lack of outlets for relief.
On a cold February afternoon in 1995, I stood on the IIT Delhi campus when a fellow student jumped from the main building to his death. That image has never left me. Three decades later, India’s campuses continue to see the same tragedy repeat itself — and the silence around student suicides is deafening.
Each year, nearly 200,000 teenagers arrive in Kota to chase a coveted seat in engineering or medical colleges. But for too many, the pressure proves unbearable. According to India’s National Crime Records Bureau, in Kota, India’s coaching hub, 26 students died by suicide in 2023. In 2024, 17 more followed. In just the first two months of 2025, six students have already died. Each number is not only a statistic but a classroom desk left empty, a dream cut short. Unless urgent steps are taken, the trend will only worsen.
The Lancet has reported that for girls aged 15–19, India has the highest suicide rate in the world at 14.6 per 100,000. When boys are included, India still ranks second only to Sri Lanka. A 2022 Lancet study revealed sharp increases in suicide among Indian men across age groups from 2014 to 2021, while young women remain at the highest risk in the 15–29 bracket. These figures underscore that what is happening in Kota mirrors a national emergency. Behind these numbers are thousands of young lives silenced by pressure, isolation, and despair.
One reason Indian students are so vulnerable is the crushing weight of academic competition. For many families, success is defined narrowly — admission to an IIT, a medical college, or a handful of “prestigious” professions. Students internalize this burden early, and when they falter, they feel not just personal failure but the shame of letting down their parents and community. For teenagers still discovering themselves, that pressure can feel unbearable.
Financial stress makes matters worse, particularly for lower-middle-income families that invest heavily in coaching centers. Humiliating practices such as public posting of rankings deepen students’ sense of failure. The COVID-19 pandemic intensified isolation, shifting communication to screens and depriving many of face-to-face support. Recreation, downtime, and mental health care are almost absent from the lives of India’s aspirants.
The Indian government has introduced measures such as MANODARPAN, an initiative of the Ministry of Education, along with district-level programs to provide psychosocial support for students’ mental health and well-being. These are valuable steps, but they remain limited in scope. Much more is needed across multiple fronts to match the scale of the crisis.
Other countries offer lessons. In the U.S., children take aptitude tests in middle school that open doors to multiple career paths, not just medicine or engineering. Parents also receive counseling to align expectations with their child’s strengths. Universities have created anonymous peer-support platforms where students can share struggles without fear of judgment. Japan, facing its own youth suicide crisis, launched national awareness campaigns to destigmatize mental health and invested heavily in school-based counseling. The UK has piloted “whole-school” approaches that integrate mental health into everyday teaching and learning. These examples show that large-scale, coordinated action is possible.
India must act with similar urgency. Counseling should be built into education, with every school and college employing trained professionals who are an integral part of the system. Career guidance should begin early, allowing students and parents to recognize multiple pathways to success based on aptitude and interest, rather than just exam rankings. Privacy protections must be strengthened, with a clear student-records framework — akin to the U.S. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) — to stop schools and coaching centers from publicly displaying marks and ranks and to give families control over education records. Curtailing excessive study hours and building in time for sports, mindfulness, and recreation can make a significant difference. Cultural narratives must also change. Media and policymakers should celebrate diverse careers and talents, rather than glorifying only the “top scorers.”
Every student suicide is a national failure. Each time a young life is lost, we not only lose an individual but also the promise of innovation, creativity, and contribution that life could have brought. The tragedy I witnessed in 1995 should have been a wake-up call. The fact that it wasn’t is a stain on all of us. The question now is simple: how many more students must we lose before we act?
*Manish Paliwal is a professor of mechanical engineering at The College of New Jersey, US. Views are personal.
© 2025 Manish Paliwal. All rights reserved. No part of this content may be reproduced without permission.
