Exclusive | "India Needs Its Own Culturally Sensitive Knowledge To Address Student Suicides", Says Says Mental Health Expert

On May 4, 2025, after appearing for the NEET UG 2025 examination, two students from Telangana took their lives, fearing failure of the examination, even before the result was released. By May 2, a total of 14 such incidents were reported from NEET aspirants in Kota, Rajasthan.

Not only this, every year, similar extreme steps are taken by students studying in higher educational institutes, including IITs, NITs, IIMs, AIIMS, among others. In the 2022 National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, a total of 13,044 students committed suicide.

Incidents of suicide among Indian students have reportedly grown at an alarming annual rate, surpassing the population growth rate and overall suicide trends. According to the NCRB report of August 2024, the annual increase in student suicides is reportedly 4 percent, which is double the national rate of 2 percent.

To understand the reason behind the increasing tendency of suicides among students, Timeline reached out to an expert in students’ psychology, Sayed Ebrahim Mubasheer SM, a Senior Research Fellow, Dept of Psychology, JMI, New Delhi.

Timeline: Despite so much awareness about mental health and wellbeing, students are taking extreme steps to end their lives. What do you think are the plausible reasons behind this?

Sayed Ebrahim Mubasheer: Is there truly sufficient awareness about mental health? While we often hear the term “mental health awareness,” we must question its depth and effectiveness. How many of us can recognise the warning signs of suicide? Despite increased conversation, there remains a critical gap between awareness and actionable knowledge.

Today’s young generation primarily receives mental health information through social media, content that is often designed to satisfy algorithms rather than provide awareness. This leads to fragmented understanding and sometimes outright misinformation rather than genuine awareness. Though today’s youth certainly possess greater mental health awareness than previous generations, this uneven distribution of knowledge creates its problems.

Read also: “Forgive Me…” 17-Year-Old Commits Suicide Over Not Clearing JEE

A significant issue is that most mental health awareness campaigns target schools and colleges, focusing primarily on students. Young people learn about mental illness causes, including parental factors, yet ironically, parents themselves receive minimal mental health education. This generational awareness gap creates friction between well-informed youth and less-informed parents, potentially exacerbating existing problems rather than solving them.

When discussing student suicide, we must recognise it’s never solely about the individual. Each case reflects broader responsibilities shared by family, educational institutions, and society. To effectively address student suicide, we need comprehensive awareness programmes that include parents, teachers, and community members, not just students. Only through such a holistic approach we can hope to create meaningful change in addressing this tragic issue.

Timeline: Despite the awareness and counseling at schools and coaching institutes, etc, such incidents keep happening at every level of education, whether it’s school board exams, competitive exams, IITs, NITs, or Medical Colleges. Is there any theoretical understanding behind such extreme steps taken by the students?

Sayed Ebrahim Mubasheer: Many schools and colleges now have counseling centres, but these often don’t work well in practice. In most institutions, these counseling centres are set up just for the sake of fulfilling requirements rather than to provide real help. School counsellors are usually overworked – they are specifically hired for the dual role of teaching psychology classes while also providing counseling services. They’re also burdened with many administrative tasks. With just one counsellor for over 1,000 students in many places. Many institutions in India don’t even meet this ratio. Many troubled students simply don’t get the help they need. When resources are this limited, both the accessibility and effectiveness of counseling services are seriously compromised.

When we try to understand why students die by suicide, we need to look at multiple reasons – there’s never just one cause.

For students from disadvantaged backgrounds in top institutions like IITs and NITs, the “Minority Stress Theory” helps explain some cases. These students face extra stress from feeling they don’t belong, experiencing discrimination, or being socially excluded. This added pressure can push vulnerable students toward suicide.

The “Hopelessness Theory” also helps us understand student suicide. When students repeatedly fail or struggle academically without support, they begin to feel there’s no way out of their problems. This deep feeling of hopelessness can lead to suicide.

It’s important to remember that most theories about suicide come from Western countries. Indian students face unique pressures – different family expectations, educational systems, and cultural backgrounds. To address student suicide in India, we need to develop approaches that consider these specific cultural factors.

We need better support systems that truly understand the challenges Indian students face, not just copy solutions from other countries.

Timeline: Do you think that the theoretical knowledge must be included while making policies and taking steps against such mishappenings?

Sayed Ebrahim Mubasheer: We need to develop our own culturally sensitive knowledge about suicide rather than simply copying Western approaches and hoping for good results. Western theories and prevention strategies were created for Western cultures. We can’t just apply these strategies in India and expect them to work well. Policies based only on Western ideas might help a little, but their impact will likely be limited.

For example, evidence shows that many years and millions of dollars spent applying Western approaches to prevent suicide in indigenous communities of North America have largely failed. However, there’s growing evidence that suicide prevention works better through local community action. Suicide prevention programs created and run by native communities in Arctic Canada show this approach can succeed.

India has taken some steps in the right direction. In 2022, India launched its National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (NSSP), which explicitly addresses the need for decentralisation. This strategy involves stakeholders at national, state, and district levels and promotes regionally tailored, community-based interventions. This approach recognises that a country as diverse as India needs localised solutions, which aligns with what research suggests is effective.

We need to establish suicide prevention research centres in multiple locations across the country. A decentralised approach is essential because India is so culturally diverse – a single nationwide strategy simply won’t work effectively for everyone. India cannot rely on a “one country, one prevention strategy” approach. We must develop our understanding of why suicides happen among students and other groups in our specific cultural contexts, and then create and implement prevention strategies that reflect Indian realities.

Read also: Mental Health Of Students In Coaching Centres: New Framework For Coaching Centres

Timeline: Do you think that the theoretical knowledge is just kept with the books, or is it already being implemented through actions in the form of measures taken to prevent suicides among students?

Sayed Ebrahim Mubasheer: Theoretical knowledge about suicide prevention has made it to the policy level in India, as we can see in the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (NSSP). This strategy incorporates the multisectoral approach recommended by WHO, showing that theoretical frameworks are influencing official policies.

However, there remains a significant gap between policy and practice in India. Several barriers prevent effective implementation:

First, there’s a severe shortage of trained mental health professionals, especially in rural areas where suicide rates are often high. The funding and manpower allocated to suicide prevention fall far short of what the strategy requires to be successful.

Second, proper monitoring is missing. Despite launching the strategy in 2022 to reduce suicide mortality by 10% by 2030, India has not released any national suicide data since that same year. Without current data, it’s impossible to track progress, identify new patterns, or adjust approaches as needed.

In schools specifically, implementation faces additional challenges. Even when schools hire psychologists, the counsellor-to-student ratio remains inadequate. Cultural and social stigma also create barriers – for example, a school mental health initiative in one Indian state proved ineffective largely due to stigma among older teachers and various structural issues.

For suicide prevention strategies to succeed in India, we need sustained investment, approaches that respect cultural differences, and dedicated efforts to bridge the gap between what’s written in policy documents and what happens in reality. Prevention efforts must be ongoing and adapted to different regions, rather than short-term or one-size-fits-all programmes.

Timeline: How much do you believe the role of social pressure behind such extreme steps, and how must that pressure be reduced?

Sayed Ebrahim Mubasheer: In India, family and social pressure to excel academically and secure a good job play a massive role in pushing students toward extreme steps. Children often grow up hearing that education is the only path for them and their family, due to financial hardship. From an early age, many children from lower and middle-class backgrounds constantly hear their parents’ hopes that they will break the cycle of financial struggle. This shapes children’s minds to equate success solely with financial security.

However, the reality of India’s economic situation makes this dream incredibly difficult to achieve. The competition for decent jobs is overwhelming. For example, in 2025, nearly 25 lakh people applied for just 53,749 peon positions in Rajasthan, with many applicants holding PhDs, MBAs, and law degrees. This extreme competition has become common across India.

Corruption makes matters worse. Many government positions require applicants to pay massive bribes, ranging from 25 lakhs to 1 crore rupees, just to secure the job. This creates an impossible situation for students from modest backgrounds.

For many students, exceptional academic performance becomes their only perceived path to financial security. When they struggle academically, they don’t just see it as personal failure but as failing their entire family’s dreams and sacrifices. This creates overwhelming feelings of helplessness and hopelessness about the future, which can lead to suicidality.

Timeline: What steps, as a society, must we take or things we should avoid to prevent such incidents from happening?

Sayed Ebrahim Mubasheer: Suicide is a complex problem that requires comprehensive solutions. Since suicide stems from multiple factors, there is no single solution. We need to understand it from different perspectives – psychological, sociological, and neurobiological. Effective suicide prevention requires collaboration between many sectors: government, NGOs, medical practitioners, researchers, social workers, sociologists, psychologists, teachers, school administrators, religious organizations, and families.

For student suicide specifically, we must include students themselves, parents and family members, teachers, mental health professionals, educational institution management, government agencies, and NGOs in developing effective prevention strategies.

Some of the key steps we should take include:

Develop culturally appropriate strategies: The first step is understanding student suicide through our cultural lens, not just applying Western models. We need to develop prevention strategies that reflect Indian realities and can be effectively monitored.

Involve families: Families can provide the best support when someone is in crisis. Recent research shows that family-involved suicide prevention efforts work better than individually focused approaches. This is especially true in India, where family plays a central role in individuals’ lives.

Build awareness and provide training: Families, teachers, and students need education about suicide prevention. They should learn to recognise risk factors, protective factors, and warning signs so they can help those at risk. Gatekeeper training programmes can teach people how to intervene in crises, but these must be culturally appropriate rather than simply copied from Western models.

Bridge the policy-practice gap: We must ensure an adequate number of well-trained student counselors in all educational institutions. These counsellors should be readily accessible to every student without delay whenever needed. They must be multiculturally sensitive, considering that students in premier institutes like IITs, NITs, and IIMs come from diverse cultural backgrounds. Importantly, counsellors should not be overburdened with administrative work and teaching duties, and they must receive fair compensation for their critical work.

Address long-term systemic issues: While awareness and training are immediate needs, they aren’t enough for lasting change. We need to establish suicide prevention research centers across the country to develop and evaluate locally appropriate strategies. We must also address underlying social and economic problems like unemployment, corruption, and discrimination based on caste, class, and gender.

By taking these comprehensive steps and avoiding quick-fix solutions, we can create a society that better supports struggling students before they reach the point of considering suicide.

Sayed Ebrahim Mubasheer SM, is a Senior Research Fellow, Department of Psychology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.