If you or someone you know is struggling, call Tele-MANAS, the national tele-mental health helpline, free and 24x7: 14416 or 1-800-891-4416.
The Lift Line
“The hunt for a single, assignable cause is not a search for the truth but a way of not having one.” (Urvashi Prasad, The Indian Express)
Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam
This column in The Indian Express, published on 8 October 2026, is by Urvashi Prasad, a public health and policy professional and a former director at NITI Aayog. Written ahead of World Mental Health Day, which will be observed on 10 October, it starts from the death of a student at an IIT and asks a harder question than “who is to blame”: what kind of system produces such deaths, and the spectacle that follows them?
The column adds three things to the subject: the ethics of reporting a suicide, the language we use for it, and the case for treating student suicides as a structural problem. For the legal and institutional background (the Supreme Court’s National Task Force, the Sukdeb Saha guidelines and Tele-MANAS), read our earlier editorial on what student deaths at the IITs ask of India’s premier campuses. This piece builds on it with the NCRB’s 2024 data, the Supreme Court’s January 2026 order and the media norms.
GS Paper 2: Issues relating to the development and management of social sector services relating to health and education; mechanisms for the protection of vulnerable sections. GS Paper 4: Ethics in private and public institutions; empathy and compassion; the role of the media. Essay: youth, pressure and society.
New to this topic? Start here: the basics in plain words (revision card 1 of 7)
Background and Context
The death that prompted the column
According to the column, a second-year BTech student at IIT Bombay died by suicide on 18 September, hours after an examination. Within days, and long before any inquiry could finish, exam-hall CCTV footage was circulating online and on television channels as proof of malpractice, and his last calls were picked over by strangers. His father alleges caste discrimination and has named a faculty member in an FIR; the institute denies that any of this drove the student to his death.
What the numbers say
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), in its report Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI) 2024, gives these figures:
| Indicator (ADSI 2024) | Figure |
|---|---|
| Total suicides in India, 2024 | 1,70,746 (down 0.4 per cent from 2023) |
| Students among them | 14,488, or 8.5 per cent of all suicides |
| Unemployed persons among them | 14,778, or 8.7 per cent |
| States with the most student suicides | Maharashtra 1,909 (13.2%), Uttar Pradesh 1,585 (10.9%), Madhya Pradesh 1,447 (10.0%), Tamil Nadu 1,287 (8.9%) |
The author adds that the 2024 figure is the highest the NCRB has ever logged, close to double the figure of a decade earlier, and that roughly 1.24 lakh students were lost across 2014 to 2024.
The law: from punishment to care
- Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, Section 115(1): “Notwithstanding anything contained in section 309 of the Indian Penal Code any person who attempts to commit suicide shall be presumed, unless proved otherwise, to have severe stress and shall not be tried and punished under the said Code.”
- Section 115(2): the appropriate Government has “a duty to provide care, treatment and rehabilitation” to such a person, “to reduce the risk of recurrence of attempt to commit suicide.”
- Section 24(1): no photograph or other information about a person with mental illness undergoing treatment at a mental health establishment may be released to the media without that person’s consent.
- Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023: Section 358(1) repeals the Indian Penal Code. The BNS has no general offence of attempting suicide. Its one attempt provision, Section 226, punishes an attempt to commit suicide “with the intent to compel or restrain any public servant from discharging his official duty”, with simple imprisonment of up to one year, a fine, both, or community service. Abetment of suicide remains a serious offence (Sections 107 and 108; up to ten years under Section 108).
The Supreme Court’s track
As background: in its judgment of 24 March 2025 in Amit Kumar v. Union of India, the Supreme Court reminded every educational institution of its “unequivocal moral and legal obligation to promptly lodge an F.I.R.” if a suicide occurs on campus, and it set up a National Task Force (NTF) on the mental health of students in higher education. For context, in a further order of 15 January 2026, the Court reviewed the NTF’s work and was blunt. On the student support systems that higher education institutions (HEIs) claim to have, it found that “even when they exist in actuality, they are merely tokenistic”, and it added: “We are deeply disappointed with the apathetic attitude of most HEIs”. Only 3.5 per cent of 60,383 HEIs responded to the NTF’s survey. Using its powers under Article 142, the Court directed, among other things, that:
| Direction (15 January 2026) | What it requires |
|---|---|
| Better data | the NCRB must separate school students from students of higher education in its “student suicides” category; Sample Registration System data on suicides, especially for the 15 to 29 age group, is to be maintained centrally |
| Reporting | every HEI must report a student’s suicide or unnatural death to the police, wherever it occurs (campus, hostel, PG accommodation or elsewhere), and file an annual report with the UGC or the relevant regulator |
| Medical help | every residential HEI must have qualified medical help round the clock, on campus or within one km |
| Staffing | vacant faculty posts, and posts such as Vice-Chancellor and Registrar, to be filled within four months |
The prevention architecture
- National Suicide Prevention Strategy (NSPS): launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2022; its main goal is to reduce suicide mortality in India by 10 per cent by 2030.
- Tele-MANAS: launched on 10 October 2022 as a 24x7 toll-free helpline (14416 or 1-800-891-4416).
- Media norms: the Press Council of India has adopted the World Health Organization’s guidance for media professionals on preventing suicide. As summarised in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry, it advises the media against placing such stories prominently or repeating them unduly, describing the method, giving details of the site, using sensational headlines, and using photographs or video footage of the incident.
The Analysis
The author makes five moves.
1. The fight over a single story. After such a death, the argument is never about whether a young person should be dead, but about which single story owns the death. The institute reaches for academic stress; activists see caste, a pattern they have watched kill before. A death reduced to one villain, in her words “a professor, a phone, a father’s ambition”, is a death no one has to think too hard about.
2. The rules exist, and were broken. India, she says, is told each time that it has no rules for reporting such a death. It does. The Press Council’s 2019 guidelines, which she describes as issued under the Mental Healthcare Act, bar what happened after this death, and “Every line was crossed.” The Supreme Court has laid down pan-India guidelines and appointed a national task force, and in January it was still flagging, as she puts it, “tokenistic compliance” and “institutional apathy”. (The order’s own words, quoted above, are “merely tokenistic” and the “apathetic attitude of most HEIs”.)
3. Language gives the game away. “Committed suicide”, the phrase almost everyone still reaches for, is the vocabulary of crime. The author ties this to the 2017 law, which she describes as having decriminalised the attempt. Her conclusion: “A person does not commit suicide. A person dies by suicide.”
4. A structural output. The deaths cluster where the pressure is highest: coaching towns, entrance-exam hubs, institutions. “These are not private misfortunes. They are a structural output, arriving in larger numbers every year.” She asks why a single entrance result still stands in for the whole of a young life, and argues that when such pressure produces cheating, society calls it a defect of character rather than the predictable behaviour of people held under water.
5. Responsibility is shared. It does not stop at the institution’s gate. It reaches families who stake a child’s entire worth on a rank, and a media that converts grief into traffic. Whether a professor discriminated is a fair question; so is whether the institute reached too quickly for “academic pressure” once caste was named. But both sit inside a larger question no FIR will cover: what kind of system produces the death, and then the spectacle around it? Her closing line: “Prevention that begins only after the student is dead is not prevention.”
Data and Institutions Vault
Prelims-grade facts:
- ADSI 2024 (NCRB): 1,70,746 suicides in India; students 14,488 (8.5%); Maharashtra highest for student suicides (1,909, 13.2%).
- Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 (Act No. 10 of 2017): Section 115 presumes severe stress in a person who attempts suicide; no trial or punishment under the IPC.
- MHCA Section 115(2): the appropriate Government has a duty of care, treatment and rehabilitation.
- MHCA Section 24(1): no photograph or information on a person under mental health treatment to the media without consent.
- BNS, 2023, Section 226: attempt to commit suicide to compel or restrain a public servant; up to one year, fine, or community service.
- Supreme Court, 24 March 2025 (Amit Kumar): mandatory FIR after a campus suicide; National Task Force set up.
- Supreme Court, 15 January 2026: Article 142 directions; only 3.5% of 60,383 HEIs answered the NTF survey.
- NSPS (2022, MoHFW): cut suicide mortality by 10% by 2030.
- Tele-MANAS: launched 10 October 2022; toll-free 14416 or 1-800-891-4416.
- World Mental Health Day: observed on 10 October.
⚠️ Watch the trap: The Mental Healthcare Act did not delete Section 309 of the IPC. It worked through a presumption: a person who attempts suicide is presumed to have severe stress and is not tried or punished. And the BNS still punishes one kind of attempt (Section 226, to compel or restrain a public servant), while abetment of suicide remains an offence. Also note: 14,488 is the students’ share of all suicides (8.5 per cent), not a rate per student.
The Debate
The author’s case. The search for one cause is a way of not having to face the system: a structure of high-stakes examinations, family expectations, institutional neglect and a spectacle-hungry media. Rules on reporting and on campus support already exist; the failure is in following them. Prevention has to start long before a death.
The other side. A specific allegation, such as caste discrimination by a named teacher, is not a distraction; it is a matter of justice that needs a clear answer, and the Supreme Court itself requires an FIR after every campus suicide. An institution can fairly say that it cannot control family or personal circumstances, and that “structural” explanations can dilute individual accountability. It can also be argued that public scrutiny is what forces institutions to act.
The balanced verdict. Both can hold at once. Specific accountability (an inquiry into discrimination, an FIR) and structural reform (examination design, counselling, data, faculty) are not rivals. What the column rules out is the shortcut: settling on one villain, broadcasting a dead student’s last hours, and treating the matter as closed.
How to Think About This
Use three levels in any answer on student suicides: the individual (distress, support, a helpline that works), the institution (grievance cells that function, round-the-clock medical help, filled faculty posts, honest reporting) and the system (single high-stakes examinations, coaching economies, social expectations, media ethics). Then add the ethical lens for GS4: dignity and privacy of the dead and their families, empathy over curiosity, and the media’s duty not to cause harm. An answer that names only “academic pressure” or only “caste” repeats the very mistake the column describes.
Diagram-in-Words
Why the single-cause story fails
Each side claims one villain; the author points to the system behind the death.
Takeaway Box
- The argument: hunting for one cause of a student suicide hides a structural crisis; responsibility is shared by institutions, families and the media.
- The data: 14,488 student suicides in 2024, 8.5 per cent of all suicides (NCRB, ADSI 2024).
- The law: MHCA 2017, Section 115 presumes severe stress and bars punishment; the BNS has no general offence of attempted suicide.
- The courts: in January 2026 the Supreme Court found campus mechanisms “merely tokenistic” and issued Article 142 directions.
- The help: Tele-MANAS, 14416, 24x7; NSPS aims to cut suicide mortality by 10 per cent by 2030.
Revision Cards
UjiyariThe law and the language: card 3 →UjiyariThe static base: card 4 →UjiyariTest yourself on card 5 →Show answer
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UjiyariOn card 6: traps, recall and data →R1Which State had the most student suicides in 2024?
R2Under which Article did the Court issue its January 2026 directions?
R3When was Tele-MANAS launched?
R4Which case set up the National Task Force?
UjiyariWrite the Mains answer on card 7 →UjiyariNow take today’s quiz →Sources: The Indian Express, Urvashi Prasad, “‘What caused the suicide?’: A question that masks the truth”; NCRB, ADSI 2024, Chapter 2; Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 (Gazette); Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (Gazette); Supreme Court, Amit Kumar v. Union of India, order of January 2026; PIB, mental health initiatives (February 2026); Indian Journal of Psychiatry, “Aftermath of celebrity suicide”
Source: Student Suicides in India: A Question That Masks the Truth — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Editorial Analysis
