John J. Kennedy | India’s Institutes Need Reforms To Tackle Suicides, Not Band-aid Fix
According to the education ministry, 122 students at IITs, NITs, and other Central institutions died by suicide between 2014 and 2021, with 38 deaths in IITs in the last five years. These are not isolated incidents; they are symptoms of a grave, deepening mental health crisis on our campuses
Some time ago, a student suicide in Vijayawada made the national headlines. Soon afterwards, news broke of the fourth such death in a year at IIT Kharagpur, one of the nation’s top engineering institutes. The grief echoed similar tragedies -- a case in Odisha tied to sexual harassment, and the alarming frequency of suicides in Rajasthan’s Kota, the country’s coaching capital. In 2023 alone, Kota saw 26 student suicides, the highest in recent years.
According to the education ministry, 122 students at IITs, NITs, and other Central institutions died by suicide between 2014 and 2021, with 38 deaths in IITs in the last five years. These are not isolated incidents; they are symptoms of a grave, deepening mental health crisis on our campuses.
Each student tragedy brings public grief, which is followed by institutional reassurances and symbolic gestures. However, the real question remains: do our institutions offer genuine support, or are we simply masking inaction with the illusion of care?
The “Campus Mothers” initiative at IIT Kharagpur highlights this issue. By assigning only female staff to support students emotionally, it relies on outdated stereotypes that women are by nature “nurturing”. This not only reinforces gender roles but also burdens staff with unrecognised and untrained emotional labour, ignoring the need for professional expertise in such support. As sociologist Arlie Hochschild notes, emotional labour is real work, and expecting untrained or ill-trained staff to manage mental health crises is both ineffective and unfair. The World Health Organisation cautions that poorly managed interventions can worsen isolation or distress. Hence, placing such responsibility on such staff offers little safeguard for students in real need and sets up well-intentioned employees for guilt and burnout. We wouldn’t let “campus uncles” perform surgery; why entrust mental health care to unqualified volunteers?
More troubling still, these symbolic schemes distract from the deeper institutional rot. The environments in many Indian institutions are structurally stressful, rigidly competitive, and emotionally unforgiving. A 2019 study in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry found that more than 65 per cent of Indian university students experience high or severe stress, primarily due to academic overload, peer rivalry, and the dread of failure. Students who once stood out arrive at elite campuses only to find themselves in a relentless race for excellence, with minimal institutional support and pervasive stigma around mental health. Even high performers can feel isolated and unseen. In fact, a 2022 PLOS One study found that one in every four Indian college students shows symptoms of depression. However, the average student-to-counsellor ratio on campuses is woefully inadequate. Often, a single counsellor serves thousands of students, sometimes tens of thousands. Even when services exist, they remain hard to access, mired in stigma, or reduced to formalities. Instead of hiring psychologists and social workers, institutions implement ad-hoc fixes like the “Campus Mothers” programme.
It is in this context that the Supreme Court’s historic intervention assumes significance. Recognising a “legislative and regulatory vacuum”, the Supreme Court has issued a set of binding, 15-point guidelines, explicitly designed to overhaul how educational institutions respond to student mental health and suicide prevention. The court’s measures strike at precisely the failings highlighted above, and show the path away from tokenism.
These include a mandate that large educational institutions appoint qualified counsellors, psychologists, or social workers, trained specifically in child and adolescent mental health.
Smaller institutions must formulate formal referral arrangements with external mental health experts. All staff must be bi-annually trained by certified professionals in psychological first aid, identifying warning signs, and crisis response. Strict prohibition on the public shaming of students, unrealistic academic targets, and batch segregation by performance address structural sources of distress. Written suicide prevention protocols, along with the prominent display of helpline numbers in all student areas, aim to make help-seeking visible, accessible, and stigma-free. The court even goes so far as to mandate changes to campus infrastructure, such as tamper-proof ceiling fans, restricted access to high-risk areas, and eliminating bullying and substance abuse in hostels.
Crucially, the Supreme Court’s guidelines recognise the unique pressures of India’s coaching hubs, instituting heightened protections, career counselling, and stress mitigation in these high-risk zones. Supervision is to be guaranteed by district-level monitoring committees, led by district magistrates, and states and Union Territories are ordered to implement the rules within two months.
Why does this intervention matter? These recommendations go beyond eyewash, they hold institutions accountable, prioritise professional intervention, and demand systemic safeguards. They take mental health out of the realm of “motherly intuition” or “passive sympathy” and root it firmly in professional, scientific practice.
The relevance and potential efficacy of the Supreme Court’s reforms are significant. If real investments are made, in hiring trained clinicians and creating safe, stigma-free spaces, the outcomes will improve. Evidence from across the globe shows that campuses that commit to such changes see earlier identification of at-risk students, greater uptake of support services, and fewer tragedies. The Supreme Court’s guidelines replace vague platitudes with enforceable norms: counselling must be accessible, all staff must be trained adequately to recognise problems, bullying and segregation must end, and monitoring must be continual.
However, all these advances will falter without institutional will, sustained funding, and a shift in campus culture. Deep-seated stigma, under-resourcing and bureaucratic inertia can still neuter the court’s intentions. Monitoring and the law can enforce compliance; only commitment and leadership will guarantee dignity and safety.
We must remember that compassion alone is never enough: competence is essential. Every student suicide marks not only an individual tragedy, but also an institutional failure and a collective loss. Our students deserve more than symbolic care or sympathetic gestures. They deserve the real reforms that the Supreme Court demands: professional support, structural change, and a culture where mental health is valued, protected, and prioritised.
The writer is retired professor and former dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at Christ University in Bengaluru
