Hyderabad:  “There might be light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel is really long, and there is just darkness all around. Will it get better? How long until it gets better? What if it gets better a little too late?” 

These were some thoughts in my head, the night of 8 August, 2024, when I decided to end my life. I was rushed to the hospital against my will, and I still grapple with the whys of it. 

I was diagnosed with depression and borderline personality disorder, when I was in the second year of my five-year LLB or bachelor of law course. I struggled with a high dosage of medications that had their own side effects. 

I struggled with attending classes, I thought of self-harm and suicide. 

In the first semester of the third year, I did not do too well, and, so, my grade point average (GPA) and batch rank fell.

I had never failed in my entire life, and had always been a top-ranking student throughout my time in school. 

Since my GPA was low, I did not want to apply for major internships through the college internship committee, out of the fear of being ridiculed. Consequently, I did not get an opportunity to work in the best law firms, which is considered an important experience in law school. 

I was increasingly ashamed of participating in any academic discussions among my peers, I started avoiding everyone and went into isolation quite often. I did not see any way out of this system, where my entire worth was based on what my GPA and rank was, and pure score-based examinations did not make it easier either. 

I thought at that moment that the only option I had was to end it all.

I overdosed on pain medications and left a short suicide note to my closest friends. They saw it within minutes, and I was rushed to the emergency unit of a nearby hospital.

The Spike In Suicides

Suicide had been identified as one of the most significant factors contributing to premature deaths by the 210th report of the Law Commission of India in 2008. 

By 2022, more than 13,000 students were dying by suicide in India, almost double the number over the previous decade, according to national crime data released that year, the latest available. Overall suicides rose by 2% but student suicides rose by 4%, the Business Standard reported in August 2024, quoting the same data, compiled by the a National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

More than 200,000 students died by suicide over 25 years, the Times of India reported in August 2022. Disaggregating the data reveal how examination trends affect student suicides.

“Exam failure suicides show a decreasing trend and account for only 1% of suicides in 2022 when compared to 2% in the previous decade,” the Lancet, a global medical journal, reported in September 2025.

“Exam failure suicides have declined but suicides following failures in entrance exams reveal an alarming increase.”

The 2022 NCRB report said 7.6% of the suicides in India were by students, 1.2% of these because they failed examinations. In July 2024, the union ministry of home affairs told the upper house of Parliament, the Rajya Sabha, that no NCRB data had been released after 2022, without explaining why.

In recent months, there have been multiple deaths by suicide in top Indian educational institutions (here, here, here, here and here). Students have hung themselves—possibly the most common way of dying— swallowed rat poison, jumped in front of trains, jumped from high building floors and swallowed pills. 

An April 2024 essay in the academic publication Sage Journals noted that the preferred means of suicide in India in general were changing. “The proportion of suicides by hanging increased from 49.8% to 58.2%; in contrast, suicides by chemical poisoning declined from 27.5% to 25.4% from 2017 to 2022,” said the essay.

Despair In Education

Pursuing higher education in India’s top institutes—whether law, engineering, medicine or other diverse subjects—is a dream almost every student has. Beneath the veneer of youthful energy and dreams of the future, lies a grim undercurrent, which I call an epidemic of despair. 

Indeed, the rising number of student suicides in educational institutions nationwide is a reality that is changing the discourse of conversations around deaths by suicide. 

At least 12% of about 9,000 students surveyed battled thoughts of suicide, according to a 2025 study by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (Bangalore), the University of Melbourne, the University of Birmingham and seven other institutes in India.

A 2024 study by a “student suicide taskforce”, a coalition drawn from some educational institutions, reported one in every 10 Indian students as suicidal: some attempted suicide, while some considered it. 

A 2025 study that analysed reporting of student suicides in the media over five years to 2023 identified the most common reasons as academic (academic dissatisfaction, academic stress and academic failure), institutional (bullying, caste discrimination, ragging, harassment and toxic institutional culture), mental-health issues (depression, psychological stress and anxiety), financial crises and online gaming. 

The majority of suicide victims aged 16 to 21, said the study, done by researchers from India, the UK and Norway. 

These data indicate the gravity of the situation and how complex factors push young minds to the brink. 

A ‘Suicide Epidemic’

In India’s top law schools, deaths by suicide and students with suicidal thoughts are evident, and appear to be issues that these schools have not adequately addressed.

“If a student dies in one law school, we rush to blame the school and their teachers,” Kanika Kadam, a lawyer, told Bar and Bench, a legal website, in April 2025. 

“The law school in question then tries to blame the students and parents,” said Kadam. “We are still so focused on this blame game that we haven't even begun to actually come together to address the problem of student suicide.”

The academic culture at India’s best law schools is highly competitive, based on merit—from my experience, it is also the biggest catalyst for depression among students. 

Students equate their self-worth with their academic performance, and in a market where finding a job is tough, there may be little option for alternatives. 

That is the case not just with law schools but across the country.

Indeed, a 24 March 2025 judgement in Amit Kumar & Ors. vs Union of India, the Supreme Court discussed the rash of student suicides (para 50-53) nationwide. The judgment discussed various causes, including academic pressure faced by the students owing to the rigour of the education system. 

Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan used the phrase “suicide epidemic” and noted that most deaths by suicide were attributed to failure in the examinations. 

“The relentless pressure to perform in a purely score-based education system, coupled with the extreme competition for limited seats in premier educational institutions, places a terrifying burden on the students’ mental health,” said Justices Pardiwala and Mahadevan.

“Several students who come from competitive coaching centres bring pre-existing mental health issues, which get further heightened when they enter Higher Educational Institutions,” said the Supreme Court.

Justices Pardiwala and Mahadevan said that although it was “difficult to eradicate this distress”, it could be managed by flexible curricula, “continuous assessment methods”, support to manage academic backlog and campus support for psychological issues faced by students.

That modern academic institutions operate on a rigid, meritocratic framework, where students are constantly ranked on the basis of their performance in exams, assignments and extracurricular activities, is well documented (here and here). 

This varied burden also exacerbates pre-existing issues, such as underconfidence, mental health issues, feelings of alienation or finding it difficult to fit into elite institutions, particularly students from disadvantaged or minority backgrounds, and fuels a cycle of internal and external isolation. 

The Battle To Be Accepted

Since ranks are often considered the sole determinant of intelligence, the cascading effects are considerable, in my experience.

In extracurricular activities, such as moot courts and other competitions in law schools, students tend to only pair up with those whose ranks are, as per their standards, “academically intelligent”. That means friendships and group affiliations are also determined by your GPA. 

This system places students from marginalised backgrounds at a considerable disadvantage and stress. 

The culture of isolation particularly affects those facing disadvantages of caste, class, religion, disability, first-generation learning, and mental health. They are also expected to perform at the same level as their more privileged peers without any systemic support. 

So, such non-performance is not really regarded as a systemic issue but a personal failure. Apart from rank-based isolation, there are also socio-economic isolations that put students into cycles of depression and despair where some choose to end their lives.

The New Evil

In 75 years of independence and the battle for social justice, I would argue, this is the new evil: some of our brightest minds toiling away in the darkness that I experienced.

Rather than treating academic setbacks as opportunities for growth, institutions punish and isolate struggling students, making them feel they don’t belong.  The fear of disappointing parents  prompts students to hide marks and ranks from them, making them feel more isolated and lonelier. 

Institutions reinforce this isolation by normalising excessive workloads, harsh grading and lack of robust mental health support, and romanticisation of excessive suffering as an indispensable part of success. 

The 2025 study on media reporting of suicides I referred to earlier suggested making academic curricula less stressful, the institution of policies to ensure that academic campuses are free from harassment, bullying or “similar aggressive experiences”. Emphasising students' mental health, the study said, “should be the education system's biggest priority”.

Despite the growing awareness around mental health and suicides, many university spaces lack comprehensive support systems, widening the divide that already persists. 

The lack of institutional intervention in preventing student suicides highlights a broader failure in the education system. The Supreme Court judgement I referred to earlier also emphasises the need for faculty and administration sensitised to any issues faced by students. 

“The duty of the college authorities is not just to ensure academic excellence of the students but also to ensure their mental well-being, and not just exercise authority and control over students but also to provide support in times of distress,” said the Supreme Court.

Existing policies in academic institutions largely fail to see that suicide is a social and systemic issue more than a personal failing. 

“Promoting resilience to failure and frustration is crucial for preventing suicide among students, as is addressing issues such as peer pressure, family expectations, and poor coping skills,” said the May 2024 essay in Sage Journals.

That is easier said than done.

The absence of adequate grievance redressal mechanisms means that students facing academic harassment, unfair grading, or faculty discrimination have little recourse. Many institutions also lack emergency intervention strategies for students exhibiting signs of severe mental distress, further aggravating the crisis.  

The sheer number of students contemplating ending their lives should be a warning sign of the crisis at hand. We should not be mourning what we should be preventing. 

Suicides are certainly hard to eradicate, but the pressures that lead to them can be managed better. India’s New Education Policy (NEP) is supposed to reduce pressure on students, but it is unclear if that will happen.

“Unfortunately, whether it is the NEP or the National Suicide Prevention Strategy, both remain largely on paper and few recommendations have been implemented,” said the 2024 Lancet study I wrote of earlier.  

“The federal nature of the Indian democracy means that the Central government is dependent on State governments to provide last mile implementation including staffing and premises,” said the Lancet study. 

“With neither the requisite push from the Centre, nor the requisite pull from the States, the final casualty are students who continue to take their lives over exam failures. The time to act for India is now.”

(This article was written by a law student who requested that her identity and that of her institution be withheld.)

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