In Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, recently, a young couple ended their lives after poisoning their four-month-old son. They left behind a note wanting their home and car to be sold to repay their debts. Months earlier, the media reported how several students in Kota, Rajasthan, which is called the nation’s coaching hub, had died by suicide. Treated individually as anomalies, these tragedies highlight a crisis in India — a grim national mental health crisis spanning villages, cities, classrooms, boardrooms, farms and homes.
The data from across India
According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI) 2023 report, there were 1,71,418 suicides in India — a rise of 0.3% from the previous year. Yet, the suicide rate per 1,00,000 population fell marginally by 0.8%, indicating that population growth had outpaced case increases. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Sikkim and Kerala reported the highest suicide rates, while Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and West Bengal accounted for more than 40% of all deaths. Cities continued to have higher suicide rates than in rural India, reflecting the pressures of urban life. Men made up 72.8% of all victims, revealing gendered economic and social stress. Family problems accounted for nearly a third (31.9%) of suicides, followed by illness (19%), substance abuse (7%), and relationship or marriage-related issues (about 10% combined).
Distress in the agrarian sector persists, with 10,786 farmer suicides, around 6.3% of the total reported in 2023, slightly lower than the previous year. Most cases were in Maharashtra and Karnataka. But there is a broader crisis — since 2014, over 1,00,000 farmers have taken their lives. Between 1995 and 2015, nearly 2,96,000 of the cases were the result of debt, crop failure, market shocks and institutional neglect. Equally invisible are homemakers and caregivers, predominantly women, who face high rates of depression, marital distress and domestic violence but do not feature in official statistics.
It was against this backdrop that one of us, on an ordinary morning, felt the weight of existence suddenly unbearable — not from illness or exhaustion, but from a numbing sense that every small act, such as brushing one’s teeth to answering a message, had lost meaning. There was food in the fridge, work in progress, and no visible crisis, yet the heaviness was overwhelming. In that moment of quiet panic, reaching out to an Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform felt safer than speaking to someone. Why does technology seem more approachable than human company? It was a moment that captured a painful truth: countless Indians are confiding in algorithms because they have no one else to turn to. This is not a technological failure, but a human one.
Nearly 230 million Indians live with mental disorders, from depression and anxiety to bipolar and substance-use conditions. Yet, over four in five persons with severe illness receive no formal care due to stigma, the cost, and a severe shortage of professionals. Lifetime prevalence sits at 10.6%, with treatment gaps that range from 70% to 92%. Even as official suicide rates appear stable, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates 16.3 deaths per 1,00,000 people, highlighting India’s heavy mental health burden. Behind these numbers are lives such as a young university student who jumped off a bridge after leaving behind a note that she felt “unworthy” — a word that echoes quietly in hostels, offices and unread messages, and denoting silent despair.
Gaps in the system
India’s mental health system needs attention. With just 0.75 psychiatrists for 1,00,000 people, well below the WHO minimum of 1.7, and far from the ideal three, besides a similar shortage of nurses, psychologists and social workers, care is scarce. In schools and colleges, “counselling” often means a part-time teacher for thousands of students; in coaching hubs and universities, support is tokenistic and underfunded. On paper, laws appear progressive: the Mental Healthcare Act (2017) decriminalised suicide and guaranteed mental health care, while the National Suicide Prevention Strategy (2022) aimed to reduce deaths by 10%. Yet, suicides have risen.
Manodarpan, the school-based psycho-social support scheme, remains largely inactive, and despite 47 postgraduate psychiatry departments and 25 centres of excellence being sanctioned, staffing, pay and training gaps persist. Even the ₹270-crore mental health budget has been largely unspent, leaving policies as empty promises.
Today, millions of Indians turn to AI tools such as ChatGPT — not out of trust but out of loneliness. The OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, himself has acknowledged that many young users treat the platform as a therapist or life coach, despite its lack of confidentiality, crisis intervention or privacy guarantees. This reliance reflects not technological faith but institutional collapse. AI can assist. But without regulation, it risks becoming a dangerous substitute for real, protected human care.
India must treat mental health as an emergency, not as an afterthought. The government should prioritise mental health and establish a cross-ministerial task force that spans health, education, agriculture, and women and child welfare with independent funding and clear accountability. Within five years, the aim should be to have at least three to five mental health professionals for every 1,00,000 people, achieved through expanded training, scholarships and incentives for rural postings.
Counselling must become a public infrastructure, not a charity. Every school, college, district hospital and agrarian block should have a full-time trained counsellor or a direct link to one, funded by central budgets. It should not be left to non-governmental organisations or goodwill. Public campaigns must destigmatise help-seeking, share recovery stories, and normalise conversations about distress.
Special outreach is needed for high-risk groups such as farmers, homemakers, students, survivors of abuse, and caregivers. For farmers, counselling must go hand in hand with debt relief and livelihood support. Homemakers, often isolated, need community-based therapy networks. In coaching hubs such as Kota, mental health care must be continuous, institutional, and preventive.
On online support
At the same time, India must urgently regulate the digital mental health ecosystem. Emotional-support apps and AI tools should disclose privacy risks, carry mandatory disclaimers, embed crisis-response redirections, and provide real-time access to licensed professionals. Until robust ethical and legal frameworks exist, such tools cannot replace qualified human care.
What is at stake is not only life but also the moral and social fabric of the nation. Suicide remains the leading cause of death among India’s youth aged 15–29 years and the country bears a disproportionate share of global female suicide deaths. Untreated mental illness could cost India over $1 trillion in lost GDP by 2030 — employers already lose over ₹1.1 lakh crore annually to absenteeism, attrition and burnout. Each suicide, each breakdown, is a silenced voice, a broken family, and a future cut short.
Every one of us has known the relief when someone or some system says these important words: “You matter”. If India truly aspires to be modern, progressive and humane, it must prove this by saving the lives now slipping away in silence.
Amal Chandra is an author, policy analyst and columnist. Naimisha is the founder and CEO of Youthocracy and is building Umeed, an Artificial Intelligence-powered mental health support platform