A stressed out nation

Most Indians are living under conditions of extreme stress. Delhi is the most stressed out city in the country and Mumbai the sixth. Residents of both cities admitted to facing extreme stress on account of corruption. Arnab Mitra reports.

Here’s a statement that many of you will agree with. Most Indians are living under conditions of extreme stress.

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For the purpose of this survey, we defined stress as:

Level of stress with fuel prices

Level of stress with corruption

Level of stress with governance

Level of stress with economic conditions

Level of stress with inflation

The findings point to a country that is highly stressed out.

Corruption is clearly the issue which bothers us most. And Delhi is the most stressed out city in the country and Mumbai the sixth. Residents of both cities admitted to facing extreme stress on account of corruption.

The high stress levels suggest that people are looking for an option – any option – that will lower their stress levels.

Is it any wonder that activists like Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and even Baba Ramdev draw large crowds at their anti-corruption movements in the Capital?

All categories of respondents – males, females, students, working men, working women, homemakers, retired people and all age groups – from 18 years to the 60+ generation – were unanimous: they found corruption very stressful.

Will this reflect in the voting patterns in elections?

Difficult to say! All we can say is that there is a groundswell of very strong opinion against corruption.

Inflation and fuel prices, two often inter-linked issues are also causing extreme stress across urban India.

Three cities, including Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai say they cause extreme stress. Delhi and Mumbai residents are only slightly so – they are only highly stressed.

Here, too, there’s near unanimity of views across categories and age groups.

The verdict: Inflation and rising fuel prices are extremely stressful.