E-Paper
Post-pandemic rise in suicides yet to subside, data indicates
Between 2019 and 2023, the number of people who died by suicides increased by 23% from 1,39,123 to 1,53,052.
For every 100 people who died in an accident in India in 2023, 38.6 died by suicide. While this number has fallen for the second consecutive year after 2022, it is still the highest in 14 years if one were to exclude the period after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
Lest there is a confusion whether the rise in relative fatality from suicides is a result of fall in deaths due to accidents — this was indeed the case during the lockdown phase — the suicide rate in India, suicides per 100,000 population was 12.3 in 2023, the second highest after 12.4 in 2022 since 1966, the earliest year for which this data is available from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
Another data point from the NCRB report on Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI) report – the 2023 edition was released by NCRB on Monday – underlines the seriousness of the problem. Between 2019 and 2023, the number of people who died by suicides increased by 23% from 1,39,123 to 1,53,052. The growth in the number of people who died in accidents increased by less than 6% during this period.
Suicide rates vary drastically across Indian states. Among major states, it was the highest in Kerala (30.6 per a lakh of population) and the lowest in Bihar (0.7). Family problems (31.9%) and illness (19%) were the biggest reported reasons for deaths by suicide, far ahead of bankruptcy or indebtedness (3.8%) or poverty (0.7%). Daily wage earners (27.5%) were the most common occupational group to die by suicide, followed by housewives (14%) , both proportions significantly higher than persons engaged in the farming sector (6.3%). Farmer suicides have often been described as the most macabre manifestation of agrarian distress in India, although NCRB does not publish a cause-wise break-up of farmer suicides anymore. NCRB data also shows that a large majority – almost two-thirds of people who died by suicide – had never attended college and more than 40% did not even finish their secondary school. These numbers suggest that India’s poorest and most under privileged are more likely to die by suicide than the relatively better off.
A comparison with another statistic also given in the ADSI report makes an interesting point about the post-pandemic discourse on public health. A lot of claims, including by people in important positions, such as the Karnataka chief minister recently, have been made to suggest that the post-pandemic period has seen a surge in sudden deaths by heart attacks and Covid-19 vaccines might have played a role behind an increase in such deaths. The ADSI report gives the number of deaths due to sudden heart attacks as a sub-category in accidental deaths. This number shows a 27.3% increase from 28,005 to 35,637 between 2019 to 2023. Prima facie, this would suggest that deaths because of sudden heart attacks have seen a bigger growth in the post–pandemic period than deaths by suicides which have only grown by 23%.
However, if one were to compare 2019-2023 numbers with 2015-19, same time interval pre-pandemic, then it emerges that growth in number of deaths by sudden heart attacks has fallen from 48.8% in 2015-19 period to 27.3% in the 2019-23 period while the growth in deaths by suicides has seen a huge increase from 4.1% to 23.2%. The trend in deaths by sudden heart attacks makes intuitive sense. It is perhaps a result of the growing burden of lifestyle disease among Indians and lack of timely medical attention and preventive measures. However, the spike in suicides post-pandemic is yet to see a theoretical response from the public health regime.
If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist.
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