Kota’s 23: Mostly minors from small towns who lived in coaching hub for under 6 months

An overwhelming majority of students that died by suicide are male, were preparing for medical entrance exam, and were from towns and villages in north India.

More than half of the 23 young students that have died by suicide in Kota, the Rajasthan town that is India’s coaching hub, are minors ( younger than 18 years of age), 12 did so within six months of arriving in Kota, and many were from families that are either poor or part of the lower middle-class, an analysis by HT of each student suicide that has taken place this year shows.

This year, to date, 23 young people have committed suicide in Kota already, the highest number since 2015 when the government first began compiling this data. (Representative Photo)

An overwhelming majority of the students that died by suicide are male, were preparing for the medical entrance exam, and were from towns and villages in north India, particularly from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, according to the analysis.

Over the decades, Kota, a town around 450km southwest of Delhi, has turned into a coaching factory, producing toppers of competitive examinations. These are the young people that are celebrated; their photographs are plastered in multiple cities as advertisements for their respective coaching institutions; and they are held up as examples by society.

But there is another Kota, where several students that are unable to cope with the competition are ejected by the wayside, or where young people, away from family, and weighed down by the burden of expectations, see suicide as the only way out.

Data from the Kota district administration says that there are around 225,000 students, preparing primarily for either the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) for admissions to India’s medical and dental colleges or for Joint Entrance Examinations (JEE) for engineering colleges, that live in over 4,000 hostels or 5,000 registered paying guest accommodations.

This year, to date, 23 young people have committed suicide in Kota already, the highest number since 2015 when the government first began compiling this data. A worried government has ordered coaching institutions to suspend tests for two months, and has formed a committee headed by the principal secretary (higher and technical education) to submit a report in 15 days.

HT’s analysis of all 23 suicides this year -- 19 male and 4 female -- shows that there were only six deaths in the year till April, with the first such suicide, of a 17-year-old boy from Shajahanpur in Uttar Pradesh on January 15. But the numbers have since soared, with six suicides in August thus far, including two on the same day.

With no regulations on how old students need to be to study at coaching institutions in Kota, 13 of the 23 deaths were of minors. The youngest was a 15 year-old boy from Khurja in Bulandshahar who died by suicide a month after he first came to city. The oldest was a 22-year-old from Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh. Under the schooling system in India, students generally graduate from Class 12 at the age of 17.

The students were all from north and central India: eight each from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, four from Rajasthan, one from Madhya Pradesh, and two from Maharashtra, but there were only two that were even from tier-2 cities, Patna in Bihar and Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh. The rest come from villages and small towns such as Shahjahanpur, Badaun, Bulandshahr, Rampur and Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh; West Champaran, Nalanda, Samastipur, Gaya and Rohtas in Bihar; Barmer, Udaipur, Tonk and Jalore in Rajasthan; Sagar in Madhya Pradesh; and Latur and Nandura in Maharashtra.

The analysis also shows that of the 23, a vast majority (17) were preparing for NEET, while the other six were preparing for JEE. More than half, 12 of the 23, succumbed to the pressure in less than six months of reaching Kota. One young man, 17, from Rajasthan, died by suicide within a week of arriving in Kota.

While data for the backgrounds of all 23 is not available, in at least 15 cases, the students came from backgrounds that were either poor or lower middle class. For instance, one was the son of a barber, another the daughter of a vehicle washer, and two were the children of small farmers.

The father of one of the boys, 17, who died by suicide is a teacher at a government school in Champaran, Bihar. He joined Class 11 at a coaching institute in 2022, and died by suicide on August 4 . The father says Kota had no release valve for pressure. “The students that clutch their bags and head to classes, the hoardings and the billboards, the teachers all over, all this has a devastating effect. He was disturbed after he fared badly in two successive internal assessments. We tried to talk to him, but we did not know that this would happen. Children should be sent anywhere but Kota,” he rued.

(With inputs from Sandeep Bhaskar in Bettiah)

(If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist. Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918, Roshni Foundation (Secundrabad) Contact Nos: 040-66202001, 040-66202000, ONE LIFE: Contact No: 78930 78930, SEVA: Contact No: 09441778290)