'Mummy papa, I can't do JEE...I suicide...I worst daughter'

In 2023, at least 26 suicides were reported from Kota, some 250km away from Jaipur, in Rajasthan. Realising it was a worrying trend, a committee was formed to suggest preventive measures: It directed test preparation institutes to conduct fun activities to de-stress students, upload motivational videos on their online platforms, and consider reducing syllabus to reduce pressure. Besides these, a number of other measures, such as anti-hanging devices on hostel room fans and iron meshes in balconies, were implemented.But, it's just the first month of the new year, and already in 2024, two student suicides have been reported from this coaching hub. On January 22, an 18-year-old Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) aspirant hanged herself in her Kota home on the eve of her test. In the same week, another entrance exam candidate killed himself. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r The girl, a resident of Kota’s Shiv Vihar Colony, scribbled a purported suicide note addressed to her parents, suggesting the pressure of preparing for the exam got to her, district superintendent of police Dharmveer Singh said. The note is heartbreaking. It reads: “Mummy papa I can’t do JEE, so I suicide. I am loser, I worst daughter. Sorry mummy, papa... yehi last option he.”A cousin of the girl, the eldest of three sisters, said she was under severe stress. “She had planned to repeat her Class XII exam this year to improve her scores, having performed below her expectations last time. She was a good student and would devote around seven to eight hours to her studies.”The girl's father works as an armed guard in a private bank. The family hails from Akawdakhurd village of Jhalawar district and has been living in Kota for around three years, DSP Singh said.On January 23, another student – a 19-year old National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) aspirant from UP’s Moradabad district – died by suicide in his hostel room. He had been preparing for the exam at an institute in the city for over a year. Rajib Dasgupta of the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, in an interview to TOI last year called the "suicide cluster" in Kota a "public health emergency".And the cause? Dinesh Sharma, head of the mental health department at Kota’s government nursing college, in a paper published on the risk factors for suicidal tendencies in youth said that it is academic pressure — defined as the inability to keep up with teaching in coaching institutes and schools together — that is the chief cause of suicide in Kota. Family pressure comes next.His findings were based on interviews with 400 coaching students. medium103129778When TOI visited Kota last year, we interviewed students, teachers, institute owners, counsellors and police officers to understand from them why more than 100 students had killed themselves in the city over the past 10 years. Rupesh Gupta, then a 16-year-old Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) aspirant from Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh, said he simply followed his successful cousins to Kota.Krishu Agarwal, a Class 11 student from Ranchi, did the same. His cousins made it to IIT via Kota, so Krishu decided to spend seven hours studying on his own after five hours of classes at his institute. He admitted he felt stressed at times. “Then I video call my parents, hang out with friends, or take a nap. That’s how I handle stress,” he said.At one of Kota’s prominent institutes, we met Suraj Kumar from Muzaffarpur, Bihar. He had slept for only five hours and it showed in his eyes. But he was sunk in a couch surrounded by his books and notebooks.“I study for around 12 hours a day…Yes, it is hectic but it is a matter of five months. For the next five months I don’t care if I sleep well or not, eat well or not,” said the 19-year-old who landed a seat in engineering last year but won’t settle for anything less than IIT. “I have to go to the best institute in the country,” he said.After classes, Suraj said he would hang out at the institute to study with friends. Then he studied alone till 1.30am and slept by 2am only to be up again at 7am. How did he deal with stress? “I study even harder when I’m stressed,” he replied.It was an awkward question to ask but could he identify with the students who killed themselves? “I will pack my bags and go home if such a thought strikes me ever,” Suraj said. medium103129652Fragile stateIn Kota, students are burdened with bigger syllabi and frequent tests at an age when they are still emotionally fragile. Most of them move to Kota in Class 11, but some, like Ridhi Patil from Maharashtra, join in Class 9.“I had been hearing the success stories of Kota since Class 5. I was sceptical but made up my mind to come here with my parents’ encouragement,” Ridhi said. She found the curriculum was far tougher than a normal school’s. The students have to cover 30% of the syllabus for Classes 11 and 12 in Classes 9 and 10.Kulbeer Singh, an aspiring doctor from Udaipur, said coming to Kota was his own choice. “I came here for better teachers. They bring out good results.” Are the teachers supportive? 'Yes,' said the student.If the environment is supportive, why did so many students end their lives? Experts said a combination of parental expectations, academic stress and Kota’s intensely competitive environment was to blame.Nidhi Shrivastava, a counsellor at Resonance coaching institute, remembered a parent from Kolkata who asked her, “My child will clear IIT, right? Or NIT [National Institute of Technology] at least?”Pramila Shankhla, a counsellor, said, “Every parent wants their child to be a doctor or an engineer. Most kids are burdened with parents’ expectations.”Not everyone, however, agreed. Kirti Singh Songara, vice-president, operations at Resonance coaching institute, said, “Where is the pressure? Five hours of study is enough. If five hours is pressure, then don’t study. I don’t understand why people keep saying ‘pressure’ while in reality there is none.”Dinesh Jain, regional head of business at the well-known online platform Physics Wallah, had a different view. “Kota has pressure,” he admitted. “Some can cope. Some can’t…In one case, the child had pressure from home. He wasn’t scoring well in tests.” But he also says every student suicide is not due to academic pressure. In one case early in 2023 “the student took his own life due to issues in a love affair”. medium103129755Whatever the pressure, at their age, the children need family and friends to withstand it. Anya Mahajan, a NEET aspirant from Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, said she turned to her mother for comfort every time: “Only parents can lift us up and keep us motivated,” she said.Support systemSome of Kota’s hostels now allow mothers to stay with their children. Increasingly, families have started buying apartments in the city to provide their children with better educational opportunities. In most cases, the mother moves to Kota while the father continues working back home.Anya also said friends help her decompress. “Kota is very competitive and self-doubt is common here. Every group has one friend who’s troubled by it more than the others. I’m that friend in my group. My friends support me and calm me,” she said.But 19-year-old Deepak Mishra, another NEET aspirant from Madhubani, Bihar, said, “How do you make friends here? There is hardly any time to study after taking four long classes. Where is the question of interacting with others? I live alone in a room nearby.” medium103129575With each suicide denting their collective image, Kota’s major coaching institutes said they had brought psychologists and counsellors on board. Sometimes, when the counsellors detect a child with worrying levels of stress, they send them home.“We have a chief psychologist with a dedicated team of 62 people, including 32 experienced psychologists and counsellors,” Allen Institute, which has 1.25 lakh students, told TOI in an email interview last year, adding, “We are already in the process of expanding this team to 150 individuals, including 60-plus psychologists.”The institutes said they were also devoting attention to relaxation through yoga and recreation through table tennis, carrom, etc.Since most suicides are by hanging, hostels had installed collapsible ceiling fan rods. “The rod cannot support more than 10-12kg weight. The spring connected to it will stretch if someone tries to hang anything on it,” said Pradeep Gautam, a hostel owner.Watch: How authorities are trying to curb suicides medium nocaption102825420Hostels had also put nylon meshes to catch anyone jumping off a higher floor, and the swankier ones now use biometric access technology to enforce their night curfew — 8pm for girls and 10pm for boys. A screen at the reception showed who all have punched in. The absentees’ parents would get an alert on their phone.But as the two suicides this month have shown, these measures while welcome, are not enough. Student stress and suicides has to be treated as a national issue. As author Chetan Bhagat writes, "Everyone, from parents, teachers and policymaker to recruiters and students themselves, must come together to fix it."With inputs from Mudita Girotra