A Reality Check on Suicides in India

In this paper, we study the data from the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) of India and disaggregate across demographic and leading causes of suicides. We find that mental and physical health are the leading causes of suicides in India (20%) while the often cited factor, indebtedness, causes significantly lower number of suicides (less than 5%). Among the different demographic categories, housewives report the largest number of suicides (18%) while farmers report lower (11%). The trends over the last two decades show decline in suicides across most demographics in India, and the sharpest decline is in farmer suicides, with the most decline occurring over the last five years.The farmer suicide outbreak in India is alarming. But to attribute it to debt alone is too simplistic. This phenomenon requires immediate policy interventions for which we need to have deeper understanding of factors that trigger and contribute to suicides among different demographic categories in India.