Before Priya Bose (14) hanged herself on March 30 she was just another friendly student of the City Montessori School (CMS), Lucknow. But driven to anxiety by poor performance in her final exams, this class VIII student of one of the city’s most highly rated schools, hung herself from the ceiling fan behind locked doors. “I am doing this because I am fed up and irritated with life. Nobody but I, am to be held responsible. Sorry Ma,” read her poignant suicide note.

A day later, Pinki Lal (17) who had just finished writing her board examinations at New Public School was found hanging from a fan in her room. And on April 3 Abhishek Tiwari, a class XII student of CMS, was driven to suicide after successive failure of his science practical exam.

Since Bose’s suicide, 20 teenagers in Lucknow (pop. 2.5 million) have taken their own lives, causing near panic within the administration, schools, parents and counsellors in the administrative capital of India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh (pop. 180 million). 

Though with 3,099 suicide cases reported in 2006, UP ranks 20th on the list of states with the maximum number of suicides (way behind West Bengal and Maharashtra which top the list with 15,725 and 15,495 respectively), the state has been experiencing rising incidence of student suicides. Between 2002 and 2007 there were 91, 105, 143, 93, 121 and 95 student suicides in UP, with academic stress cited as the sixth most common of the 22 causes of self-inflicted homicide. 

According to A.K. Misra, principal education secretary in the state government secretariat, the phenomenon is rooted in the basic inability of the education system to cater to the demands of a large population. “Of the 16,000 Plus Two colleges in UP, only 160 can lay credible claim to offering quality education. Thus only five percent of those with aspirations will be able to access them. With private schools having become completely profit and result oriented, students are worried about whether they will be allowed to write the board exam or will be held back so that school results are not adversely affected. There is no getting away from the fact that we need swift policy changes or our children will be driven to meltdown,” warns Misra.

Given the rising incidence of depression and suicidal tendencies among students in high aspirational middle class households, psychologists and counsellors urge parents, teachers and elders not to ignore tell-tale warning signs. “What a child says is just as important as what she doesn’t say and by keeping a close watch on children, parents can preempt suicides,” says Krishna Dutt, clinical psychologist at Lucknow’s Chattrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical University. Overt warning signs include radical changes in daily routine, withdrawal from family and friends, lack of or excessive sleep, self-destructive statements, excessive fault finding, neglect of personal grooming, preoccupation with death and poor academic performance.

Somewhat belatedly, the state government’s education department has circulated a list of do’s and dont’s to school managements. Among them: appointment of full-time counsellors to engage parents and students; mandatory quarterly meetings between parents and teachers; a warning to schools which expel students who perform poorly in exams and de-recognition of schools which are repeat offenders. Simultaneously a curriculum review committee (constituted in February 2008) is examining ways and means to trim the syllabus of the state- run UP Board of Secondary Examination.

Student suicides in the state traditionally peak after declaration of board results. This year UP board exams were taken by 464,000 students, of whom more than 10 percent dropped out because of strict anti-copying vigilance. Educationists are worried that the results (to be declared in the first week of June) will be poorer than last year’s due to the anti-copying drive. Last year 158 students committed suicide in the state over poor board exam results, and the fear is that this year the number could be higher.

Vidya Pandit (Lucknow)