Data Journalism
Suicides in India — 2021
According to National Crime Records Bureau’s Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India 2021, 164033 people died by suicide in India. For perspective, world’s largest stadium — Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, India has a capacity of only 132000 people.
Premature death is a tragedy. It doesn’t matter where it happens, in what way, and under what circumstances. It is traumatic experience, which is devastating for the individual and the family emotionally, socially, and financially. National Crime Records Bureau, Government of India publishes the statistics of suicide in the country so that the stakeholders can take relevant action to tackle this issue.
Incidence of Suicide in 2021
Taking into account the population and the total number of suicide cases, the top five states with the highest incidence of suicide — number of suicides per one lakh of population — are Sikkim, Kerala, Telangana, Chattisgarh, and Tamil Nadu. In general, South India had more number of suicides as compared to the rest of the country.
Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra had just over a quarter of total number of suicides in the country.
Except for Haryana, the number of suicides across the country were higher in 2021 as compared to 2020. The states that had the highest rate of increase were Telangana, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh.
Trend over years
The data from 2011 to 2017 shows a gradual decrease in the number of suicides. However, it has been increasing continuously since 2017. The largest ever suicide rate since 2011 was seen in 2021 at 12, which refers to number of suicides per one lakh of population. The highest rate of increase was in 2020 as compared to 2019, a increment of almost 9%. The second highest change was in 2021 at 6.19%. One of the reasons could be COVID-induced distress during this time period.
If we talk about the states of India, the largest drop in 2021 over 2020 was shown by Uttarakhand at 24%, whereas the largest increase is shown by Telangana at 26.2% and Uttar Pradesh at 23.48%.
Causes of Suicide
Family problems was the cause for almost one third of the suicides in 2021. Illness was the reason for the next 19% of the total cases. Under the illness category, mental illness and prolonged illness were responsible for 91% of the cases. There were no known causes for 10% of the cases.
In comparison to 2020, people dying due to HIV decreased by 33.2% in 2021, the highest drop amongst all the causes. The largest increment was due to property dispute and career problem both at 41%. Other increasingly cases were impotency/infertility related cases at 40.3%, fall in social reputation at 38%, paralysis by 36%, death of a loved one at 33%.
Means Adopted
Hanging was adopted as a means to end life by 57% of the people. The next category was consuming poison. Over 80% of the total deaths was caused by hanging and consuming poison. 65% of those who died by consuming poisons consumed insecticides.
Access to firearms and dying by it was used in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Almost half of the deaths using firearms were reported from these two states. Uttar Pradesh has 25% of the total deaths occurring due to the consumption of sleeping pills.
Hanging was adopted by 65% of the total deaths in Maharashtra. Total number of males who died were four times the total number of females.
Education Status
70% of those who died by suicide in 2021 had an education of less than Class 10th. 86% of the total deaths was reported had an education less than Class 12th.
4.6% of the total deaths were of the people having an educational status of graduates and above. Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra had highest number of suicides in this group.
Economic Status
A staggering 96% of the people who died by suicide had an annual income of less than 5 lakh rupees. Because we do not have the data on how many people earn less than 5 lakh rupees per year, we cannot know the incidence of suicide according to the income group.
West Bengal, at 38% of the total cases, had the largest number of cases of people earning more than 10 lakhs per annum who died by suicide. Over half of the total number of deaths for people who earned more than 5 lakh rupees per annum were reported from only three states: West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh. Over one third of the total deaths of the people who earned less than 5 lakh rupees per annum were found in three states: Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu.
Social Status
67% of the deaths caused by suicide were by the married people. Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu had the largest number of deaths amongst unmarried people.
Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala had highest number of suicidal deaths amongst divorcee and separated people.
Professional Status
The largest number of people who died by suicide were daily wage earner at 25.6% of the total deaths. 14% of the total deaths was of women who stay at home.
Professionals/salaried people who died by suicide were 9.7% of the total suicides. Amongst these, 72% worked in the private sector. 6.6% of the total number of suicides was by the farmers.
The states that had largest number of deaths amongst daily wage earner were Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh in that order. Maharashtra and Gujarat had the highest number of retired person who died by suicide.
Maharashtra and Karnataka had the largest number of farmer suicides. These two states had 57% of the total farmer suicides. 48% of the deaths by unemployed persons was in four states: Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala. The highest was in Maharashtra, followed by Kerala and Tamil Nadu with similar numbers at around 1650 people in both the states. Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh had highest number of students deaths too.
Mass Suicides
The term mass suicide is used when the whole family dies by suicide at the same time. The three states which had almost 60% of these mass suicides were Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh. 59% of the total mass suicide cases were from the five South Indian states: Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana.
Source: https://ncrb.gov.in/en/accidental-deaths-suicides-india-adsi
