Listening Beyond the Silence

A parent’s most natural question to a child away at college is ‘how are you doing?’ and the most natural answer, almost reflexively, is ‘I’m fine.’ Between those two lines lies an entire crisis that Indian families, teachers and administrators are only beginning to take seriously. The tragedy is not that warning signs are absent; it is that they are so often missed, dismissed as a ‘phase,’ or noticed only after it is too late.

India’s premier campuses have offered painful proof of this in recent months. On September 19, 2026, a second-year student at IIT Bombay died by suicide after being questioned over alleged unauthorised phone use during an examination, a death that marked the third reported suicide on the institute’s campus in just six months and triggered protests by over 400 students who accused the administration of exerting disciplinary pressure on a young person already struggling. The institute maintained that no formal disciplinary action had been initiated against the student. This is not an isolated tragedy; IIT Bombay alone recorded student deaths in February, July and September of the same year, part of a wider pattern across India’s IITs that saw ten student suicides reported system-wide in 2025.

The scale, when measured, is sobering. Student suicides in India rose from 12,526 in 2020 to 14,488 in 2024, an increase of nearly 16 percent in just five years, even as the country’s overall suicide numbers largely plateaued. Broken down, that is close to 40 students dying by suicide every single day or one roughly every 36 minutes. Ragging, too, continues to claim young lives quietly: complaints registered with the National Anti-Ragging Monitoring Agency climbed from 870 in 2022 to over 1,300 in 2025 and at least 56 students are known to have died by suicide linked to ragging in the same period, a toll that almost certainly understates the true number, given how much goes unreported out of fear, shame or institutional pressure. Behind every one of these figures is a young person who, at some point, gave off a sign that something was wrong.

Recognising the Signs

The warning signs themselves are not exotic — withdrawal from friends and family, changes in eating or sleeping patterns, a sudden decline in academic performance, expressions of hopelessness, increased substance use or a growing disinterest in activities once enjoyed. In the Indian context, these often surface during a student’s visit home for Diwali or summer break, when a parent notices a child who has grown unusually quiet, is skipping meals or has stopped mentioning friends they once spoke of constantly. Too often, these changes are read through a narrow lens — ‘exam stress,’ ‘adjustment issues,’ ‘he’ll be fine once results come’ — rather than as patterns worth a direct, caring conversation.

Parents can begin by directly, calmly asking if their child has ever felt so overwhelmed that they thought of hurting themselves, a question many Indian parents instinctively avoid for fear of ‘putting the idea in their head,’ when in truth, asking gently rarely does harm and often provides enormous relief to a struggling student. This should be followed by listening without judgment or lecture, offering reassurance that such struggles are common and treatable rather than a mark of weakness or family shame and then gently encouraging the student toward the college counselling cell, a trusted teacher or a professional rather than assuming the problem will resolve itself with a stern pep talk about ‘focus’ and ‘discipline.’

Effective Support

Indian parents and teachers alike would do well to establish a predictable rhythm of contact like a weekly call, not only triggered by falling grades or a worrying rumour from a hostel-mate and to ask open-ended questions such as ‘what has felt hardest this week?’ rather than the reflexive ‘how are studies going?’ Colleges must move their anti-ragging cells, wellness centres and helpline numbers from decorative notice boards into genuinely functioning, year-round services, staffed by counsellors students actually trust and know how to reach. Teachers, wardens and mentors need at least basic sensitisation in recognising these signs, since they often see students far more regularly than parents do.

None of this requires parents or teachers to become mental health experts. What it requires is the willingness to treat a quiet, withdrawn child not as someone going through a passing mood but as someone possibly asking, in the only language available to them, to be noticed.

(The writer is a former college Principal and Founder of Supporting Shoulders, an Odisha-based non-profit Trust. Views personal.)