❈ ❈ ❈
Daily Wagers Biggest Group Among Suicide Victims in 2021: NCRB
Newsclick Report
The latest report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that not only has the share of daily wage earners among suicide victims gone up during 2021, but the number has also increased faster than the national average.
According to the report titled ‘Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India’, one in four of the recorded 1,64,033 suicide victims during 2021 was a daily wage earner. This accounts for 42,004 suicides (25.6%).
In 2020, too, daily wage earners accounted for the highest share, with 37,666 (24.6%) of the 1,53,052 recorded suicides in the country. In 2019, before the Covid outbreak, the share of daily wage earners was 23.4% (32,563) of the recorded 1,39,123 suicides.
Further, in 2021, the number of suicides in the daily wage earner group increased by 11.52% as compared to 2020 in the country, while at the national level, the number of suicides rose by 7.17% during the same time period.
The report lists the daily wage numbers separately from those of agricultural labourers, who have been grouped in a sub-category under the category of ‘Persons engaged in farming sector’. According to the report, 10,881 suicides were recorded in the ‘Persons engaged in farming sector’ group in 2021, including 5,318 under ‘farmer/cultivator’ and 5,563 ‘agricultural labourers’.
Significantly, while the number of suicides committed by ‘farmer/cultivator’ has dipped — 5,579 in 2020 and 5,957 in 2019 — those by ‘agriculture labourers’ has risen sharply from 5,098 in 2020 and 4,324 in 2019, according to an Indian Express analysis.
The NCRB categorises suicide data into nine categories: students, professional/ salaried persons, daily wage earners, retired persons, unemployed persons, self-employed persons, housewives, persons engaged in the farming sector and other persons.
The latest NCRB report has also reported the number of state-wise suicide cases. Karnataka is among the top five states in the country with the highest share of number to suicides in 2021. The state stands fifth after Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Madhya Pradesh.
The report also shows that Delhi, which is the most-populous Union Territory, has reported the highest number of suicides (2,840) among total UTs in India, followed by Puducherry (504). A total of 25,891 suicides were reported in the 53 megacities of the country in 2021.
NCRB Report Shows Rise in Atrocities Towards Dalits and Adivasis
Newsclick Report
A new edition of ‘Crime in India’, the annual report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), was released on August 29, for crime-related statistics in 2021. NCRB reports have been a valuable compilation of statistics over the years on offences ranging from crimes against women to economic and financial crimes.
The National Coalition for Strengthening SCs and STs (PoA) Act (NCSPA) has analysed the NCRB 2021 Report. NCSPA is a platform of more than 500 dalits and Adivasis civil society organisations, communities, leaders, and activists.
NCSPA believes that despite explicit constitutional provisions and guidelines, the suffering of dalits and Adivasi communities across India remains the worst. This community is not only the victim of this scourge caste system but also faces institutional discrimination and social exclusion. It is evident because a dalit minor girl got gang-raped and murdered when she went to defecate and never returned. A small dalit boy lost his life, merely because he touched the pot of the school principal, to quench his thirst.
The organisation believes that these are the cases that got the attention of mainstream media. However, the number is huge and even the 2021 Crime data shows a similar trend of an upsurge in violence; with a large proportion of crimes against dalits and Adivasi women and children.
The report revealed that atrocities or crimes against Scheduled Castes (SCs) have increased by 1.2% in 2021 with Uttar Pradesh reporting the highest number of cases of atrocities against SCs accounting for 25.82% followed by Rajasthan with 14.7% and Madhya Pradesh with 14.1% during 2021. Further, the report reveals that atrocities against Scheduled Tribes (ST) have increased by 6.4% in 2021 with Madhya Pradesh reporting the highest number of cases accounting for 29.8% followed by Rajasthan with 24% and Odisha with 7.6% in 2021.
Violence against dalit and Adivasi women has also risen. Cases of Rape against SC women, (including minors) account for 7.64% and ST women account for 15% out of the total cases reported. The report has also tabled detailed numbers for cases of rape against dalit Women cases of minor rape, attempt to rape, assault on women to outrage her modesty, and Kidnapping of women and minors which cumulatively stood at 16.8% in SC women and 26.8% in ST women.
The report showed that a total of 70,818 cases of atrocities against SCs were pending investigation at the end of the year 2021, including the previous year’s cases. Similarly, 12,159 Cases of atrocities against STs were pending investigation and a total of 2,63,512 cases of atrocities against SCs and 42,512 cases of atrocities against STs came for trial in court. Conviction percentage under the SCs and STs (PoA) Act in conjunction with the Indian Penal Code (IPC) remained at 36.0% for SCs and 28.1% for STs. At the end of the year, 96.0% of cases of atrocities against SCs were pending trial whereas, for STs, the percentage stood at 95.4%.
The NCPSA believes that even after the amendments came into force in the year 2016, which generated hope for the dalit and Adivasi victims in accessing speedy justice, the implementation of the amended SCs and STs (PoA) Amended Act 2015 remains a challenge.
The organisation has called upon the Government of India to robustly, enforce and implement the new provisions of the amended Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 (2015), and take swift and robust action against the dominant caste perpetrators violating the human rights of dalits and Adivasis, conduct an open and transparent investigation under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2015 and prosecute those Government and police officials who are found to have aided and abetted criminals. The organisation has also demanded that the GOI robustly implement the Exclusive Special Courts mandated in the amended act for speedy trials.
❈ ❈ ❈
1 Every 9 Minutes: NCRB Data Bares India’s Female Suicide Problem
Saadhya Mohan
As many as 45,026 women died by suicide in India in 2021; nearly 1 every 9 minutes.
Over half of them – 23,178 – were housewives. On an average, 63 housewives died by suicide every day in India in 2021.
While more men (1,18,979) than women died by suicide in India in the past year, a deviation from the pattern was observed in those aged below 18, where the incidence of suicide was higher in females. The top causes – family problems, love affairs, and failure in exams, among others.
The latest annual report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has thrown light on some grim trends, fuelling concern over mental health and social status of women in India.
India’s female suicide burden is enormous. Indian women make up 36 percent of all global suicides in the 15 to 39 years age group – the highest share of any nation in the world.
“Irrespective of education and financial independence, women are still not as empowered as we would like to believe. Gender-based discrimination is still prevalent, and this inherent bias is reflected in the high number of female suicides,” Dr Rakhi Dandona, Professor at Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), told The Quint.
Housewives Die in 14% of All Suicides in India: How Is Profession/Economic Status of Women Linked to Suicide?
A total of 1,64,033 suicides were reported in the country during 2021, showing an increase of 7.2 percent in comparison to 2020. Housewives constitute a major chunk of these deaths – accounting for 14.13 percent of total suicides in 2021 – second only to daily wage earners.
Table 1: Number of Women from Various Groups
Who Died by Suicide in 2021
| Housewives | 23,178 |
| Students | 5,693 |
| Professionals / Salaried | 1,752 |
| Daily Wage Earners | 4,246 |
| Women Engaged in Farming | 653 |
| Self Employed Persons | 1,426 |
Data Source: NCRB
Explaining the worrying statistic, Dr Rakhi Dandona noted that the proportion of housewives is higher within women in India, naturally leading to higher numbers of suicide cases within the group: “Housewives is documented under ‘occupation’ in the NCRB; and what this means is that occupation of 51 percent of the cases reported in the NCRB was housewives. This has to be seen in relation to the rate of suicide and the distribution by marital status as well, in which ‘currently married’ women account for the majority of suicide deaths. Most women in India are married during the age when suicide deaths are more, and hence you see more housewives in the data.”
A seminal Lancet Public Health study (2018) on suicides in Indian women speculates that the increasing number of female suicides may be related to a conflict between women’s increasing education and empowerment and the persistence of their lower status in Indian society.
Notably, the number of suicides reduces as women become more financially empowered:
Table 2: Number of Women Who Died by Suicide in 2021
Across Various Income Levels
| Less than 1 lakh | 32,397 |
| Rs 1-5 lakh | 10,973 |
| Rs 5-10 lakh | 1,234 |
| More than Rs 10 lakh | 422 |
Data Source: NCRB
“Social and economic security is naturally lower for individuals with low income. Access to healthcare is also less,” Dr Yogesh Jain, paediatrician and founder of Jan Swasthya Sahyog (JSS), said while speaking to The Quint.
A 1.17 percent rise in female suicides has been observed in 2021, when compared with the number of cases in 2020 (44,498).
Family Problems, Marital Issues, Illnesses: Top Factors Behind Female Suicides
Family problems, illnesses, and marital issues are the principal contributors behind female suicides in India, as per the NCRB report.
Table 3: Cause Wise Distribution of Female Suicides in 2021
| Family Problems | 15,769 |
| Illness | 9,426 |
| Marriage related issues | 4,069 |
| Failure in Exams | 682 |
| Love affair | 2,894 |
| Impotence / infertility | 222 |
| Bankruptcy / Indebtedness | 482 |
1,503 of of the marriage-related suicide deaths were over dowry, while 217 were linked to divorce. Nearly 67.5 percent – 2,757 – of female suicides over marital issues were below the age of 30.
A large chunk of female suicides are happening at an age when women are entering marriages, when a large proportion of them are becoming housewives, notes Dr Dandona.
Of the 9,426 female suicides due to illnesses, 43.25 percent – 4,077 – were due to mental illness.
More Suicides in Girls Under 18: What Leads to Suicide at Young Age?
5,655 girls below the age of 18 died by suicide in India in 2021 – a figure slightly greater than the 5,075 male suicides in the same age group. This marks an anomaly in the pattern seen in other age groups, where the number is higher for males.
In 2020 as well, the number of girls under 18 who had died by suicide was higher (6,004) than the figure for boys (5,392). In fact, the same variation has been observed over the past few years – and has indeed become the norm for the particular age bracket.
Family problems, illness, love affairs, and failure in exams emerged as the chief causes behind suicide deaths of girls in India last year.
Table 4:Cause Wise Distribution of Female Suicides
in Under-18 Girls in 2021
| Family Problems | 1,603 |
| Illness | 812 |
| Marriage related issues | 126 |
| Failure in Exams | 397 |
| Love affair | 910 |
Data Source: NCRB
The high number of deaths due to failure in examinations is symptomatic of the larger problem of student suicides plaguing India. As many as 13,089 students killed themselves due to ‘exam stress’ in 2021 – highest in five years.
“Going by the data, we can say that gender does not play a significant role, and is not a major risk factor below the age of 18,” Dr Yogesh Jain, who has researched on suicide in rural India, said.
“Unlike the western world, where 90 percent of the suicides are a manifestation of a psychiatric disorder, in India, many young people’s deaths by suicides do not have psychiatric comorbidities. They are rather related to social insecurity – poverty, unemployment and so on. These issues of social security can effect impulsive decisions in the youth, a group which is more prone to take spur-of-the-moment decisions,” said Dr Yogesh Jain, who is a paediatrician and Founder of Jan Swasthya Sahyog (JSS)
“Fear of joblessness, fear of not clearing examinations are also factors linked to suicides in this age group,” he added.
Do Marriage & Education Play a Role?
While one would expect that incidence of suicide would lower with education, data shows that is not necessarily the case. Female suicides exhibit an increase as the level of schooling goes up, and then chart a drop after higher education.
“We have seen that even while literacy is higher in some southern states, the suicide rate is also quite high there. We can hypothesize that higher awareness that comes with education may be leading to more suicides, or psychiatric comorbidities may be more common with higher education. The aspirations of getting a job or opportunity of a particular kind also rise with education,” as per Dr Jain.
Marriage is also not a protective factor – Indian women in marriages appear to be much more vulnerable to suicide than their unmarried or divorced counterparts.
The NCRB report reveals that nearly two-thirds – 63.69 percent (28,680) – of women suicide victims were married. Unmarried women constituted 24 percent of the total, 0.6 percent were divorced, and 2.2 percent were widowed.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Evidently, the problem of female suicides in India is extensive and multifaceted. The data points to no clear solution to the issue – education, income, marriage singularly do not seem to offer protective advantage.
Dr Dandona, who had co-authored the 2018 Lancet study on female suicides in India, opines that more qualitative research is required to understand the efficacy of approaches to ameliorate the problem of suicidal deaths.
“We simply do not have research or data that can allow us to answer this question specifically. For example – if education was the solution to reduce suicide deaths in females, then the south India should have lower death rate, but it does not. We need sound qualitative research to understand “why of suicide deaths in India,”” the public health expert said.
Dr Jain, too, makes this point: “The NCRB records do not mention cases of attempted suicides. There is no mention of these numbers. These cases, the factors behind them need to be picked up and looked at.”
Experts concur that intervention is necessary at the school and early college level. Counselling possibilities should be available on each portal for the youth, and helpline centres should be set up for young people. here needs to be more conversation about depression and suicide, and it needs to involve both men and women.
Support systems – at family level, community level, and at the level of the state – are also essential.
We need to better the systems for tackling suicides in general in India. And we need to push for more research-driven, gender-specific strategies to address the mammoth issue of female suicides.
(Courtesy: The Quint.)
