India reported a total of over 1.7 lakh suicides in 2022, nearly one-third of whom were daily wage earners, agricultural labourers, and farmers, according to the National Crime Record Bureau’s (NCRB) Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI) 2022 report.
The report, along with the NCRB’s annual Crime in India (2022) report, was released on December 3 night, just as counting of votes was wrapping up in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana.
The latest Crime in India report showed an overall increase in crimes and atrocities committed upon Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) persons, with Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana, all seeing an increase in such cases in 2022 compared with the year before.
Mizoram, which had reported no cases of atrocities against either SC or ST people in 2021, reported five cases of atrocities against SCs and 29 such cases of crimes against ST people in 2022.
Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan continued to figure in the top five States with the highest incidents of crimes and atrocities committed upon SC and ST people.
Other States, where crimes and atrocities against SC/ST people were the highest are Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, and Punjab.
Further, the Crime in India report showed that cases of offences against the State had also increased marginally in 2022 compared with the previous year — showing about a 25% increase in cases registered under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
Cases under the sedition Section of the Indian Penal Code saw a dramatic dip on the other hand, possibly owing to the Supreme Court’s May 2022 decision to keep sedition cases in abeyance.
Moreover, the report went on to disclose that government authorities seized fake Indian currency notes (FICN) worth over ₹342 crore in 2022, out of which FICN worth ₹244 crore were copies of the ₹2,000 currency note, followed by seizures of ₹500 currency notes (this included discontinued currency as well), keeping with the trend of FICN seizures from 2021.
The suicide data published in the ADSI 2022 report showed that the maximum suicides in the year were reported from Maharashtra (22,746), Tamil Nadu (19,834), Madhya Pradesh (15,386), Karnataka (13,606), Kerala (10,162), and Telangana (9,980).
Apart from daily wage earners, and agricultural workers and farmers, the ADSI data showed that 9.6% of the suicides in 2022 were of persons who were self-employed or salaried professionals. This was followed by unemployed persons, who comprise 9.2% of all suicides reported in India in 2022. Among all suicides reported in the year, over 12,000 were of students.
“Certain States/UTs (Union Territories) namely, West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Chandigarh, Delhi (UT), Lakshadweep and Puducherry reported zero suicides of Farmers/Cultivators as well as Agricultural Labourers,” the ADSI report noted.
Among the around 48,000 women who died by suicide in 2022, the ADSI report found that over 52% were home-makers, which brings such women to about 14% of the total suicides reported in the year. This was followed by women who were students and daily wage earners respectively. The survey also showed that 28 trans-persons were also reported to have died by suicide in 2022.
The report pointed out that the most common causes for suicides reported in 2022 were “family problems” and “illness”, which together accounted for almost half of all suicides in the year. This was followed by “drug abuse”, “alcohol addiction”, “marriage related issues”, etc. However, under the cause of “marriage related issues” most number of people were women — specifically citing “dowry related” as one of the causes.
Those who require assistance for overcoming suicidal thoughts may contact Sanjivini, Society for Mental Health suicide prevention helpline 011-4076 9002 (10 a.m. to 7.30 p.m., Monday-Saturday)
