Daily wage earners, followed by self-employed people, unemployed people, and those involved in the farming sector were the top categories of people who died by suicide in 2021, when India was in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, as per the data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
According to the NCRB, a total of 1,64,033 people died by suicide in 2021 across the country.
Daily wage earners accounted for 42,004 (25.6 percent) of the total victims.
“Out of the total 1,18,979 male suicides, the maximum suicides were committed by daily wage earners (37,751), followed by self-employed persons (18,803), and unemployed persons (11,724)," the report stated.
A total of 45,026 females also died by suicide during the same period.
Maharashtra Reports Highest Suicides in Farming Sector
As many as 10,881 people involved in the farming sector, comprising 5,318 farmers, cultivators, and 5,563 agricultural labourers, died by suicide last year. This accounts for 6.6 percent of the total suicide victims in India.
A majority of the suicide victims in the farming sector were males.
The highest proportion of death by suicide of people engaged in the farming sector were reported from Maharashtra (37.3 percent), followed by Karnataka (19.9 percent), Andhra Pradesh (9.8 percent), Madhya Pradesh (6.2 percent), and Tamil Nadu (5.5 percent).
On the other hand, certain states and Union Territories did not report any cases of death by suicide among people in the farming sector. These include West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry.
Government servants who were victims of death by suicide accounted for 1.2 percent (1,898) of the total figure, as compared to the private sector, where victims of death by suicide accounted for 7 percent (11,431) of the total figure.
Meanwhile, 2,541 workers in Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), 13,089 students (8 percent), and 13,714 unemployed (8.4 percent) persons also died by suicide during this period.
A total of 20,231 (12.3 percent) people belonging to the self-employed category also died by suicide.
The report also stated that 1,05,242 people, or 64.2 percent, of the total suicide victims had an annual income of less than Rs 1 lakh, and 31.6 percent (51,812) victims belonged to the income group earning between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5 lakh per annum.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)