National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has published a data about the number of suicides in the country in 2021. As per the data, the rate of suicides in the year 2021 has marginally increased to 12% from 11.3% in 2020. The number of suicides have increased to 1,64,033 in 2021 as compared to 1,53,052 in 2020.
With 18,925 suicides, Tamil Nadu stands at the second place with 11.5% of total suicides. Maharasta is in the unfortunate pole position with 22,207 suicides which accounts for 13.5%. The third, fourth and fifth in the list are Madhya Pradesh (14,965; 9.1%), West Bengal (13,500,8.2%), Karnataka (13,056,8.0%) respectively.
Female Suicidal Rate
A total of 45,026 women have committed suicide in 2021 out of which 51.5% are house-wives. Marriages determine the course of life for women in our country. The number of women who committed suicide due to marriage related issues stand at 4069. The most suicides due to marriage related issues have occurred in Madhya Pradesh (871), Uttar Pradesh (662) and West Bengal (603).
In this metric, Tamil Nadu stands at 7th position with 148 suicides, whereas Union Territory of Delhi accounts for 154 suicides; so Tamil Nadu is relatively better.
Other reasons like Family problems have resulted in 15,769 suicides, professional/career problems have resulted in 417 suicides and 4243 suicides’ cause is not known.
Daily Wage Earners
The NCRB data points at the alarming rate of suicides by Daily wage earners. A total of 42,004 suicides in the total 1,64,033 overall suicides is by daily wage earners, which is a staggering 25.06%.
In comparison, 2020 saw 37,666 suicides of daily wagers. In this list, Tamil Nadu has the most suicides of daily wage earners at 7,673. Maharastra and Madhya Pradesh follow with 5,270 and 4,657 respectively.
Farmers’ suicide
There were 10,881 suicides by farmers in 2021, which is 6.6% of the total suicides. Out of this, 5,318 people either owned or leased land to cultivate and 5,563 were farming labourers. This also includes 653 women.
Maharasta has the highest farmers’ suicide with 4,064; followed by Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh with 2,169 and 1,065 suicides respectively. With 599 suicides, Tamil Nadu is again much better in relative terms to other states.
Summary
Farmers’ suicides are always considered a sensitive issue and it draws a lot of attention in media and as well as public sphere, as compared to other sectors. With 4 times as much suicides as compared to farmers, daily wage earners do not receive similar attention. This data shows that the Union and State Governments should focus more on daily wage earners and draft policies keeping their plight in mind.
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