Stress on mental health
A landmark Supreme Court ruling has put mental health on a par with academic rigour and physical safety in India’s education system. Its 15-point framework – from counsellors and helplines to faculty sensitisation and anti-harassment systems – may well prove to be a Vishaka-like moment for student well-being.
For those of us working in mental health, this judgment feels less like a legal milestone and more like overdue recognition of what campuses truly need. If implemented well, it can position India as a leader in student well-being – a country that expands access while redefining care.
For decades, our universities have measured excellence through placements, publications and global rankings, but rarely through peace of mind. As someone who once lost a college friend to suicide, I know how invisible distress can be in corridors obsessed with performance. This ruling, though born of tragedy, is a chance to redefine what quality education truly means.
Listening to the ‘silent struggle’: At YourDOST, we’ve spent the past decade listening to these quiet battles. Our upcoming Decade of Wellness report (to be released in early 2026) captures the evolving pulse of India’s emotional health, analysing more than 640,000 counselling sessions between 2015 and 2025.
Yes, stigma has declined and access has widened, but the post-pandemic reality is sobering: stress levels are up 40 per cent and anxiety has nearly doubled – rising from 20 per cent in 2020 to over 40 per cent by 2025, with a peak of 59.6 per cent in 2024.
Government and independent studies echo this trend, with NCRB data (2022) showing student suicides rising 4 per cent, while a NIMHANS survey found six in 10 students living under chronic academic stress. Undergraduate students struggle most during transitions, while postgraduates report anxiety over research, placements, and uncertain futures.
We’ve built wider bridges to counselling, but we haven’t fixed the ground people are standing on.
The roots of the problem: Emotional breakdowns don’t begin in the counsellor’s room; they begin in how our institutions are designed. When rankings, grades and peer comparison dominate identity, when failure is equated with shame, and when faculty themselves are untrained to recognise distress, students internalise silence.
Today’s hyper-connected world adds another layer – an overload of information, expectations and digital noise that blurs the boundaries between study, rest and self-reflection. OECD data show academic burnout rising globally, and India mirrors that trend.
From compliance to care: The Supreme Court has now made empathy enforceable. Its guidelines require institutions to appoint counsellors, implement mental-health policies, train staff in psychological first aid, and ensure 24×7 helplines and safe campus environments.
In legal language, this is compliance. In human terms, it is accountability – a recognition that mental health is part of the right to life under Article 21. It validates what students and psychologists have long known: education without emotional safety isn’t education at all.
YourDOST has spent the last decade practising what the court now prescribes. To help institutions turn that mandate into action, we developed the Caring College Framework – a move from reactive counselling to preventive, community-driven care.
The model works across three levels:
Individual Support: 24×7 online and offline counselling, self-improvement sessions and early intervention. Institutional readiness: A 10-point checklist assessing emergency response, inclusion, digital wellness and faculty sensitisation.
Community care: Peer and parent networks trained in psychological first aid, transforming well-being from an isolated act into a shared campus value.
These layers rest on eight pillars – physical, emotional, social, vocational & intellectual, inclusion, digital, safety, and influence – each shaping a dimension of student life. From partnering with IITs to private universities and workplaces, we’ve seen how access meets acceptance when empathy is built into systems.
Behind each data point is a young adult learning to breathe again, a professor asking if a student is okay, a parent realising therapy isn’t weakness. Change happens one conversation at a time.
The road ahead: Help-seeking is becoming mainstream. Before the pandemic, 90 per cent of sessions were anonymous text chats; today, that share has fallen to 58 per cent, with video and audio counselling surging – proof that comfort and normalisation have replaced secrecy and stigma.
Leading institutions are turning compliance into culture. IIT Madras removed failure grades to ease academic stress; IIT Kharagpur introduced attendance-based early alerts for intervention. NIT Delhi and Shiv Nadar University hold parent orientation sessions on mental health and crisis management. Together, these shifts signal a move from isolated initiatives to institutional empathy.
As India stands at this crossroads, the challenge is to convert this ruling into real resilience. The Caring College model proves that mental health need not sit outside the classroom – it can be woven into everyday life through empathy, awareness, and accountability.