India is drowning in silence.

While we celebrate our economic growth, technological prowess, and cultural heritage on the global stage, we remain willfully blind to a crisis unfolding in our homes, offices, and communities.

Mental health in India isn’t just neglected, it’s actively stigmatized, systematically ignored by policymakers, and dangerously misunderstood by society at large.

The time for comfortable conversations about this crisis has passed.
What we need now are uncomfortable truths about why 1.4 billion people continue to suffer in silence.

The statistics are staggering and shameful. According to the National Mental Health Survey of India, nearly 150 million Indians need mental healthcare, but fewer than 30 million seek treatment. This isn’t merely about access—it’s about a culture that treats mental illness as moral failure rather than medical reality.

Priya, a 28-year-old software engineer from Bangalore who experienced panic attacks during her performance reviews. When she confided in her mother about seeking therapy, she was told, “What will people say? Just pray more and stop thinking so much.”

Priya’s story isn’t unique, it’s the norm.

Across India, families routinely dismiss mental health concerns with phrases like “pagal hai kya?” (are you crazy?) or “sab dimag mein hai” (it’s all in your head), inadvertently perpetuating cycles of shame and suffering.

This stigma operates on multiple levels. At the individual level, people internalize shame about their mental state, viewing depression or anxiety as personal weakness. At the family level, mental illness is seen as a source of dishonor that could affect marriage prospects or social standing. At the community level, terms like “mental” or “pagal” are casually thrown around as insults, further reinforcing negative associations.

The consequences are deadly. India has one of the world’s highest suicide rates, with over 170,000 deaths by suicide annually, that’s one person every three minutes. Yet we continue to whisper about mental health as if acknowledging it might somehow make it more real.

Political Apathy: When Votes Matter More Than Minds?

The Indian government’s response to the mental health crisis can be characterized in one word: inadequate.

Despite the Mental Healthcare Act of 2017, which promised revolutionary changes, the ground reality remains dismal. The central government allocates less than 1% of its health budget to mental health, a figure that would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic.

India has approximately 9,000 psychiatrists for a population of 1.4 billion people, resulting in one psychiatrist for every 370,000 people. The World Health Organization recommends one psychiatrist per 10,000 people. We’re not just falling short; we’re failing catastrophically.

The political calculus is simple and cynical.

Mental health doesn’t win elections.

Unlike promises of subsidies, reservations, or infrastructure projects that yield visible, immediate benefits, mental health initiatives require long-term commitment and investment. Politicians prefer ribbon-cutting ceremonies for hospitals over the unglamorous work of training mental health professionals or conducting awareness campaigns.

Furthermore, the federal structure of Indian governance creates a convenient blame game. The central government points to state responsibilities while state governments cite lack of central funding.
Meanwhile, people suffer.

The National Mental Health Programme, launched in 1982 and supposedly expanded multiple times, remains a paper tiger with minimal ground-level impact.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed these failures dramatically. While the government launched numerous economic packages, mental health support remained an afterthought. Suicide rates spiked, domestic violence increased, and anxiety disorders multiplied, yet the official response was largely limited to generic advisories about “staying positive.”

Families: The Breeding Ground of Dysfunction?

The Indian family system, often romanticized as a source of support and stability, has become a significant contributor to mental health problems. The nuclear family unit, pressurized by economic stress and social expectations, often becomes a pressure cooker of unaddressed emotions and dysfunction.

The phenomenon is particularly acute in urban areas.
Take the case of Rahul, a 24-year-old from Mumbai living with his parents, younger sister, and grandmother in a two-bedroom apartment.

Rahul works 12-hour days in a consulting firm, comes home to family conflicts about his unmarried status, and struggles with depression that he can’t discuss because “boys don’t cry” in his household. His sister faces pressure about her career choices and weight, while their mother silently battles anxiety about the family’s finances. The grandmother, dealing with age-related cognitive decline, becomes irritable, adding another layer of stress. This family represents millions across India.

Indian families often operate on emotional suppression rather than expression. Phrases like “ghar ki baat ghar mein” (family matters stay within the family) create toxic environments where problems fester rather than heal. Children grow up learning to internalize rather than communicate their emotional needs.

The situation is exacerbated by rapid social changes. Traditional joint family systems provided some emotional buffer through extended support networks, but urbanization and migration have created isolated nuclear units without adequate coping mechanisms. Parents, themselves products of emotionally repressed upbringings, struggle to provide emotional intelligence to their children.

Economic pressures add another dimension. In middle-class families, the pressure to maintain social status often comes at the cost of mental well-being. Families take loans for weddings, children’s education, or property purchases, creating long-term stress that affects every family member. The breadwinner faces performance anxiety, spouses deal with financial insecurity, and children absorb these tensions even when parents attempt to shield them.

Workplaces: Anxiety Manufacturing Units?

Indian corporate culture has created workplaces that systematically destroy mental health while paying lip service to employee well-being. The problem isn’t just overwork, it’s the toxic combination of unrealistic expectations, job insecurity, and cultural acceptance of workplace abuse.

A 2023 study by the Associated Chambers of Commerce found that 89% of Indian employees suffer from work-related stress, yet only 27% feel comfortable discussing mental health issues with their supervisors. The IT sector, often considered progressive, has some of the highest rates of anxiety and depression among professionals.

Consider the culture of “hustle.” In startups and corporations across India, working 70-80 hour weeks isn’t just normalized it’s celebrated. Employees who maintain work-life boundaries are labeled as “not committed” or lacking “passion.” The phrase “work hard, party harder” has become a cruel joke when employees are too exhausted to party and too stressed to truly rest.

The situation is particularly severe for women in the workplace. They face a triple burden: professional responsibilities, household management, and societal expectations about being “good wives and mothers.”

A 2022 survey found that 76% of working women in India experienced anxiety related to balancing work and family expectations.

Middle management often becomes the epicenter of workplace mental health crises. These professionals face pressure from above to deliver results while managing teams below who may be overworked and demotivated. They become stress transmitters, absorbing pressure from senior leadership and inadvertently passing it down to their teams.

The gig economy has added new dimensions to workplace anxiety. Delivery workers, cab drivers, and freelancers face income uncertainty, lack of benefits, and social stigma, creating mental health challenges that remain largely invisible to policymakers and society.

Religion: The False Savior?

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of India’s mental health crisis is the role of religion as both a potential coping mechanism and a significant barrier to proper treatment. While faith can provide comfort and community, the way religious beliefs are often applied to mental health issues in India is not just unhelpful, it’s dangerous.

The problem begins with fundamental misunderstanding. Mental health issues are routinely attributed to spiritual failings, past-life karma, or lack of faith rather than being recognized as medical conditions. Families spend thousands on religious ceremonies, pilgrimages, and consultations with spiritual leaders while avoiding proper psychiatric care.

This isn’t limited to uneducated or rural populations. Urban, educated families often turn to spiritual solutions first, viewing therapy or medication as last resorts.

A Mumbai-based psychiatrist shared the case of a software engineer’s family who spent two years trying various religious remedies for their son’s schizophrenia before accepting medical treatment. By then, his condition had significantly deteriorated.

Religious leaders, many well-intentioned but medically uninformed, often reinforce harmful beliefs about mental illness. Concepts like “positive thinking,” “surrendering to God’s will,” or “karma paying off” may sound comforting but can prevent people from seeking appropriate treatment. When someone with severe depression is told to “just have faith” or that their suffering is “part of God’s plan,” it can deepen their despair and self-blame.

The intersection of religion and mental health becomes particularly problematic around issues like suicide. Many religious traditions view suicide as a sin, creating additional stigma for families affected by suicide and preventing open discussions about suicidal ideation. This religious taboo contributes to the silence surrounding mental health crises.

Moreover, the commercialization of spirituality has created a cottage industry around mental health problems. Self-proclaimed gurus and spiritual healers exploit vulnerable individuals and families, promising miraculous cures through expensive rituals, special prayers, or spiritual practices. This not only wastes resources but also delays proper treatment.

Uncomfortable Solutions for Uncomfortable Truths!

Addressing India’s mental health crisis requires acknowledging these uncomfortable truths and implementing solutions that challenge existing power structures and cultural norms. This isn’t about gentle awareness campaigns or feel-good initiatives—it’s about systemic change.

First, political accountability must be enforced. Mental health funding should be a non-negotiable budget item, with clear targets and measurable outcomes. Political leaders should be held accountable for mental health statistics in their constituencies just as they are for other development indicators.

Second, corporate India must be legally compelled to prioritize employee mental health. This means mandatory mental health coverage in insurance policies, strict limits on working hours, and legal protection for employees who seek mental health treatment. Companies that create toxic work environments should face financial penalties.

Third, educational curricula must include comprehensive mental health education from primary school onward. Children should learn emotional intelligence, stress management, and when to seek help, just as they learn about physical health and hygiene.

Fourth, religious and community leaders need proper training about mental health issues. While respecting religious beliefs, there must be clear guidelines about when spiritual support should be complemented by professional medical care.

Finally, the media must stop sensationalizing mental health issues and start providing responsible coverage that reduces stigma rather than perpetuating it.

India’s mental health crisis isn’t just a healthcare problem—it’s a reflection of our collective failure to evolve as a society. We’ve created systems that value economic productivity over human well-being, social conformity over individual mental health, and comfortable lies over uncomfortable truths.

The choice before us is clear: we can continue maintaining the conspiracy of silence that condemns millions to suffer in darkness, or we can have the difficult conversations necessary to create a society where mental health is treated with the same urgency as physical health.

The mental health pandemic is here, and it’s claiming lives every day. Religion won’t save us from it, political apathy won’t make it disappear, and family dysfunction won’t heal through silence.

What will save us is the courage to speak uncomfortable truths, implement difficult solutions, and finally treat mental health as the crisis it has always been.

The question isn’t whether we can afford to address this crisis, it’s whether we can afford not to.

The cost of our continued silence is measured not just in rupees, but in lives lost, potential unrealized, and a society that claims to value human life while systematically destroying human minds.

The time for comfortable conversations is over.

The uncomfortable conversation about mental health in India starts now.

Views of the author are personal and do not necessarily represent the website’s views.

Dr. Jaimine Vaishnav is a faculty of geopolitics and world economy and other liberal arts subjects, a researcher with publications in SCI and ABDC journals, and an author of 6 books specializing in informal economies, mass media, and street entrepreneurship. With over a decade of experience as an academic and options trader, he is keen on bridging the grassroots business practices with global economic thought. His work emphasizes resilience, innovation, and human action in everyday human life. He can be contacted on jaiminism@hotmail.co.in for further communication.

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