'Those Who Die Are Called Martyrs': In Rajasthan's 'Mini Kota' Suicide is a Joke

(If you feel suicidal or know someone in distress, please reach out to them with kindness and call these numbers of local emergency services, helplines, and mental health NGOs. Some names in the story have been changed to protect identity.)

Camerapersons: Athar Rather and Vishnu Dutt

Video Editor: Prajjwal Kumar

Kavita*, 19, spends 14 out of 24 hours a day preparing for the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET), an all-India pre-medical test for students who wish to study medicine in government and private medical institutions in the country.

"This is my third attempt. If I don't clear the exam this time, I don't have a plan B," she said, seated inside a coaching centre in Rajasthan's Sikar, an emerging education and coaching hub in the state, next only to Kota.

In 2023, 20 lakh candidates took the NEET exam. They were competing for 1,06,333 medical seats.

We met Kavita on an October afternoon, weeks after three student suicides in three days shook Sikar. "I spent my first two years of preparation in Kota. Trust me, Sikar is much better. About the suicides...even I heard. But what can I say? I think, suicide is the last option. They might not have had any other option and that's why they took that step," she said.

On 7 October, 18-year-old Nitin Fauzdar, a NEET aspirant, died by suicide after he hung himself from a ceiling fan at a private hostel in Sikar, barely a km away from where Kavita lives. Fauzdar's was the third suicide reported in three days in the city.

Kavita didn't know Nitin. She too, like others, read about the case in the newspapers. "I don't think about it (suicide). My father is a compounder in our village dispensary," she said.

Then, after a long pause, the 18-year-old continued, "I will become a doctor. There is no other option."

In Sikar, The Quint met several such individuals to document the lives of lakhs of aspirants, the lure of a bright future, and their journeys in the coaching city.

The Promise of a 'Dream College'

Roads lined up with life-size billboards promising admissions to India's top medical and engineering colleges, coaching centres, hostels, stationaries, eating joints, and students in uniform stretched away as far as the eye could see — Sikar's changing cityscape, many claim, is giving Kota a run for its money.

Poonam Chaudhary, a teacher at one of the coaching centres, however, pointed out a key difference. "Kota is commercialised," she said.

"Students from all over the country go to Kota. There are more students than the institutes can handle. Here, in Sikar, at least at our centre, we make sure that a healthy teacher-student ratio is maintained. This way we're able to keep a track of each student. There's a personal touch here," Chaudhary told The Quint.

But with the city's growing popularity as a coaching hub, this is changing. There are coaching centres in Sikar which have a strength of as many as 10 thousands students. For instance, the Allen Career Institute, a Kota-based coaching giant which has branches across the country, converted two wedding grounds into a coaching centre where approximately 10 thousand students are currently enrolled.

Like Kota, Sikar Too, Has a Suicide Problem

It was this lure of big names in the coaching industry that drove 19-year-old Shyam* from his village near Bikaner to Sikar.

"I spent a year in that city and I'd never recommend anybody to go there for coaching," Shyam, who is now studying at a college in Delhi, told The Quint.

"You're constantly made to feel like you're not bright enough. There are students who die by suicide but that news never gets out of the coaching centres. We keep hearing about Kota but students are dying in Sikar as well," he alleged.

As of October 2023, 26 cases of student suicides have been reported from Kota. In response to these cases, the government issued guidelines to coaching centres in the city.

As per these guidelines, the coaching centres were asked to refrain from the glorification of toppers in a batch of aspirants. The tutors were directed to work towards "discouraging competitiveness among students."

Also, the centres were directed to not distinguish between batchmates based on their performances.

These guidelines were also sent to coaching centres in Sikar.

"They (teachers and staff) use the term martyr for students who die by suicide. It's like...one martyred, two martyred. They treat it like comedy," Shyam said.

A teacher at one of the coaching centres, on the condition of anonymity told The Quint that there is widespread belief among the educators that only students who have weaker "will power" die by suicide.

"The intelligent students are not coming here. They're going to big cities such as Kota and Jaipur. So teachers mostly think that because these are average students, they will only be able to crack the exam if they slog day and night. They don't have intelligence to prepare less and pass the exam. They need to mug their lessons up, and that's why they are made to spend long hours in classrooms," the teacher said.

He added, "The councillors hired by coaching centres are not professionals. They are teachers at these institutes who double up as mental health councillors."

Shyam told The Quint that much like Kota, coaching centres in Sikar also slot student into different batches based on their performance.

"What happens in NEET and JEE batches is that people who seek admission together or those from the same school are first put in the same batches. After regular tests, these batches are separated. There's a hierarchy that's maintained. The toppers are put in one and others are put in another," he alleged.

The Blame Game

Sushmita Sharma, senior counsellor at one of the coaching institutes in Sikar, claimed that students suicides in the city were a result of "failed teenage relationships."

"If we look at the 2-3 cases of suicide that have been reported so far, they've all happened because of affairs. Students live away from home and have freedom. Let's say somebody comes here from a village and with them another schoolmate of their joins an institute. It leads to them developing a relationship," she claimed.

And it is to "keep a check on these affairs" that several coaching centres in Sikar keep track of every movement of the aspirants despite some of them being above 18 years of age.

The institute where Sharma works has installed CCTV cameras and uses biometric entry system to keep track of students in classrooms and hostels. "Whenever a student leaves their hostel at any time during the day, a message is delivered straight to their parents," she told The Quint.

For students such as Kavita, coaching centres aren't their only worry.

"Parents play a huge role," Kavita said.

"I had a roommate whose parents pressurised her a lot. Whenever she scored less they blamed it on her saying she is the one who not be putting enough efforts. They would constantly tell her that they'd sent her to the best coaching and put her in a good hostel. They would say that wasn't focused on studies must be wasting her time on roaming around. She would make me speak to them but they never listened. Eventually, she started maintaining distance from me as well," she recalled.

While Kavita is still determined to continue her coaching, Shyam, having left Sikar, is worried about other aspirants.

"There's a popular saying in Sikar...good coaching institutes there starting paying attention to you only after you've spent at least three years preparing for the exam. What if a student tries to commit suicide before that? Or if their family says that they won't be able to support the aspirant anymore?" he asked.