Mental Health In India: A Crisis In The Shadows

As the world prepares to observe World Mental Health Day on October 10, a troubling paradox persists. On one hand, conversations around mental health have become louder and more visible than ever before. But amidst this growing awareness, silence and stigma continue to linger beneath the surface. Despite the rise of campaigns and conversations, mental health still carries the burden of taboo in many parts of society.

Each year, World Mental Health Day is shaped by a theme that highlights a pressing issue in the mental health landscape. The theme for 2025 — “Access to Services: Mental Health in Catastrophes and Emergencies” — serves as a stark reminder of the urgent need for inclusive and resilient mental health systems, especially in times of crisis.

Reflecting on our national progress, we must ask: Where does mental health truly stand in our priorities, both as a nation and as individuals? According to the National Mental Health Survey conducted by NIMHANS in 2016, nearly 150 million people in India are in need of mental health services. Shockingly, only 10 to 15 percent receive adequate care.

This issue is further aggravated by the shortage of mental health professionals in the country. Social stigma and limited access to support make it even more difficult for those in need to seek help. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, approximately 70 to 92 percent of people with mental disorders do not receive proper treatment due to a lack of awareness, prevailing taboos, and an insufficient number of qualified professionals.

Both infrastructure and incentives remain largely absent from this sector. A telling figure lies in the fact that the country's expenditure on mental health is one percent of the health budget, which itself is a measly two percent of the GDP. This allocation is proportionately lower than that of Ethiopia, Sudan, Ghana, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Botswana, and Congo, all of which are poorer than India.

In Outlook Magazine’s special Independence Day issue on mental health, Everyday I Pray For Love, we looked at if we can imagine a nation where freedom includes freedom from the stigma of mental illness. 

In India, to speak of mental health is to invite silence, judgment, or worse-abandonment. For many in India, mental health care doesn’t begin in clinics—but with superstition, isolation, or mistreatment. When poverty and caste determine a person’s place in society, illness is not just an affliction; it's also shame. In collaboration with the Chennai-based NGO, The Banyan, Outlook's Independence Day Special Issue was based on first hand experiences, reports, columns from experts, and ground reports from our reporters on mental health issues.

Dr. Vandana Gopikumar and Vaishnavi Jayakumar, the co-founders of ‘The Banyan', Dr. Sanjeev Jain, and Dr. Lakshmi Narasimhan had guest-edited the issue along with Chinki Sinha, Editor of Outlook.

Chinki Sinha wrote how many people have asked her why she decided to curate an issue on mental health. “I think the answer lies in the memory. An old, painful one, but I wanted to be free to confront it on the page and to write a letter to my dead grandfather, who once was a caregiver to his youngest son, who suffered from schizophrenia. My uncle was a brilliant doctor and a gentle person. He wasn’t perfect, but he was family.”

Vandana Gopikumar narrated the tale of Kali, A Personal Story Of Mental Health, Healing, And The Complexity Of Care. 

Both Vandana and her colleague Vaishnavi Jayakumar were 24. Kali must have been in her 40s, though she looked much older. It seemed like she had starved for many days, months even, finding the most obscure yet ingenious ways to get something into her body to survive.

All Vandana did was sit with her and cajole her to eat and meet her where she wanted to be met; no jargon, no technique, just plain common sense—wisdom drawn from suffering and emanating from a shared feeling of alienation, perhaps? She grew weaker and, in her frailty, surrendered her faith and hope. “We carried her to the hospital. And cared for her until she died. We were novices then, and it tore us apart as it still does now.”

The support that Kali received is oblivious to most. World Health Organisation (WHO) data highlights that in India, the age-adjusted suicide rate per 100000 population is 21.1. 

In the latest World Mental Health Day issue of Outlook Magazine, titled I Have a Lot Left Inside (October 11, 2025), Part 2, we delve into the challenges faced by those living with mental health struggles, as well as the experiences of those who dedicate their lives to offering care and support. 

In ‘A Day in the Life of a Psychiatrist’, Anirudh Kala writes, By the end of the said Mental Health Day, there would have been seminars, talk shows, discussions and debates. It would also have been pointed out that nearly 200,000 Indians die by suicide every year, according to WHO figures, and that each suicide inherently is an avoidable death. And that for every completed suicide there are ten attempted suicides. 

That the country's suicide data is compiled by the ‘National Crime Research Bureau’ is itself a telling indictment of the country's attitude towards the massive tragedy called suicide. What will not happen on ‘the’ Day is a rupee increase in budget for wholesome mental health services? 

When he was training to be a psychiatrist, decades back at PGI Chandigarh, he was told that India had just 300 psychiatrists and once that number reached 3000, all its mental health problems would be solved. Today India has about 10,000 psychiatrists and, it still seems far from enough. 

Several such cases suffer from and are aggravated by loneliness, ‘There is nobody to talk to’ is why, if you ask them. 

In ‘Languishing in Loneliness’, Snigdhendhu Bhattacharya narrates the story of Anjan Chatterjee fixing an appointment with a mental health professional the day after he screamed at Siri and threw his whiskey-filled glass at the speaker.  

It has been quite a few months that Chatterjee has talked to Siri for a while every night before going to bed. He asks the artificially intelligent device for its opinion on the way he dealt with situations at the workplace and involving the colleague-cum-competitor-cum-companions. That day, Siri said he might have erred in judgment. Chatterjee lost his temper. The next day, he decided to seek professional help before things worsened. 

“The lack of real conversations is a horrible thing,” says the 36-year-old photographer working in the entertainment industry. “But what do you do when you have no human connection without transactional relations?”

If this is the regular condition, the detrimental state of Indian prisons with respect to mental health is even more concerning. In ‘Through The Cracks Of Prison,’ Sudhir Dhawale cites the example of Taloja Central Jail in Maharashtra. There is only one psychiatrist in the Taloja Central Jail, and even she does not work full time. Normally, the prison has one or two counselors, but they are not enough to serve the needs of thousands of prisoners. At present, the psychotherapists serving in the prison aren’t even adequately trained. There is no separate ward or even nursing staff or caretaker for people with mental health issues. That’s why prisoners do not receive appropriate mental health support. 

Other medical issues, at least, receive medications, but that is not available for mental health issues. Only sleeping pills are handed out for such problems! 

In ‘An Imprisoned Mind’, Apeksha Priyadarshini highlights the case of G.N. Saibaba—an assistant professor of English at Ram Lal Anand College, Delhi University, who was arrested near his home in Delhi on May 14, 2014, on charges of alleged Maoist links, He had been released after more than eight and a half years in prison with 19 new ailments. His death on October 12, 2024, has been attributed to the severe medical negligence that he faced during his prolonged incarceration. 

“Sitting in a broken wheelchair, unable to move even to drink a glass of water, he would listen to the Adivasi prisoners scream for hours, while they were mercilessly beaten in the cells beside his,” says AS Vasantha Kumari, GN Saibaba’s partner. 

In this issue, Outlook also covered the protest in Ladakh where at least four people were killed and around 80 others injured in violent clashes between protesters and security forces in Leh on September 24. 

Ishfaq Naeem reports on protesters saying that they had taken out only a peaceful march, and the damage to the public property came as the security forces resorted to indiscriminate firing. However, the MHA says that the protests were led by some “politically motivated individuals” blaming Sonam Wangchuk for the violence and “misleading the people through provocative mention of Arab Spring-style protests and references to Gen Z protests in Nepal.” Several people have been arrested after the protests.