Some Elite Universities Think Removing Ceiling Fans in Dorms Will Solve the Problem of Rising Student Suicides

India’s young people are increasingly dying by suicide due to various reasons. Some of the country’s elite universities have been trying to address the problem, but experts worry one popular solution is missing the larger picture.

Last week, an email shared by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), an elite century-old Indian educational institution, triggered a debate online. The leaked email, reportedly shared by the institute’s student council, mentions a 15-day drive to remove all ceiling fans in dorm rooms on IISc’s sprawling campus, located in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru. The move, the email says, is to curb student suicides. 

The data is startling. In 2019, more than 90,000 young Indians died by suicide. India has one of the world’s highest suicide death rates and government data shows that suicide is among the top causes of death among the young. India’s youth, aged between 15 and 29, make up 27.5 percent of its population of nearly 1.4 billion, according to the most recent National Youth Policy estimate. This is some 385 million people, which is more than the population of the United States.

In an email statement to VICE, IISc confirmed the policy, saying that it was done to address “increasing academic pressures” on students and the resulting impact on their mental health, especially during the pandemic. “The measures that we have been taking are based on recommendations that have been made to us by mental health experts,” the email from IISc’s public relations office stated. “One of these recommendations is to restrict access to any means of self-harm on the campus, which includes changing the current ceiling fans in hostel rooms.” 

The other initiative, the email added, was to have counsellors call individual students on campus “to inquire about their well-being,” an exercise that they said has already been completed. 

Many wonder, however, how effective the removal of ceiling fans will be in addressing the real cause of rising student suicides. 

Death by suicides in such top Indian educational institutions has led to protests and demands for an investigation into the root cause, which range from academic to social factors such as caste and religious discrimination. 

There’s no definitive data on mortality of suicides involving ceiling fans in India, but one study suggests that it’s common in the country. There have also been innovative studies to reinvent ceiling fans that avoid such incidents.

Nuances of suicides remain underreported or, worse, sensationalised in Indian media. Bollywood, one of the world’s biggest film industries, has depicted suicide involving ceiling fans, even as some Bollywood stars themselves have died because of it, triggering a national debate on mental health. 

IISc is not the first to remove ceiling fans to prevent suicide. In 2010, the Indian Institute of Technology’s (IIT) campus in the northern Indian city of Kanpur decided to replace ceiling fans with pedestal fans after a string of student suicides. In 2017, an association of around 700 dorms in the northern Indian city of Kota – known widely for its competitive exam coaching institutions – announced they’d do the same as student suicides were reported within their members’ facilities every year. In 2019, IIT Madras, located in the southern Indian city of Chennai, announced a suicide-prevention device on its dorm fans, which will make a fan drop if a weight of over 40 kilograms is attached to it. 

On the ground, though, the young say these measures don’t address the real problems. 

VICE reached out to an IISc student council representative, who refused to comment on the policy at the moment except to say that they’re in talks with the university’s management about it. However, in an interview with Indian newspaper Deccan Herald, some students stated this measure will not address the root cause of suicides. 

From March to September, at least four IISc students have reportedly died by suicide, while two died by suicide in 2020. Cops investigating each of this year’s four deaths labelled the determinants of the deaths as “personal.” 

Experts, too, have flagged the ceiling fan policy as tone-deaf. Dr. Soumitra Pathare, the director of the Centre for Mental Health Law and Policy, who has previously provided technical assistance to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in drafting India’s Mental Health Care Act 2017, called IISc’s policy a “knee-jerk reaction.” 

“The World Health Organization recommends means restriction as a way of suicide prevention, and the idea is to restrict means which are commonly used,” he told VICE, citing examples, such as the gun control movement in the U.S. and the pesticide ban in Sri Lanka, as responses to rising suicides. “But I’ve never seen any research showing ceiling fans as a common means of suicide. A single step like [IISc’s], in isolation, is not going to impact suicide prevention. The reason behind why people are feeling suicidal is also not being addressed.”

The leaked IISc email also reportedly included results of a poll conducted by students, in which 90 percent of the surveyed 305 students didn’t want their ceiling fans to be replaced by wall-mounted fans, while 88 percent said they didn’t think removing ceiling fans would fix student suicides. “Taking this poll as a sample indicator of the entire student population of the IISc, it is clear that currently, the student community does not wish to proceed with this installation. They see no worth in its value proposition,” the Deccan Herald cited the institute's student council as saying.

Harshit Bhuradia, a 26-year-old graduate of IIT Bombay, told VICE that such measures are a “piecemeal approach.” “The act of suicide cannot be such a hush-hush issue. An environment has to be provided where the students feel like approaching the institute facility to address their problems,” he said. 

Data has also shown that the role of India’s social inequalities in causing student suicides, especially the centuries-old caste system – a social hierarchy unique to the Indian subcontinent’s Hindu population, where the lowest in the order are allotted “impure” occupations like sanitation work or taking care of the dead. Those outside the caste order are called Dalits, historically deemed as “untouchables.” 

As student suicides are on the rise, deaths of Dalit students as a consequence of a larger systemic bias within Indian academia, where Dalit representation is extremely scarce and discrimination very common, is increasingly being reported across India. In 2016, the death of Rohith Vemula, a PhD scholar, in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, shed light on student suicides triggered by caste discrimination. Vemula was a Dalit who died by suicide, and called his birth a “fatal accident.” Many professors in prestigious universities routinely, and brazenly, practice caste discrimination. 

Ravi, a current PhD student in one of IITs campuses, told VICE that those from socially disadvantaged communities such as Dalits often face intense pressures and stress on campus because most so-called upper-caste Indians practice caste bias and treat them as inferior beings on a daily basis. “This discrimination happens in subtle ways and it’s difficult to speak about it because we don’t have one of our own, either in faculty or student representation, to address our issues,” said Ravi, who wished to speak anonymously fearing repercussions. They also said that caste discrimination and harassment are often mistaken as mental health problems in Indian universities and research institutions.

Pathare added that it’s erroneous to always assign reasons for suicide to mental health. “It’s not always mental health. Mental health is the final common pathway,” he said. “Calling deep-rooted problems a mental health issue can be extremely frustrating and is like adding salt to injury. Yes, mental health needs addressing, but it’s not a one-shot solution. Let’s address the determinants of mental health, and the determinants of mental health are going to be different for different groups of people.”

The IISc statement says that they’re increasing access to “wellness resources'' such as 24/7 online counselling and support via an app, along with on-campus counsellors and external consultants. Most institutions such as IISc and IIT set up wellness centres in the last few years. However, one survey from IIT found that the majority of students don’t end up using the in-house support system. In April 2021, only 1,000 of the 4,500 students responded to a survey on the mental wellbeing of students at IISc, conducted by the management. Ravi, the PhD student, added that while mental health support is present in his university, Dalit students like him feel discouraged from accessing it due to internal caste bias or lack of Dalit representation in the mental health support system. 

Pathare said it’s high time we acknowledged that young people are dying by suicide. “A comprehensive strategy to address suicides needs data first,” he said, adding that the quality of India’s data collection isn’t great. “Beyond that, though, the big problem is the mistaken and fatalistic belief, usually by public policy authorities, that if somebody wants to die, they will do it anyway, and we can’t do anything about it.”

Student suicide, he added, needs a nuanced conversation. “Honestly, IISc needn’t feel blamed for the suicides. This is a problem in the entire society. But [the ceiling fan policy] shows that we’re just not willing to talk about it.”

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, help is available. Call 1-800-273-8255 to speak with someone now or text START to 741741 to message with the Crisis Text Line.

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