Chasing Success, Losing Lives: The Dark Reality of Academic Pressure in Kashmir

Gowher Bhat
Faisal Bashir was 19. He lived in Gonipora, Kupwara. He was a student. He had been preparing for JEE, like so many others. His body was found the day after the results came out. He was in his rented room, alone. No signs of trouble, no cries for help. Just a boy who couldn’t handle the weight anymore.
The coaching center he attended, like many others, was built on the promise of success. Everyone around him told him that JEE was the way out. The key to a good life, a secure future. But no one warned him about the price. No one said that it might cost him more than just time and energy. That it might cost him everything.
Faisal wasn’t the first. There have been others. A girl from Kulgam. A boy from Anantnag. Students who couldn’t keep up, couldn’t handle the pressure. They didn’t make the cut, and they disappeared. No headlines. Just the quiet aftershock of a family mourning, of friends wondering, of neighbors trying to understand what went wrong.
It’s a cycle. One that keeps repeating itself every year, with a new set of students like Faisal caught in its grip. The private coaching centers, with their bright signs and promises, have become factories for fear. They sell success, but what they don’t show is the other side — the side where failure is a ghost that haunts every student, every sleepless night. The pressure is constant. The expectation is relentless. The competition is suffocating. Every exam is a test not just of knowledge, but of endurance. Of how long you can push yourself before you break.
And break they do.
Data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reveals a chilling truth: in 2021, 13,089 students took their own lives due to academic pressures. This is a staggering rise from 2020, which saw 12,526 such deaths. Among these, many were students who had undergone grueling training at private coaching centers, where the message was clear: success or nothing. The coaching industry has grown to a $40 billion juggernaut, and with it, an ever-increasing number of students are walking down a path of anxiety and depression. In Kota, which has become synonymous with coaching, 26 students lost their lives in 2023 alone under similar pressures.
What is this doing to our youth? They are drowning under the weight of expectations. Not just their own, but the weight placed upon them by parents, teachers, and the media. We glorify toppers, but we never talk about the ones who fall behind. We don’t write about their stories. Their struggles don’t trend on social media. No one asks why they couldn’t make it. No one asks if they were okay.
Dr. Arvind Otta, a leading psychologist in India, comments, “The mental toll is overwhelming. Students are expected to perform at peak levels, but no one teaches them how to cope when they don’t.” The silence around failure is deafening. Students begin to believe that if they don’t succeed, they don’t matter. They’re invisible.
The pressure doesn’t stop at the students themselves. Parents, in their desire to see their children succeed, have become unwitting contributors to this toxic environment. They hear about the top ranks, see the advertisements, and believe the promises. “Do this, and you’ll have a good life,” they say. But do they realize that they are inadvertently reinforcing a cycle of stress, fear, and failure?
Often, it is love that pushes parents to expect more. But in their pursuit of a better life for their children, they forget what their children actually need — understanding, balance, space to breathe. A student once told me, “My parents love me only when I succeed.” That wasn’t entirely true, but it felt true. And sometimes, that feeling is enough to break a spirit already worn thin.
Experts argue that the root of this issue lies not in the students themselves but in the institutions that prepare them. The Hindu reported that nearly 61% of students in India experience significant anxiety about their academic futures. The fear of failure is constant, and in a society where merit is the ultimate currency, there’s little room for error. Coaching centers thrive on this fear, offering a temporary sense of security but never preparing the student for what happens when they can’t succeed.
Some of these centers even penalize students emotionally — isolating those who underperform, ignoring them, or simply pushing them to the back of the classroom. There is no space for the average. No space for humans. It’s always about the top 1%. The toppers. The posters.
The consequences of this environment are real. In the case of Faisal, his death wasn’t just a tragic accident — it was the culmination of a broken system. A system where academic success is the only measure of a student’s worth, where mental health is an afterthought, and where failure is seen as the ultimate defeat.
And yet, this is not the first time such a tragedy has struck. In 2023, a student from Anantnag took his life in his hostel room after failing his exams. Last year, a 16-year-old girl from Kulgam ended her life after a disappointing result. These incidents are far too common, and they are a direct result of the toxic educational environment we’ve allowed to flourish.
Teachers and schools often act as gatekeepers of success, but how many of them are trained to handle emotional breakdowns? How many classrooms have space for conversations about fear and failure? Very few. Most students suffer in silence. They smile when they have to, cry when nobody’s watching, and pretend they’re okay. Until they’re not.
But there’s a glimmer of hope. The Indian government, following years of mounting pressure, has started to take notice. The Indian Express recently reported that new regulations now restrict coaching centers from enrolling students below the age of 16. This is a step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done. We must shift the narrative from one of academic excellence at all costs to one of mental well-being, self-acceptance, and personal growth.
It’s not just about better regulation. It’s about changing the conversation. Parents need to be educated too — not just about marks, but about emotional intelligence. Teachers need better training. Mental health support should be as common in schools as math or science classes. And society, as a whole, needs to learn that a child’s value isn’t determined by their rank in a test.
Faisal Bashir died because he couldn’t handle the pressure. He was not the first, and sadly, he won’t be the last. We need to start talking about this — really talking. Not just about the students who succeed, but about the ones who don’t. We need to stop glorifying exams and start talking about mental health. We need to stop selling dreams that come with such a heavy cost.
If we don’t, the price will keep rising.
And it will cost more lives.

(The author is a creative writer, and English instructor based in Kashmir.)