UnTh!nk!ng India...

It began with an earnest LinkedIn post; a student sharing reflections on his coursework, unaware of the quiet storm he would stir. His sincerity was disarming, even moving. But more than that, it was revealing. It laid bare a systemic fissure so wide and deep that it forced a confrontation with one of India’s most uncomfortable truths: we are creating workers, not citizens.

This isn’t a new phenomenon. The colonial British administration designed Indian education to produce a subservient workforce—literate, skilled, but obedient. Their ideal subject was efficient but unquestioning, trained to execute rather than inquire. This colonial residue, far from dissipating in post-independence India, has been inherited and adapted—by corporations, by governments, and, most insidiously, by our educational institutions.

Today, India finds itself in a paradox. We aspire to be a Vishwaguru, a global teacher, a beacon of civilisational knowledge, while systematically undercutting the very foundations of that vision. A society aiming for wisdom cannot survive on skills alone. The essence of knowledge is not in producing code or filing reports but in questioning, reflecting, and imagining alternative futures.

Crony Capitalism and the Commodification of Education

The post-liberalisation economic structure, steered increasingly by crony capitalism, thrives on quantity over quality. It demands a vast army of skilled workers—not thinkers. This has nurtured a coaching-industrial complex worth billions, offering vocational shortcuts and technical competence but little else. According to a 2024 estimate, India’s coaching industry is valued at over ₹58,000 crores (~$7 billion), with JEE and NEET preparation alone accounting for a significant portion. Students, some as young as thirteen, are turned into aspirants rather than learners.

Corporates too, for the most part, are content. Critical thinking in an employee is often perceived as dissent; creativity as inefficiency. The dominant corporate logic rewards conformity, not curiosity. The rare exceptions, organisations that foster innovation and thought leadership—remain outliers. Meanwhile, universities are caught in a double bind: pressured to produce employable graduates for the market, yet morally bound to educate humane, thoughtful citizens.

The Ethical Mandate of Higher Education

There’s an oft-forgotten distinction between education and training. Universities were never meant to be job mills. At their best, they are crucibles of ideas, democratic dissent, and civilisational continuity. When we insist on treating engineering, management, or law as purely technical domains devoid of ethics, politics, or aesthetics, we amputate their social potential. And this impoverishment is not metaphorical—it is measurable.

In 2022, India recorded over 13,000 student suicides, a staggering 64% increase from a decade prior. Maharashtra (1,764), Tamil Nadu (1,416), and Madhya Pradesh (1,340) led the tragic count. The most vulnerable were aged 15–29. Over 2,000 deaths were explicitly linked to exam failure, often for competitive tests that define lives before they begin. Behind these numbers lies a system that celebrates grades but silences grief.

"are we equipping our youth for life, or merely for labour?"

Mental Health, Market Logic, and the Missing Humanities

There is a growing consensus in psychological research: emotional resilience, social-emotional learning, and mental health support are not optional add-ons. They are essential competencies—life skills—in an age defined by uncertainty, competition, and isolation. Yet India’s counselling infrastructure remains pitiful. Elite universities have a counsellor-to-student ratio of 1:10,000, and stigma silences the rest. Only 41% of youth report seeking help for mental health concerns.

The marginalisation of arts, music, sports, and philosophy—the traditional carriers of existential insight—is not coincidental. It is structural. These disciplines cultivate ambiguity, nuance, and questioning—the very traits that markets find inconvenient and governments suspicious. A nation that strips poetry from its syllabi soon forgets how to weep, how to protest, how to dream.

Our own epics provide a compelling counter-narrative. Krishna had two gurus—Sandipani for skills, Upamanyu for spiritual knowledge. Rama too had two—Vishwamitra, who taught him archery, and Vashistha, who taught him governance, ethics, and self-discipline. The lesson is timeless: skill may help you strike, but wisdom tells you when, where, and why.

A Vishwaguru is not an assembly-line trainer. It is a nurturer of wisdom. And wisdom, by its nature, is disruptive, it doubts, questions, and transforms.

The Cost of Ignoring liberal studies: Suicidal Trends Among Employees

This crisis is not confined to campuses. In 2021, over 13,000 private and government employees died by suicide in India. Hyderabad’s IT sector alone reported 50 suicides per week during that period, driven by job insecurity, pressure, and burnout. Across all age groups and genders, those in the workforce, especially daily wage earners and unemployed, accounted for a significant share of the 164,033 suicides that year.

Experts believe these figures are severely underreported, given the cultural stigma and procedural misclassifications. Some suggest the real toll could be four times higher.

What emerges is a grim tableau: millions entering workplaces with high skills but low coping mechanisms. They can code, present, and manage but falter when faced with failure, ambiguity, or trauma. The missing link? Life lessons taught by psychology, sociology, art, etc.

A Systemic Response or Cosmetic Reforms?

The Indian government has acknowledged the crisis, albeit cautiously. Initiatives like the National Suicide Prevention Strategy (2022) aim to provide mental health support in educational settings. However, enforcement and funding remain lacklustre. Anti-ragging policies exist on paper, but student suicides linked to harassment continue unabated. Meanwhile, life-skills education—now part of the NEP 2020—remains largely theoretical.

Here lies the fundamental contradiction: a system that preaches holistic education but incentivises employability metrics. Until this disjuncture is resolved, interventions will remain fragmented and insufficient.

What Needs to Be Done: And Why It Must Be Done Now

This crisis demands more than policy tweaks. It calls for a paradigmatic shift in how we define education. Three reforms are non-negotiable:

1. Reintegrate the Humanities: Arts, philosophy, literature, and music are not luxuries. They are essential for cultivating empathy, introspection, and ethical reasoning.
2. Mandate Life-Skills Curricula: Stress management, emotional regulation, and problem-solving must be taught with the same rigour as mathematics or coding. The CBSE has taken initial steps; universities must follow.
3. Institutionalise Mental Health Infrastructure: A robust, stigma-free support system—counsellors, helplines, peer mentoring—must be built into every academic and corporate environment.

What Kind of Society Do We Want to Build?

This is not merely about student well-being or employee retention. It is about civilisation. A society that neglects life skills will not only lose lives, it will lose meaning. It will become efficient, yes! but also alienated, brittle, and joyless.

The suicide data is not just a health statistic. It is a civilisational red flag. It tells us that people are not just dying—they are despairing.

Towards a Nation of the Wise...

India cannot become a Vishwaguru on the strength of its coding bootcamps or coaching centres. That claim must be earned through the production of wisdom, through institutions that value thought over task, integrity over outcome, and purpose over productivity.

Shooting an arrow is skill. Knowing why, where, and whether to shoot-that is knowledge. When skill and knowledge combine, they generate doubt. Doubt matures into wisdom. And wisdom, Professor, is what makes a nation civilised.

We owe it to our young minds to build a society where being human is not a liability-but a learned, cultivated, and celebrated strength.

Shall we begin?