By all accounts, Rishikesh Kumar from Bihar was a bright young man who had made it to IIT-Delhi in pursuit of a dream. Physics fascinated him; poetry offered another outlet for his creativity. Yet beneath the promise and ambition was a young man struggling with mental-health challenges. His death, allegedly by suicide on August 22, has once again brought into focus the helplessness that can lurk beneath the surface of hyper-competitive institutions. Kumar’s death was the eighth such incident at the campus since 2023.

Over the last five years, the IITs have been proactive in acknowledging that access does not always translate into comfort and belonging. Measures such as supernumerary quotas for women and athletes in undergraduate courses to enhance diversity, and the creation of posts such as the dean of student well-being, recognise that the pressures within elite campuses are shaped as much by the collision between identity and expectation as by an intensely competitive environment. The pressure does not end with securing a place at an IIT; for many, it simply changes form — from the struggle to get in, to the struggle to keep up and fit in. A 2023-24 IIT-Delhi committee described a culture of post-coaching burnout, and alienation among marginalised and first-generation students. It makes every setback — from a failed relationship to an inadequate score — feel unusually consequential.

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Following protests, IIT-Delhi has set up a committee to conduct a probe into Kumar’s death. But the questions go beyond the campus. Far too often, mental health is looked at through the prism of individual histories. But for young people who have demonstrated remarkable fortitude in coping with pressures along their journey to some of the country’s premier institutions, what explains their inability to deal with what follows? It is this contradiction that parents and educators must address with urgency. How can environments be built where ambition and well-being go hand in hand, where counselling creates safe spaces, where empathy shows youngsters how to regulate their response to life’s vagaries? The road ahead must involve a rethinking of the culture of competition itself, so that institutions do not merely produce high achievers, but are home to thriving young people.