The year 2020 is most associated with the word ‘pandemic’. The spread of the coronavirus saw a change in the crime data provided by the NCRB. The crimes recording body has issued a new report on ‘Accidental Deaths and Suicides’ during 2020, which says that 1,53,052 people killed themselves last year. Included in this unfortunate figure are students, the salaried class, and self-employed people.

The report states that there was a 10% annual increase in suicides in 2020. The number of accidental deaths in the country fell but the rate of suicides increased in students and salaried employees. However, the highest rates of suicide were reported among daily wage labourers, who formed the bulk of the long pedestrian caravans on ‘migrant labourers’ forced to walk back home on foot.  

Similarly, agricultural labourers also suffered during 2020, and there was a 17% increase in suicide rates recorded in this socioeconomic section over 2019.

Most Number Of Daily Wagers Killed Themselves In 2020

Of the 1,53,052 people that killed themselves in 2020, 37,666 were daily-wage labourers. If it is segmented by state, then labourers committed suicides at the highest rates in Tamil Nadu followed by Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, and Gujarat. The report does not say that these suicides were caused directly by the coronavirus but the sudden and extremely strict lockdown imposed without notice pushed daily wage labourers into food insecurity, and they were forced to walk back to their place of origins from places like Delhi and Maharashtra.

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