As the previous chapters have highlighted, Dalits in India have historically endured marginalization and been among the most disadvantaged populations in the country. Since suffering has been known as one of the major reasons for voluntarily ending one's life (Minois, 2001), suicide rates among Dalit populations are expected to be high, especially compared to ‘general’ populations.

Suicide is a serious, yet preventable public health issue. Initially recognized as an entirely psychological phenomenon, suicide is now ubiquitously accepted as a multifaceted issue with various social, cultural, psychological, and biological aspects usually underlying the causal pathway. One of the indicators of suicide being a multidimensional issue is the consistent variation observed within and between countries and regions by different socio-demographic variables, instead of simply fluctuating between areas with higher or lower prevalence of mental health issues. In 2016, there were an estimated 7,93,000 suicides worldwide, a rate of one suicide every 40 seconds (World Health Organization [WHO], 2016). The global suicide rate in 2016 was 10.6 per 1,00,000 population, with higher male suicide rates (13.5 per 1,00,000 population) than female (7.7 per 1,00,000 population) (WHO, 2016). Overall, approximately 79 per cent of all suicides occurred in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs).

India has some of the highest suicide rates in the world. According to the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study estimates, in 2016, there were more than 2,00,000 suicides in India accounting for 25 per cent of male and 37 per cent of female suicides globally (Dandona et al., 2018). Rates in India are higher among males (21 per 100,000) than females (15 per 100,000), and while rates have declined among females, male rates have remained stable for the last 30 years (Dandona et al., 2018). Nevertheless, in 2016, India had the third highest female suicide rate in the world (WHO, 2016). Suicide rates in India are known to differ by socio-demographic factors such as geography, age, sex, marital status, method, and markers of educational achievement (Mayer, 2010; Arya et al., 2018; Arya et al., 2019a). While studies in the past have hypothesized that suicide rates in India likely differ by religion and caste status, very few studies have reported suicide rates by religion, while almost none have reported them by caste status.