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The question is not whether meditation is good for students.
It is.
Yoga can help. Mindfulness can help. Peer support can help. Spiritual practices can help some students manage stress and build resilience.
But what happens when a student is no longer simply stressed?
What happens when they stop sleeping, stop eating, withdraw from friends, stop attending classes, develop severe depression or begin thinking about suicide?
That is where the controversy over IIT Kanpurโs now-cancelled MoU with ISKCON becomes bigger than a single campus collaboration.
The institute had announced a two-year MoU with ISKCON for voluntary programmes on self-management, wellness, personal development, stress management and self-esteem. The announcement was later deleted after backlash from students, alumni and others who questioned the involvement of a religious organisation in student well-being at a premier science and technology institute.
But the bigger question is this: Can wellness programmes address a problem that has already become a mental-health crisis?
The timing of the controversy matters. Student suicides in top institutes have been regularly making headlines. IIT Kanpur recorded eight student suicides in two years by January 2026, nearly 30% of reported IIT student suicides during that period.
In August, students at IIT Delhi protested after the death of a 31-year-old MSc Physics student, demanding accountability and changes to the way student welfare and mental-health concerns are handled, prompting the institute to form an external five-member inquiry committee.
IIT Delhi had already reported another student death in March.
At IISc Bengaluru, two student deaths were reported within about 15 days in August. IIT Bombay and IIT Kharagpur have also reported student deaths this year.
On September 1, an IIT Mandi PhD student was found dead inside his rented accommodation in a village near the city. He had reportedly been distressed after the results of his PhD comprehensive test were announced.
These cases do not establish a single cause. Circumstances have differed across campuses and investigations are ongoing in individual cases. But the repeated student deaths across premier campuses raise a basic question: Are the systems designed to identify and treat students in distress actually working?
The wider numbers make that question harder to ignore.
India recorded 14,488 student suicides in 2024, up from 13,892 in 2023 and 8,068 in 2014, an increase of about 80% over the decade.
Among student suicide deaths over the 2014 to 2024 period, about 55% involved those below 18, while 42% were in the 18 to 30 age group. That 18 to 30 bracket covers a large part of India's college-going population.
So what should campuses actually be doing? That is where the line between wellness and mental-health treatment becomes crucial.
Dr Divya Ganesh Nallur, Clinical Director and Psychiatrist at Amaha Mental Health Hospital in Bengaluru, says the first problem is that people often blur mental wellness, mental health and mental illness.
"The problem with mental wellness and mental health and mental illness is the lack of understanding around it, the stigma around it. And complete lack of awareness around it,โ she says.
She does not dismiss wellness interventions.
"It is very true that wellness initiatives, meditation, yoga, spirituality, all of those are extremely helpful for mental well-being."
But there is a boundary.
"Wellbeing programmes cannot treat illnesses. Wellbeing programmes are intended to support and maintain good health,โ she says.
Her comparison is with physical health. Exercise, good food and healthy habits can support someone with a medical condition, but they do not automatically replace treatment once an illness has developed.
"Psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, and trained counselors are necessary components of treatment once illness sets in, be it depression, anxiety, psychosis,โ says Dr Nallur.
That distinction becomes especially important on campuses where academic pressure is intense and students may be reluctant to admit they are struggling.
The signs may not always begin with a student saying, "I need psychiatric help."
Dr Nallur says institutions should watch for changes in normal behaviour.
"Warning signs that show that a student has moved beyond ordinary academic stress... is when their biological functions are deranged," she says.
That includes disturbed sleep or appetite, weight loss, withdrawing socially or suddenly stopping class attendance.
"So any change in their behaviour, be it physical or mental or social, should alert authorities to say that, this may need assessment and possibly intervention,โ says the doctor.
The problem is that institutions often expect students to voluntarily approach support systems.
"A person who has depression may not necessarily be able to seek out help themselves," Dr Nallur says.
"Usually people around them will have to notice."
That means a functioning campus system cannot simply consist of a counselling centre waiting for students to walk in.
Ankit Agrawal, Founder and Counsellor at Aatman, a mental-being initiative at VidyaGyan School, Sitapur, says students often first present with problems such as poor concentration, difficulty retaining concepts, emotional difficulties or disturbed sleep.
"When these concerns start affecting their daily functioning and overall well-being, it may become necessary to seek psychological support and, if required, further professional help from a psychologist or psychiatrist,โ he says.
But Agrawal adds there is another uncomfortable part of the conversation.
"I personally think counselling helps students to understand the problem, but at some point, we also have to work on the problem itself."
In an IIT, that means looking beyond the student and examining the environment.
"Students are under a lot of academic pressure, and we need to understand that they also need emotional and social support,โ he says.
His conclusion is particularly relevant to institutions that respond to distress mainly by adding another counselling session or wellness activity.
"Counselling alone may not be enough if the environment and expectations around the student remain the same,โ he says.
This is where Dr Manmit Kumarr, Founder of Academy of Tantra and a spiritual guru, makes an important distinction.
"Wellness practices such as meditation, yoga, breathwork and spiritual practices can play an important role in helping young people develop emotional awareness, resilience and healthier ways of responding to stress,โ she says.
But even from the wellness side, she draws a firm line around serious illness.
"A student experiencing severe depression, a psychiatric illness or suicidal thoughts requires professional assessment and, where necessary, evidence-based psychological and psychiatric intervention."
"No spiritual practice, meditation programme or wellness initiative should be presented as a replacement for clinical care,โ she adds.
Dr Kumarr says the two can exist together. "Healing and treatment are not opposing ideas. They can work together."
The danger comes when institutions mistake one for the other.
"The danger begins when we confuse support with treatment,โ she says.
For Dr Nallur, a strong campus system would have several layers.
There should be wellness activities, social groups, activity clubs, peer support, mindfulness and yoga. But those should sit alongside qualified professionals.
"It is important that all organisations have qualified psychologists, clinical psychologists, and counsellors who are actively and easily available for individual sessions," she says.
Peer support can also be useful, but students acting as peer supporters need professional backing.
Then comes psychiatric care and crisis intervention.
"A psychiatrist's visit to the institutions... or access to psychiatrists is extremely important," Dr Nallur says, so that serious cases identified by counsellors or psychologists can be escalated.
For students expressing suicidal thoughts, she says institutions need clear protocols so that everyone knows how to escalate the risk and get immediate professional help.
IIT Kanpur itself says it has been strengthening its mental-health response. Its May 2026 publication said the institute had increased psychiatric availability to three psychiatrists, with four psychiatric OPDs each week, added another empanelled psychiatric hospital, conducted faculty and staff sensitisation programmes and begun regular hostel visits for early identification and intervention.
The question, therefore, is not simply whether IITs have programmes.
It is whether those programmes reach students early enough, whether students trust them, and whether professional care is available when prevention is no longer enough.
Dr Kumarr herself warns institutions against treating wellness as a convenient solution.
"Wellness programmes can sometimes become attractive because they are easier to introduce and more visible than addressing the deeper structural and clinical challenges of mental health,โ she says.
Her examples are blunt.
"But a meditation session cannot, by itself, solve severe depression. A yoga class cannot automatically address trauma."
And telling someone in deep psychological distress to simply think positively can add guilt to an already difficult situation.
Institutions, she says, need to ask harder questions: "Are students under unbearable academic pressure? Do they have access to qualified professionals? Is there a culture of stigma around asking for help? Are warning signs being recognised early enough?"
That is the real issue behind the IIT Kanpur controversy.
Not whether students should meditate. Not whether yoga belongs on campus.
Not whether spiritual practices can help. Because they can.
The question is whether an IIT facing repeated student deaths has enough qualified professionals, early-warning systems, crisis protocols and institutional accountability to recognise when a student has moved beyond stress and into illness.
Agrawal says the hierarchy of priorities also needs to change. And that is perhaps one of the biggest takeaways from the entire student suicide conversation.
"There needs to be more awareness that life is the most important thing and that academic performance is not the only measure of a student's well-being or success,โ he says.
That may sound obvious. In an environment built around ranks, grades, research output and extraordinary academic competition, it is anything but.
Wellness can be part of the answer. It just cannot be the whole answer.
When a student is healthy, wellness can help them build resilience. When a student is struggling, counselling can help. When there is serious mental illness, qualified mental-health professionals need to step in. And when there is suicidal risk, the response has to be immediate and clinical.
The distinction is not academic.
For some students, it can be the difference between receiving help and falling through the cracks.
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