How the recent incident in Andhra Pradesh shows the nature of parental pressure in India and the Western education system
On March 14, 2025, a horrifying incident in Andhra Pradesh shook the nation. A 37-year-old ONGC employee, V. Chandra Kishore, allegedly drowned his two sons—aged six and seven—because of their poor academic performance. After committing this unspeakable act, he took his own life. A suicide note recovered from the scene revealed his frustration and fear that his children would struggle in a highly competitive world if they did not excel in their studies. This tragedy highlights the harsh reality of parental pressure in India, where children are often seen as vessels for their parents’ unfulfilled dreams rather than individuals with their own potential and aspirations. Yet we never ask questions about parental abuse or student suicides in India. We pretend on living our lives like everything is fine the way it is.
Toxic Parenting: A Truth Many Deny
In India, unfortunately, people often see parental expectations as a sacred duty. Parents claim they want the best for their children, but often, that “best” is just a projection of their own lost dreams. And this is exactly what leads to toxic parenting, where they start burdening their kids with academic expectations from the early ages of 5-6, where children are still supposed to be playing, learning and exploring the world around them. In addition to this, even scoring 90% isn’t enough for many Indian parents. Yes, for many of them, even failing to achieve the top rank is considered failure. Why take the effort to judge kids by their creativity, intelligence, or problem-solving skills, when you can judge them based on the numbers printed on a mark sheet?
Why do so many parents behave this way? Because they have been brainwashed by the modern education system, which is nothing more than a rat race. Although we pretend not to see it, India is still leading the world when it comes to suicides- and the number one reason for this is academic expectations and parental pressure. Instead of nurturing talent, our “education” system forces students to conform to its standardized metrics of success. The result? An epidemic of student suicides in India and generations of children who grow up feeling inadequate due to the immense parental pressure in India, though they might have had immense potential in other fields.
Is the Education System the Real Culprit?
The Indian education system judges monkeys by their ability to swim, and fishes by their ability to climb trees. It ignores the fact that different students have different strengths. A child skilled in art, music, or sports is labeled “weak” because they don’t score well in math or science. It is always memorization that is rewarded. Why think outside the box when you can just cram whatever is being written in the textbooks, right?
Whether we like it or not, it is this attitude that is creating a vicious cycle where academic stress among Indian students have become unbearable. Children are constantly reminded that their self-worth is tied to grades, leading to mental health struggles and, in extreme cases, we see tragedies like the recent Andhra Pradesh incident. The obsession with marks over mental well-being has made education a system of punishment rather than learning.
The Gurukul System: A Better Alternative?
India wasn’t always like this. Before the British invaders introduced the modern education system (to create obedient slaves), India used to flourish under the Gurukul system, which focused on individual strengths rather than forced academics. Gurukuls didn’t churn out students with meaningless degrees—they identified what each student was good at and helped them hone their skills.
Instead of judging children on their ability to memorize textbooks, Gurukuls emphasized practical learning, wisdom, and intellectual sharpness. And due to this approach, we saw our nation produce some of the world’s best scholars, warriors, artists, and thinkers, not just corporate slaves stuck in a 9-to-5 grind.
Is Gurukul System Impractical in Today’s World?
Now some “critics” will start screaming about “going back to the past being impractical” but let us be clear: Reviving the Gurukul system doesn’t mean forcing kids to live in huts and ashrams. We can modernize this concept by creating an education system that values individual strengths rather than forcing students to compete in outdated, meaningless academic tests.
A modern Gurukul system can integrate technology, personalized learning, and skill-based education. Instead of judging every child based on marks, we can identify their talents early and nurture them based on that. The focus should be on helping students make their minds sharper and helping them learn to control it. Not feed the mind with meaningless information that will never be useful in their lives. In addition, every child doesn’t need to be an engineer, doctor or IAS/IPS officer—some are meant to be writers, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, or sports legends. Why force them into something they hate?
For those who are still opposed to the gurukul system of learning, because they find it “outdated”, they can go for homeschooling. Why spend lacs of rupees sending your child to an institution where they are going to be treated like a robot or a slave just to get a degree which won’t even be useful in the upcoming years?
It’s Time to Break the Cycle
The Andhra Pradesh tragedy is not an isolated event showing the extreme parental pressure in India—it’s a symptom of a much larger problem. Though it is obvious that parental pressure in India has reached toxic levels, two months back Abhay Singh aka IIT Baba had received a lot of harsh criticism for speaking about this.
Well, like it or not, we shall keep hearing stories like this until we stop glorifying academic success as the only measure of intelligence. The solution? Reform the education system, educate parents, and bring back real learning. Something which the government is not paying attention to, though the current government claims to be proud of its Indian heritage.
Merely showing outrage over a single incident is not going to help at all. India needs a system that celebrates talent, not just memorization. Only then can we prevent more lives from being lost in the name of “academic success.”
It’s time to stop this parental pressure in India and forcing children to live their parents’ dreams and let them create their own.
