A few years ago, Dalit mental health was introduced into the social consciousness of the country. A correlation seemed to be made between caste discrimination and deteriorating mental health of the Dalit Bahujan Adivasi and Vimukta (DBAV) communities. The understanding of the DBAV experience now had a mental health diagnosis, and the self-care vocabulary collided with a thousand-year-old oppressive system. 

A 2025 study — Caste, mental health and self-harm: Emotive experiences of Dalit students at the Indian University by Dhaneswar Bhoi [who is he, why are we quoting a study by him] — examined the mental health of 250 post-graduate students at a university in Odisha, as the number of Dalit students enrolling here appears to be higher than that of other private and government universities. The study found that nearly 80 per cent of the students expressed severe emotional and mental health challenges, and over 22 per cent experienced suicide attempts at home or on campus.