Indian Army Losing More soldiers In Suicides Than Enemy attacks: Study

Recently, a think tank had claimed in research that more than half of the soldiers in the army are under stress. The army says that the sample size is too small for research and this size needs to be increased for the real picture.

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The United Service Institute of India (USI), the think tank of the Ministry of Defense, had given many important information in a research recently. In his research, it was claimed that more than half of the Indian army consisting of 13 lakh soldiers are suffering from severe stress. The study said that the Indian Army is losing more soldiers every year due to suicide, horrific incidents and untoward incidents than enemy or terrorist attacks. 

Research claimed that in the two decades, the level of stress in the Indian Army has increased a lot. According to reports, from the year 2010 till now, 1100 personnel posted in different posts of the army have committed suicide. However, only after the research came to light, sources in the media reported that the army has not considered the study due to only a small sample of 400 soldiers, although it admitted that stress is an issue.

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The study is said to have been carried out by a serving colonel and published on the USI website last month, although it was removed from the website in the past. USI released this report after a year of research.

On Tuesday 12 January, Army Chief Manoj Mukund Naravane spoke about the last year in his annual press conference and also reacted to the issue of tension among the soldiers. He said that the last year was full of challenges. On the one hand, dealing with the Corona epidemic was a big challenge, on the other hand the situation that arose on the northern borders of the country.

On this research, the army chief has said that the sample size was quite low in the USI report on stress among the soldiers. He said, "There should be at least 19,000 sample size for 99 percent accuracy. We are constantly adopting measures to reduce stress in the jawans. There has been a decrease in cases of jawans committing suicide as compared to last year."

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The USI report said that stress without work is also very high. It was said in the report that stress is having an impact on the health of the soldiers as well as the combat capability.

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