JEE Broke Me: The Dark Side of India’s Coaching Culture”
Musaib Bilal
SUBHEADLINE: How the relentless pressure of competitive exams is pushing students to the brink—and why we need to talk about it.
Ahmad’s Story: Dreams Crushed Under the Weight of JEE
Today I want to tell a story of an everyday guy from India let’s call him Ahmad, Ahmad was just 17 when he enrolled at Hikers Coaching Institute in Srinagar, dreaming of cracking the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and securing a seat at an IIT. But within months, his enthusiasm turned into dread.
“Every day felt like a battle I was losing,” he recalls. “The teachers said sleep was for the weak. My parents compared me to cousins who ‘made it.’ And no matter how much I studied, I never felt good enough.”
Ahmad’s story, is not unique. It exposes the brutal reality of India’s JEE coaching industry—where profit trumps pedagogy, and students pay the price with their mental health.
The Coaching Trap: Factories of Stress, Not Success
Coaching centers like Hikers and Shining Star (fictional) promise “guaranteed ranks” but operate like high-pressure assembly lines:
- Grueling Schedules: Students are pushed to study 18-20 hours a day, surviving on 3-4 hours of sleep. One teacher famously told Ahmad’s class:
“You have to only sleep for three to four hours. The rest is for JEE.”
- False Promises: Screening tests are often just formalities to fill seats. Ahmad scored 60/360 in his entrance test—yet was declared “passed” and pressured to pay fees immediately.
- Emotional Blackmail: When Ahmad considered quitting Shining Star, the owner guilt-tripped him:
“We treated you like our child. Is this how you repay us?”
Society’s Role: “If You Don’t Crack JEE, You’re a Failure”
The pressure doesn’t just come from institutes. Families and society reinforce the idea that JEE is the only path to success.
- Relatives’ Taunts: At a family gathering, Ahmad’s uncle dismissed his aspirations outright:
“He’s got no chance at a good college.”
- Parental Pressure: His mother fretted over “what people will say” if he failed, while his father dismissed his struggles, calling him a “brat” for wanting rest.
- The Topper Curse: Even after scoring in the top 5% in his board exams, Ahmad felt worthless—because in the JEE world, “only 100% matters.”
The Mental Health Toll: Anxiety, Burnout, and a Late ADHD Diagnosis
Ahmad’s breaking point came when he realized he couldn’t focus, no matter how hard he tried.
- Panic Attacks: Before mock tests, his hands would shake uncontrollably. He’d stare at physics problems for hours, unable to solve them.
- Undiagnosed ADHD: Years of being called “lazy” or “distracted” finally made sense when a therapist diagnosed him with ADHD—a condition his teachers and family had ignored.
- Suicidal Thoughts: In his lowest moments, he wrote in his journal:
“I promised myself I wouldn’t end my life… but I didn’t know how much longer I could take this.”
The Bigger Picture: Why This System is Failing Our Students
Ahmad’s story is a microcosm of a systemic issue:
- Coaching Institutes ≠ Education: They’re businesses, selling dreams while exploiting insecurities.
- Society’s Narrow Definition of Success: Engineering or bust—ignoring passions, creativity, and mental well-being.
- No Safety Nets: Students crumble under pressure because nobody teaches them how to cope.
The Way Forward: What Needs to Change?
- Regulate Coaching Centers: Cap study hours, mandate mental health support.
- Parental Awareness: Success isn’t just a rank. Let kids breathe.
- Normalize Alternatives: Not every brilliant mind belongs in IIT. Careers in arts, writing, and entrepreneurship matter too.
As Ahmad puts it:
“I thought JEE would decide my future. Instead, it almost destroyed me. We need to stop treating this exam like a life-or-death battle.”
The JEE grind isn’t just about studying hard—it’s about surviving a system that often values ranks over well-being. How many more students like Ahmad will break before we change it?
Why This Matters:
This isn’t just Ahmad’s story. It’s the story of lakhs of Indian students trapped in the same cycle. It’s time to rethink what “success” really means.
2025 Tragedies: The System Still Fails
Despite years of discourse around the flaws in the JEE ecosystem, 2025 proved that little has changed—and if anything, the situation has worsened. A series of heartbreaking events, including falsified results and multiple student suicides, exposed the system’s continued failure to protect those it claims to serve.
- The False Result Scandal:
- Suicide Spike:
- The Kashmir Case: Faisal Bashir’s Death:
Among the most heartbreaking incidents was that of 19-year-old Faisal Bashir from Gunipora, Kupwara, Kashmir. On April 19, 2025, just a day after the JEE results were announced, Faisal was found dead in his rented room in Dudwana. He had been under significant academic pressure leading up to the examination. Local residents remembered Faisal as a bright and respectful student. His death has sparked widespread concern about the mental health impact of academic pressures in Kashmir. - Institutional Apathy:
Even in the wake of such events, many coaching institutes continued with business-as-usual strategies—focusing on “damage control” PR campaigns rather than genuine reform. Instead of acknowledging their role in the burnout culture, they doubled down on aggressive marketing. Parents were handed new flyers, teachers held pep talks, and students were reminded that “only the weak quit.”
These 2025 incidents reinforce that the JEE system—backed by profit-hungry institutes and societal obsession—remains a deeply harmful machine. It continues to churn out numbers while crushing dreams, sanity, and even lives.
