At the second edition of the Mpowering Minds Women’s Mental Health Summit in Bengaluru, Neerja Birla, founder and chairperson of the Aditya Birla Education Trust, delivered a sharp and deeply reflective address, urging India to confront what she called one of the defining public health challenges of our time — women’s mental health.
The summit was inaugurated with the ceremonial lighting of the lamp by Lakshmi Hebbalkar, Karnataka’s Minister of Women and Child Development, Empowerment of Differently Abled and Senior Citizens, and Udupi district in-charge, alongside Birla. Dr Prathima Murthy, Director and Senior Professor at NIMHANS, joined them on stage, lending institutional weight to the conversation around strengthening India’s mental health ecosystem.
Opening her speech, Birla described the initiative as a “trusted space where voices come together, perspectives are challenged, and intent begins to translate into action.” Thanking the minister, Dr Murthy, moderators, experts, media partners, including THE WEEK, and the audience, she underscored the “collective responsibility to strengthen the mental health ecosystem in India.”
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To illustrate the invisibility of women’s emotional struggles, Birla painted a stark picture: a woman in a hospital room, holding her newborn for the first time. “Everywhere around her is focused on the baby… But no one pauses to ask, how is the mother doing? How is she feeling?” she said. “That absence sits at the heart of this story.”
Women’s mental health challenges, she argued, are often quiet and invisible. “It lives in the pauses, in the silences, in the strength women feel compelled to perform even when they are struggling.” Across India, she noted, women continue to show up for everyone else — as caregivers, professionals, daughters, partners and mothers — while their own mental health remains “unseen, untreated, and unheard.”
Citing data, Birla pointed out that women are nearly twice as likely as men to experience anxiety and depression. Women aged 15 to 34 account for over 63 per cent of female suicides in India.
One in five mothers experiences a perinatal mental health disorder, and 39 per cent of direct maternal deaths are linked to suicide. Among women aged 18 to 49, anxiety and depression remain the most common mental health conditions. Burnout among women has doubled in the years following the pandemic.
“These numbers ask for more than attention. They demand responsibility from systems, institutions and leadership,” she said, emphasising that behind every statistic is a woman navigating fear, exhaustion, guilt and isolation — often in silence.
Birla also highlighted structural gaps in workplaces. Citing leadership data from IMA and KPMG, she noted that 43 per cent of women have stepped back from roles due to work-life balance pressures and burnout; nearly 40 per cent cite caregiving and family responsibilities; and 70 per cent continue to face cultural bias and inclusion gaps. “Women do not lack capability. What they need are systems that do not cost them their well-being in order to lead,” she said.
The crisis, she added, begins early. Young girls face academic pressure and unrealistic expectations; young women navigate identity shifts, career uncertainty and financial stress; mothers shoulder layered responsibilities with limited recovery time; and women leaders often “carry visibility along silence.”
Despite the scale of the problem, 70 to 80 per cent of people in India who need mental health support never receive it.
India has approximately 0.75 psychiatrists per 100,000 people, and the economic impact of untreated mental health conditions is projected to cross $1 trillion by 2030. “Yet the deepest cost remains human,” Birla said, describing mothers disconnected from joy after childbirth, young women stepping away from education without explanation, and leaders performing confidently while struggling internally.
Marking 10 years of Mpower, Birla reflected on the organisation’s journey, “10 years of listening, learning and building.”
She said its work has been guided by three principles: acceptance, action and advocacy.
Acceptance, she explained, meant bringing mental health into everyday conversation and creating safe spaces without judgment. Over a decade, Mpower has reached 180 million people through awareness efforts and directly served over three million women and adolescent girls.
Action followed through structured interventions as over 4,00,000 counselling sessions, along with workshops and community programmes across schools, workplaces, hospitals and grassroots networks. “This is not theory. It is lived operational experience,” she said, stressing that most mental health conditions begin early in life and that women carry a disproportionate burden.
The next decade, she said, must be defined by advocacy, ensuring that dialogue translates into systemic solutions embedded within public institutions. “This summit is not just a platform for dialogue,” Birla said. “It is a call to act earlier, to speak sooner, and to support girls and women before silence turns into suffering.”
Neerja Birla addressed the gathering, saying that each role played by women is significant but are rarely recognised as someone who themselves need care. Their effort is taken for granted, and they carry this weight very often in silence.
Organised as a platform to amplify women’s voices and reshape the discourse around mental health in India, the summit brought together mental health professionals, policymakers, corporate leaders and advocates committed to addressing the silent crisis affecting millions of women across the country.
