India, Dec. 21 -- The anguish expressed by a retired CAPF officer in his recent public intervention on suicides within India's Central Armed Police Forces is real and deeply human. Anyone who has commanded men in uniform understands the weight of losing a soldier to suicide. It is a failure that never leaves the commander, long after the uniform has been folded away. That pain deserves respect.

But respect for suffering does not absolve us of the responsibility to diagnose the problem correctly. When emotion substitutes for evidence, and institutional grievance is elevated into causal explanation, we risk pursuing solutions that are symbolically satisfying but operationally ineffective. The assertion that suicides in the CAPFs are primar...