The first of its kind, this book studies the psychological impact of Partition through medical and psychiatric perspectives.
The Partition of India was a partitioning of minds as much as it was a geographical division. But there has been little discussion in mental health discourse on the psychological scars it caused. This book examines the partitioning of human experience and its impact on social life and psychological health. The chapters track, through various approaches, the breakdown of civic life and society during the cataclysmic event, the collapse of medical services, the violence against citizens and the reflection of these events in writings of that era. The book draws attention to the urgent need for a humane understanding of persons with mental illness and psychological distress in the context of their lived history as much as their sociocultural identities and roots.
Jain, Sanjeev: - Sanjeev Jain did his graduate studies at the University of Delhi (Maulana Azad Medical College) and postgraduate studies at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore. He was a Commonwealth Fellow at the Cambridge University, UK, where in addition to learning research methods in genetics, he developed an interest in the history of psychiatry. He is a clinician and a teacher, researches the genetic correlates of psychiatric and neurological disease, and heads the molecular genetics laboratory at NIMHANS. He is also an adjunct faculty at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (part of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research), Bangalore. He has been involved in volunteer work with both governmental organisations and NGOs, and was a member of the committee for drafting the Mental Health Policy document for India. He has been researching the history of mental health services in India, from the colonial period to the contemporary times. This work has helped understand the interface between science and medicine, and social responses to mental illness in India.
Sarin, Alok: - Alok Sarin did his graduate and postgraduate studies at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, specialised in psychiatry and has been in active clinical practice for the last 25 years. He has been an active member of the Indian Psychiatric Society and has written and published widely; he too was a member of the committee that developed the Mental Health Policy for India. Apart from clinical practice, he has been particularly interested in areas of psycho-social rehabilitation and in involving the larger community in public discourses on mental health and disease. He is the Chairperson of the National Board of The Richmond Fellowship Society, a voluntary organisation working with chronic psychiatric illness, and has also been organising the acclaimed lecture series The Canvas Askew. He has been a Senior Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Teen Murti House, and was awarded the fellowship for research on the mental health aspects of communal conflict. He is an adjunct faculty at the
Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health. He has also been actively involved in researching the history of psychiatry in India, with a special interest in the history of the mental hospitals.
