Dislocation and mental health

Literary fiction is strewn with stories of how trauma, dislocation, and displacement permeate into human consciousness, and often alter perceptions of self and identity. Whether it is the incomprehensible madness of Bhushan Singh, in Manto’s  Toba Tek Singh,  which has become something of a trope to underline the inarticulate aspects of the Partition; the permanent and numbing discontent in the novels of Khadija Mastur; or the questions of an oscillating self and belonging in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. 

In a first of its kind,  The Psychological Impact of the Partition of India,  published in 2018, finds its editors, psychiatrists Sanjeev Jain and Alok Sarin, and the contributors, attempting to recognise, and address the layers of an intangible trauma that followed this seminal dislocating event in the Indian subcontinent. It underlines the impact of displacement, communal violence, and the trust deficit on individuals across time and borders. The insights in the book draw from across disciplines and traverse the tragedy through multiple lenses, while attempting to explain the silence of psychiatrists, and mental health professionals, on the topic. 

The editors write, “As psychiatrists, we have been intrigued by the lack of discussion, historically, in the Indian mental health discourse, on the psychological scars and damages caused by the Partition of India and Pakistan. In Europe, in the aftermath of the Second World War and the Holocaust, the psychological impact was deliberated upon in great detail, and a consensus was achieved that it would ‘never again’ be allowed to happen.” It is possible that this neglect was the result of the enormous physical effort required to survive in relief camps at a time of a tectonic political transition.

The Psychological Impact of the Partition of India 

Author: Sanjeev Jain and Alok Sarin (Eds)

Publisher: Sage

Pages: 260

Price: Rs 850

 

Indeed, the editors discuss how after Partition, in 1949, the Indian psychiatric and neurological society was established, but the trauma of the Partition and its cultural consequences were never discussed. The authors raise questions about whether this trauma had trans-generational effects, and whether mental illness or insanity divest the individual of personal, collective, and national identity. They also question whether Partition unleashed an insanity which persists in day-to-day life, attitude and ideology, and whether political trauma and social distancing by forms of social oppression, contribute to psychological symptoms.

A chapter delves into the effect of Partition on planning and delivering health care. It expands on how the destruction of physical infrastructure of the hospitals, migration of the doctors, and assaults on patients had a semiotic value, and ripples from those consequences can still be seen. Another chapter analyses how “processes” lead people to build upon “subjective notions of differences.” While an interest in difference is natural to human beings, it is problematic when such thoughts are accorded scientific legitimacy by institutions. The author looks at different cases, including the rise of ethnic nationalism of Yugoslavia in the 1990s and conditions leading to 2003 genocide in Darfur among others, to expand.

One chapter explains how social and political differences represented in imperialism, colonialism, and in social constructs, find reflection in what constitutes psychological ill-health and disease. The construct of the “native (or other) mind” incapable of deep psychological or political thought, remains an unresolved problem for defining mental health. Another chapter analyses the metaphor of madness, and how historical trauma is experienced by perpetrators, victims, and bystanders, across borders and communities. It looks at different pieces of literature, along with Gandhi’s introspections on the futility of anger, to deal with violation, and hurt. 

The feminist perspectives are highlighted with a chapter on the recovery of abducted women, analysing how “rescue” was translated into forcible repatriation, and served a patriarchal ideology that holds national and community honour, to women’s bodies and control of their sexuality. A chapter on migration explains how ordinary people were categorised as “refugees” in their native lands, and needed to come to terms with not just the trauma of witnessing destruction and fleeing their homelands, but also enduring the humiliation of starting a new life. There are other chapters that highlight multiple associated themes, with very distinct insights into this period of Indian history.

What may be missing is a chapter on how the silence over the psychological impact, explicitly affected bilateral ties between the two countries. It would be interesting to analyse whether this absence has shaded the complex relationship, which has since its inception been defined by mistrust and resentment, across people and  political institutions. 

Attempting to understand Partition through a singular lens can sideline important individual and societal experiences, and their long-lasting consequences. For anyone wanting to expand their understanding of the history of South Asia, this book is a must read. The chapters on their own are each very different and may seem sudden in their shifts across styles and narrative themes. But they come together to explore how the psychological impact of Partition has been “engaged, addressed, or ignored”, across discourses. Migrant labour making the arduous journey to their home states would have faced traumas of dislocation too, and these too are likely to remain unaddressed.