00:07Hello and welcome to South Asia Monitor Youth Dialogue. My name is Adishri Seth and today we
00:14are joined by Dr. Sanjeev Jain, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental
00:20Health and Neuroscience, Nimhans, Bangalore. Dr. Jain's work spans psychiatry, the history of
00:26mental health services in India and the relationship between medicine, society and
00:31historical experience. He co-edited The Psychological Impact of the Partition of India
00:37with Dr. Alok Siren, an important interdisciplinary work that examines partitions beyond the familiar
00:44narrative of borders, displacement and political violence, bringing attention to its psychological
00:50consequences, the disruption of mental health services and the experiences of people often
00:56overlooked in conventional histories. In this conversation we aim to explore how societies
01:01live with the aftermath of historical violence, how memories of the past shape identities across
01:07generations and how these histories can continue to influence our understanding of South Asia today.
01:13Dr. Jain, thank you so much for joining us today. It's a pleasure to have you with us.
01:19So sir, we'll get straight into it. Your work brings together psychiatry, history and the psychological consequence
01:28of partition. So my question is what first drew you to this intersection and why did you turn your attention
01:35towards partition in particular?
01:39See, psychiatry is a very young discipline of medicine. It's only about 200 years old when the
01:46doctors started looking at mental illness and the causes of mental illness. And from the early 20th century onwards,
01:54actually right from the 19th century, there was this whole issue about how cultural and civilizational issues
02:02shaped the nature of psychiatry.
02:05And there was this, but when you come to events,
02:11cataclysmic events like the Civil War of America or the First World War or the Holocaust, there was huge
02:17writings in psychiatry on the consequences of these events,
02:22on the mental life of the citizens of those countries.
02:27Although we read about all this in textbooks, the big elephant in the room of the consequences
02:32of the partition was almost absent from our textbooks.
02:38And it wasn't theoretically or practically considered relevant.
02:43And this silence actually drew attention to this whole field.
02:49The second point was that, of course, you know, everybody knew, or many people,
02:56like at least people, read Southern Hassan Mantos,
03:00during their adult life growing up, et cetera, et cetera.
03:05And it was always seen as a satire on the
03:10random viciousness of the whole process of dividing the countries up.
03:15It was later, while researching on the history of mental illness itself, that we came upon this
03:21file notings in Mountbatten's diaries, assuring that the mental hospital would not be partitioned.
03:30And also the note later, two, three years later, saying that it was actually partitioned.
03:36So this whole process of tovah teksing was actually a bureaucratic reality.
03:42What we thought was a satire and a fancy, you know, literary invention turned out to be
03:49literally true.
03:50And that really surprised us.
03:52So then we started unraveling the knots backwards and forwards to see how this whole process had
03:59started and what were its impacts.
04:08I think because usually when we remember partition, it is through the borders and displacement.
04:14And when we see movies, we understand them and how the political violence takes place.
04:18But your work in particular, it also examines the consequences for mental health services
04:24and the institutions involved.
04:26So like, what does this perspective help us reveal about partition?
04:30that usually conventional political histories overlook.
04:35Right.
04:36So, you know, everybody talks about how the British colonial experience,
04:44exploitative and, you know, bureaucratic and racist as it may have been,
04:51also left us some institutions of statehood, like the railways, like the parliament,
04:59like the legal system, like the army, et cetera, et cetera.
05:03What people don't talk about is that they also left hospitals.
05:08Hospital as a concept was relatively new in India, completely new, actually, because
05:15a non-sectarian healing space where anybody and everybody could access was a novel idea in the Indian social,
05:24cultural milieu of the 17th and 18th centuries.
05:28And asylums grew up in that context, were established partly out of bureaucratic necessity, partly because of
05:36it was a thing to be done in the 19th century.
05:39And these hospitals were created.
05:41Now, these hospitals, so by the early 20th century, with all the middle class and all the industrial revolution,
05:50the doctor, the lawyer and the soldier were the indicators of a civic society.
05:57Their roles became the middle class.
06:01And destroying this middle class, therefore, is an easy way to make societies go back into the pre-modern era.
06:11So, during partition, what we also noticed is that there was a deliberate destruction of hospitals.
06:18There was a deliberate bombing of hospitals.
06:21There was a deliberate destruction of health services.
06:24Doctors were assassinated.
06:26People who were trying to help were harassed.
06:29So, this kind of destruction of the health system produces a degree of chaos and hopelessness,
06:38which is very, very…
06:39It hits at the heart of society, if you start destroying schools and hospitals and colleges.
06:48So, it was that deliberate destruction of the whole system that was upsetting.
06:55What was even more upsetting is that after independence, the only service that the government of India disallowed from the
07:02colonial period,
07:03unlike the police and the army and the tax and the intelligence bureau, was the Indian medical service.
07:13So, medical services were deliberately downgraded.
07:19And that was in independent India.
07:22So, the consequences of this whole transfer of power on health services has been quite a difficult thing to comprehend
07:33in our social history of independent India.
07:39I think this helps to tell the whole human consequence of political decision.
07:45It just highlights it because it is also…
07:49Partition is not confined particularly to the experiences of those who lived like through 1947.
07:57It's memory continues to surface in, I think, family histories and public life as well.
08:03Yes.
08:04So, I think this leads us to a very interesting, like, thing to think about.
08:09It has been more than seven…
08:11It's more than seven decades later.
08:13Partition continues to shape family histories and the idea for national identity.
08:19How do you think this…
08:20How does this memory of historical violence persist across generations,
08:24including those who did not even experience it themselves?
08:32See, there are many, many answers to this question in the sense that a lot of historical
08:42enmities all over the world guide politics even now.
08:46We are all familiar with the balkanization of Europe.
08:49Those events on which they talk about occurred 700 years ago and the defined nation states of Europe even now.
09:01Okay.
09:02So, the fact that we use and misuse history to create and divide the past and hope that those
09:11divisions can be carried on into the future is often a kind of political levers that can be used at
09:21many times.
09:22So, most of this is purely political grandstanding.
09:26The creation of the Aryan Medh, the creation of the larger German works and, you know, blah, blah, blah.
09:33So, all these are, in a sense, manipulative.
09:38Our interest as doctors, or rather my interest, is to look at the most marginalized, which is the…
09:45In any society, as we know, the weakest links make the chain stronger or weak.
09:52And the marginalized are the weakest.
09:54So, if you don't look after the weak, you can never have a strong state because they are the weakest.
10:02So, making sure that the weakest are looked after the best is a very important aspect of statehood.
10:10For example, in Bangalore, where I work, the site for Nimhans, the mental hospital of Mysore, was the most…
10:20…the highest point of Bangalore, the least illness prone, and was built as a spa, as a healing space for
10:29all the marginalized, the mentally ill, those with tuberculosis, the young offenders, young offenders jail, boys and girls.
10:36So, the most privileged part of the city was given to the most disadvantaged as an active principle of state
10:44policy by the Mysore government.
10:48So, it's all a question of how you treat and how you think of all these things.
10:53Now, as far as the histories are concerned, now, the social histories can be transmitted by these, you know, hereditary.
11:00In India, we are, you know, we are familiar with Bollywood, Khoon Ka Badla Khoon, and Khoon Bari Maang, and
11:06the idea that generations of enmity of one village over the other, these are folk stories.
11:16And we have somehow incorporated them into a valid governmental system, that these, that generation, that, and because we do
11:25not seem to believe that let not the sins of the fathers be visited on their sons, you know, which
11:33is a modern repudiation of that, we insist that the past will guide us.
11:38So, so, so these, these kinds of things get amplified, and people forget.
11:44Now, to address this very point, there was a political scientist in the University of El Abad called Beni Prasad,
11:51who wrote an article in 1942, or rather an entire book, saying that India remains the only culture, only society,
12:00where all religions and all people mix and create a new culture.
12:06And because in the last hundred years, with the impact of European ideas, and the Renaissance, and, you know, the
12:14rapid change of Indian society, a new society is actually forming, where people can quote Nishe and Iqbal, and, you
12:22know, the Mahabharat, and, you know, people like Satyanand can quote Shakuntala and the Mahabharat epics, while simultaneously translating German
12:31textbooks.
12:31So, a new society was being formed, and to, and to make it revert into Hindu-Muslim differences was very,
12:40very retrogressive, as far as Beni Prasad was concerned, and he was a professor at the University of El Abad.
12:46So, he, so he, so this kind of creation was very deliberate, and from his point of view, the acts
12:57of the, of the decade preceding independence, had been deliberate, and thought out, to maximize differences between people.
13:07Before that, before that, you get this emergence of a unified, you know, consciousness within India, starting from 1857, where
13:18the soldiers of all religions and all groups fought together.
13:23So, from that time, that had persisted till the 1930s, as you can see in art, and cinema, and all
13:30the, you know, and all the cultural output of India, in that period.
13:35But, in, around the First World War, or just before that, these sharper lines began to be drawn, as they
13:42were scheduled to leave.
13:44And these last minute carving up of India, was, as much a political maneuver, as a social, you know, process.
13:58That's, that's my understanding of the events of the hospitals, and what happened.
14:03Because these things are very guided.
14:05People don't throw bombs at hospitals randomly.
14:10So, I think, it helps us raise another important question, because it is about how, not just how, societies remember
14:19the past, but what happens when the past is, is repeatedly revisited.
14:25So, Professor, my, another question is, when we remember partition, there are many ways we remember it too.
14:33Like, how can, how can, how do you think, revisiting these traumatic histories, do they help societies confront their past?
14:41Or, is it, like, when we repeat these retelling, does it risk reinforcing some inherited grievances and divisions, or rather
14:51than encouraging reflection?
14:52Because, I think, I think it will be interesting to hear your take on this.
14:58So, see, like everything, the mirrors of the past reflect yourself.
15:04You can see exactly what you want in a mirror.
15:08Right.
15:09That's, that's the reality of it.
15:11Okay.
15:11So, the, the issue is that, that discussing it dispassionately, or over and over again.
15:20Right.
15:20So, and coming to terms with it, what in psychotherapy terms you call working through, is necessary.
15:27You know, like what, what the Europeans did with the memory of the Holocaust, to some extent.
15:34So, at least within the European confines, it was, a reasonable consensus was achieved that this is not,
15:45that the kind of things that happened in the middle of the 20th century, were not a good thing.
15:51Now, whether this could be universal, is a very different issue.
15:56Whether it should be confined, this is not a good thing, is to be confined only to Europe, and the
16:01rest of the world,
16:01we can do exactly the same things as we did in Europe, is a separate thing.
16:06But, at least within Europe, it was considered a bad idea.
16:10Now, whether the rest of the world thought the same, or they wanted to develop their own ideas about it,
16:16is a matter we are living through.
16:20You know, people from Africa to Asia to South America, these lines continue to be drawn.
16:27A colleague of mine, who pointed out, that the partitioning of mental hospitals, was not just India.
16:35It started from Cyprus, it went on in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Israel, in Singapore, in Vietnam.
16:44So, these efforts to, and this is where, and this is after the Second World War,
16:52because during the Second World War, many of, most of these patients had actually been killed.
16:57Physically killed.
17:00So, using these mentally ill patients as pawns, or as symbols,
17:05has unfortunately been a feature of the 20th century.
17:08Now, when we talk about memorializing these events,
17:14you know, it's very important to remember that
17:17we all remember the victims,
17:21but we don't seem to acknowledge the perpetrators.
17:29Again, as a contrast, in Europe, the Nuremberg Trials occurred,
17:33and there was formal judgments, and there were things that happened.
17:38At the other end of the world, in South Africa, there's the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
17:42which formally acknowledged the responsibilities of the perpetrators.
17:48In the Indian Partition, we have millions of victims,
17:51but we don't have a single known perpetrator.
17:55So, remembering can occur only when it is fair, and accountable, and transparent.
18:01Otherwise, it becomes accusations,
18:05which is not very helpful.
18:08I think it is very important for dialogue as well.
18:12Yes.
18:12A formal apology written or spoken for whatever reason it is.
18:16Whatever reason.
18:17Whatever reason.
18:18Yeah.
18:19A regret, even not an apology, at least a regret.
18:23Yes.
18:24Right.
18:25So, sir, like, one of the ways these histories continue to be revisited
18:29is through cultural representation as well.
18:32And I think especially cinema, because it can bring the past to audiences
18:37who may have not experienced these directly.
18:42So, for example, there are films about partitions that are being made till today,
18:48including as recent as My Wapus Haunga that was released this year.
18:52Right.
18:53So, why do you think this is?
18:55Like, what role can cinema play in shaping how younger generations understand this history?
19:01And do you think it can challenge these familiar narratives?
19:04Or does it just similarly sometimes reproduce it?
19:11See, films are myth-making instruments.
19:14One must realize that.
19:16And myths are nothing but stories.
19:18No.
19:19Okay.
19:19Now, to give a slightly more detailed answer to it,
19:26the Indian storytelling traditions of the epics and the Greek epics
19:33and all the Rustam Sohrab and the Persian stories and the Arab stories
19:37once formed the universe of its own.
19:40So, from Spain to, let's say, Thailand,
19:45you could talk about the same stories of sailors and abandoned sailors
19:49and kings and flying sorcerers.
19:52And you would be able to tell the story anywhere.
19:55Right from Thailand or Indonesia right up to Spain.
20:00Indian movies.
20:01I mean, cinema was invented in, what, 1896 or something, whatever,
20:07late 19th century.
20:08And by 1920, we know, Indian movies were being made.
20:14And they were popular in this entire region.
20:18Up north all the way to Uzbekistan to, you know.
20:22So, this was a shared storytelling space of Rustam Sohrahabs
20:25and the Sinbad the Sailor and Alibaba and, you know, Ramayana
20:30and Mahabharata and Shakespeare.
20:32The first movies on Shakespeare were made in India, not in England.
20:37The first ever filming of Shakespeare was done in India.
20:42So, this was a shared cultural space.
20:44And what happens now is that to remember that space,
20:49you need to, then you get this divisioning of all these stories.
20:54And these stories start getting, become intensely local.
20:58And in that localization, you lose the wider picture.
21:01So, you don't realize that a lot of Hindi movies are remakes of Romeo and Juliet.
21:08Literally and metaphorically.
21:12But these kinds of revenge dramas of the partition or contrition or regret
21:18are also going back to the same old things of political or reflecting political events.
21:26You know, if you look at the Mahabharata in more detail,
21:30then ultimately the rapprochement between the clans is the ultimate end.
21:36Despite all the things, ultimately the clans have to come together
21:41for mankind to go ahead.
21:43Okay.
21:46So, these epics and the way that we construct these have become linked.
21:53So, at this point in time, because we live in this hyper-reality of, you know,
21:59re-imagining myths and memories,
22:02we keep trying to pick on themes which we think resonate now.
22:07At this point in time.
22:08So, in the 50s, it was loss.
22:11It was a tragedy of a lifestyle lost.
22:13You know, movies like Dharamputra and Vakht were regretful of the possibilities
22:21that had existed in that era.
22:24All the writers and the producers of that time,
22:28the big production centers were Calcutta and Lahore.
22:33Both places were partitioned.
22:36Both cities were partitioned.
22:38These partitioned people came to Bombay,
22:42where they met the musicians who were trained in the Second World War,
22:45American and British jazz bands.
22:48They created this whole mixture of cosmopolitan India,
22:53which is what we live in now.
23:01So, in many ways, what you could not discuss directly,
23:05you addressed in metaphor,
23:06but the story themes remain much the same.
23:10So, even the specific events of the partition,
23:14you know, whether it is Garam Hava,
23:17so the movies differ only in how real they are.
23:23And because we like realistic movies now,
23:25we appreciate the realism of the current cinema.
23:30But even the hyperbole of the 40s and the 50s is a bit over the top,
23:36but they are dealing with the same themes in the theatrical styles of that time.
23:40So, I don't think the partition has ever gone away from the cinematic and the literary gaze.
23:46It's just that our capacity to interpret it has changed over time.
23:55I think, I think, since you've highlighted things that I think one might not understand in a very conventional way,
24:05right?
24:05So, thank you, Professor, for that insightful answer.
24:11Since we're also running short on time and we have a few minutes left,
24:16I'll just ask you a quick question.
24:18What might a deeper understanding of the psychological consequences of events like partition help us see differently about the region
24:27today,
24:27especially a region like South Asia?
24:30See, the whole field of psychology and psychiatry got introduced into India formally only in the 1950s.
24:38Okay?
24:39So, the idea under the British rule was that Indians actually don't have a mind.
24:46There is no internal space of an Indian.
24:48They are members of a tribe or a caste and they think like their tribe or caste.
24:53They're representatives of a communitarian thinking.
24:56The idea of an individual psychology of an individual person who's independently making rational decisions was not possible under colonial
25:05rule
25:05because the colonized people don't have a psyche, full stop, whether it's Africa or Russia.
25:12We don't have a psyche.
25:14So, to invent a psyche for ourselves, we have to really understand our reality ourselves.
25:20We have to understand the iniquities of society.
25:23We have to understand the imbalances in society, the patriarchy, the gender, the caste, the religious, the economic disparities and
25:32build a psyche which is relevant to our understanding of modern India.
25:37We can adapt it from Freud or Skinner or Watson or Jung or Carl Rogers, but we really have to
25:45work with the base material of our work, of our clinical work, of our social, you know, what we see
25:54in the media and the social life of people around us.
25:58Now, that's where the problem comes in because you find that even those are now superficially westernized.
26:09They do not incorporate the fundamental philosophical standings of western ideas of individualism and reason and doubt and rationality, but
26:20they are happy with the surface of it using cell phones and using, you know, chat GPT.
26:27Without understanding the physics or the physics or the deep philosophical convictions by which those people are doing what they
26:35are doing.
26:36So, you are at a loss.
26:38So, you are becoming colonized in your minds all over again.
26:42And that is something that you need to understand with these partitions.
26:46That if you are not careful, you can be partitioned all over again.
26:50And this time they won't need to partition the lands.
26:53They can only partition the minds.
26:56And that is even more dangerous than partitioning of lands.
27:01Thank you so much, Dr. Jain, for sharing so many wonderful insights with us.
27:06I think this conversation has offered us a way to think about partition beyond the drawing of borders
27:11and to consider the psychological institution and the social consequences, how they continue to shape, how we understand the past.
27:20And we can relate to one another more in the present.
27:24And I think by connecting this psychological experience with historical memory and culture,
27:30it can contribute to a broader understanding of the region, enduring division and possibility for dialogue.
27:37So, thank you once again for joining us on South Asia Monaco.
27:41And thank you for taking our time.
27:43And thank you to everyone listening.
27:45Thank you so much.
27:46Bye-bye.
