Alok Sarin

• MD Psychiatry
• Consultant at Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Science and Research

Abstract In this debate the focus is on suicide which is a complex maze, wherein multiple parameters intersect. The first part of the paper questions many basic premises which have been taken as given in the discourse of suicide and currently form the substrate of conversations around suicide. The basic premise is that this societal problem has bee...

Examines psychiatric epidemiology's unique evolution, conceptually and socially, within and between diverse regions and cultures, underscoring its growing influence on the biopolitics of nations and worldwide health campaigns.

In this debate the focus is on suicide which is a complex maze, wherein multiple parameters intersect. The first part of the paper questions many basic premises which have been taken as given in the discourse of suicide and currently form the substrate of conversations around suicide. The basic premise is that this societal problem has been expropr...

Amidst the plethora of publications on the pandemic, this piece attempts to look at the social aspects of the pandemic and the multiple responses to it.

Any epidemic of infectious disease such as the present one that we are witnessing puts a strain on both the individual and the community. The very basis of physical and emotional health, dependent as it is on the body and social networks, is threatened. Existing inequalities in society get accentuated, and systemic responses that provide succour to...

Mental health experts, social scientists and academics from across the world look at mental health aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic, exploring health, humanitarian and existential concerns.

A walk down the lanes of the history of Bangalore. The physician, Ronald Ross, who later won the Nobel Prize for his work on malaria, while posted to Bangalore, drew attention to the appalling sanitary conditions.

How we treat our ‘lunatics’ says a lot about who we are as a society. Psychiatrists Alok Sarin and Sanjeev Jain recall Delhi’s asylum, first sacked during the 1857 rebellion.

A review of the book Happyness: Life Lessons from a Creative Addict

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 parti...

This column interrogates the recent Supreme Court judgement on passive euthanasia.

An exploration of the issues of consent and of sexual boundary violations in the context of the doctor-patient relationship.

Specialists in psychiatry, in the Indian sub-continent, were trained in the UK in the early 20th century. Just before Independence, an Indian branch of the Royal Medical Psychological Association was established. Many issues of contemporary concern were discussed, as also plans for the further development of psychiatry in the region. Soon after the...

Prior to the advent of the Wasserman Test as a diagnostic tool for Syphilis, the identification rate for Syphilis at the Mysore Government Mental Hospital in Southern India was 1%. With the introduction of the test, there was a dramatic increase in the diagnosis of Syphilis, with 17% of the patients testing positive. This paper throws light on the...

The history of the mental hospital in Delhi is a fascinating story. Set up in colonial times, the asylum in Delhi seems to reflect the tumultuous and chaotic history of the city itself. It was perhaps established in the early 19th century, and functions till 1857, when it is ransacked in the Mutiny. It is subsequently merged with the asylum at Laho...

A commentary on a recent paper on the ethics of the limb lengthening procedure.

Excessive use of the internet for gambling, gaming and behavioural addiction, are a focus of contemporary interest. The authors delve into the archives to explore the connections between the growth of various forms of technology, commerce, addictive behaviours and responses of the State, in colonial India. The interplay between the growth of the te...

The creation of mental health services is desirable, but is the law the best way to effect this?

The authors provide an overview of the development of psychiatric services in India. They track the early developments in ancient and medieval periods, and after Western medicine made its appearance. Lunatic Asylums were established in India by the East India Company, and extended to various parts of the country, under British rule. The spread of m...

In the year 2012, the Government of India, through the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, set up a group to write a mental health policy for the country. This was in itself a commendable step because in the six decades since Independence, this was the first time that it had sought to articulate a formal mental health policy. Health service plan...

Not just clinical models, values and approaches in healthcare also need to be scaled up, say mental health experts.

The backdrop of the Indian Independence offers glimpses of many 'metaphors of madness'. In this article, we explore this through a few instances, starting from 1857, around the time of the First War of Independence, to 1947, when India became an independent nation. Such metaphors have their parallels both in historical as well as in contemporary ti...

As discussions around the Mental Health Care Bill 2013 gain pace, one aspect of the bill, which is the Advance Directive, has perhaps not been discussed enough. The present essay is an attempt to explore different aspects of the advance directive in psychiatry, to understand the implications better. The article attempts to look at the conceptualiza...

SynTalk thinks about insanity, madness, and mental illness, & its links with questions of medicine, physiology, freedom, control, knowledge and power.

and politics are often entwined, and one is tempted to draw lessons about both from history. The various issues linked to the maladies of George III, most probably a bipolar disorder, have been discussed extensively over the years, [3] and featured in fiction, theatre, and movies. The King had developed his first major episode in 1789, but recovere...

The article documents medical approaches to mental illness in mid- to late-nineteenth-century India through examining the Indian Medical Gazette and other medical accounts. By the late nineteenth century, psychiatry in Europe moved from discussions around asylum-based care to a nuanced and informed debate about the nature of mental symptoms. This i...

An exploration of the correlation between mental health issues and communal violence set in the backdrop of the partition of India.

An excerpt from the autobiography of Owen Berkeley-Hill, the superintendent of the European Mental Hospital in Ranchi, India.

A new section in the journal on archival research, and the learnings that it offers for the modern day.

The judgment delivered last week by the Supreme Court of India, upholding the constitutionality of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), overturns a judgment by the Delhi High Court in 2009 that decriminalised sexual activity between two consenting adults. This judgment has unleashed a veritable firestorm of protest in the public space. There...

With the completion of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, an appraisal of the mental health initiative in the space of state-sponsored health delivery seems appropriate and timely. Discourses in health delivery usually tend to implement similar sets of tools. This article argues that to achieve some form of clarity it may be appropriate to look at health...

Purpose: The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) is a tool of the World Health Organization (WHO) designed to be a guide to identify and classify relevant domains of human experience affected by health conditions. The purpose of this article is to describe the process for the development of two Core Sets for bip...

The Bhore Committee constituted by the colonial government in 1943 to address the needs of healthcare in India was assisted a year later by a group of international advisers. These advisers, coming from an eclectic and divergent background, shared the view that universal and free access to medical care was imperative and that this was an essential...

A snapshot from the history of a Colonial mental hospital in India, and its remarkable medical superintendent.

Given the review, we understand that what is called covert medication is actually not uncommon in India, and that this takes place in a multitude of settings. We also accept that usually, hopefully, it happens with good intentions, and, at least in some cases, results in benefit. There, however, remains an equal amount of anecdotal material where t...

A letter to the editor describing the 'partitioning' of Lahore mental hospital.

A response to Kala's article on covert medication. This discusses the issue of covert medication from points of view of autonomy, insight, legality, liability and good practice.

The advance directive is a statement of an individual's preference for future treatment. The concept initially evolved in the context of end-of-life treatment decision making. Subsequently, in some countries, advance directives have been promoted in the care and treatment of people with serious mental disorders. They have recently been endorsed by...

CONTEXT/BACKGROUND: Epidemiological data have long been considered essential for documenting incidence of disability and planning services. India has been conducting census operations for a long time, and this information may be relevant in the current context. To document the prevalence of insanity, and discussions about treatment and disability a...

Aripiprazole is a new anti psychotic with a unique receptor binding profile that combines partial agonistic activity at D2 receptor and 5-HT 1A receptor and potent antagonism at 5-HT 2A receptor. This receptor profile makes it possible for it to act as a dopamine system stabilizer. Based on various short term and long term studies, aripiprazole has...