A 31-year old female developed feelings of guilt and blame and has horrible nightmares. She saw her neighbours being attacked and she knew that her house would be next. So out of fear she ran to her backyard and climbed the tree and hid there. She heard her family members screaming. They brought her family out and burnt them alive. She witnessed the whole thing but couldn’t do anything. She blames herself for this. Every night she wakes up with the screams of her family. She can’t shut out the screams no matter how hard she tries.
A 41-year old man developed symptoms of feelings of despair, loss of self esteem and flashbacks. He had lost his ancestral fertile land and soon after that his father was killed. The subject, though young, had to travel a lot in search of jobs as he has two younger sisters and carried the responsibility of getting them married. He lost faith in his ability; he didn’t know how he could manage to get his sisters married. He had to work very hard to manage all these issues throughout his life. He had flashbacks of the past, his happy childhood and wished that it could come back. He didn’t want to move on.
Abrupt and sudden dislocation, loss of social rootedness and exposure to social unrest have all been identified as causes of trauma. It is now also widely accepted that such trauma can make people more susceptible to developing physical and mental health problems. There has been considerable documentation of the long-lasting effects of politically motivated violence, on both victims and perpetrators.
The partition of India in 1947 was accompanied by large-scale migrations, violence and the breakdown of established civic life in large parts of the region. While this can be seen as part of the general shifting of populations in the post-World War II reorganisation of ‘national boundaries’ in Europe, its effects on the newly decolonised regions in Asia and Africa were vastly different. These emerging states did not have the adequate administrative or medical infrastructure to cope with this unprecedented transmigration, especially since this was attended by horrific acts of violence, looting and sexual assault.
While the Holocaust, the disintegration of Yugoslavia and violence in Africa have been associated with high rates of trauma and disease, other events such as the reunification of Germany do not seem to have resulted in any major impact on mental health. There is, however, very little literature in the medical field on the impact of political violence on mental health parameters in the ‘developing’ countries of the Third World.
In the specific context of India, partition was accompanied by significant difficulties of both mental and general health.
There was widespread violence, the death of about half a million people (estimates vary widely), and significant physical and sexual assault, arson and looting as well as the destruction of property (Brass 2003). It was against this backdrop that the largest transmigration of people in human history took place, and it is estimated that upwards of 15 million were moved across the new borders in traumatic and tumultuous circumstances.
The available infrastructure to either control the violence, or support the migration and ‘resettlement’ of the refugees was woefully inadequate; the magnitude of the phenomenon had clearly been underestimated, and apparently ‘unexpected’. There is considerable documentation of the migration and translocation, as well as the acts of brutal and inhuman violence in which both major religious communities were equally victims and perpetrators.
The likelihood that this would cause psychological impact in the short and the long term seems obvious. Intriguingly, however, there is little documentation or exploration of this kind of psychological impact – something that seems strange for what was clearly a phenomenon of some magnitude.
Over the past decades, there has been increasing awareness of the ‘silence’ regarding this event, and awareness of its long-lasting psychological consequences has also grown.
In the absence of any public acknowledgement of the trauma, or an understanding of its reasons and how it can be addressed, most individuals and families have coped as best as they could. The absence of any discussions about these events, and their impact on health, has led to a spiral of silence, so that the impact of subsequent political violence on social parameters (including health services) or psychological health is also largely absent from the public gaze. The human cost of these is, thus, not understood, and no interventions are planned.
In recent times, however, we have seen a growing awareness of the ‘inter-generational transmission of trauma’. While most of the available literature on this focuses on victims of the Holocaust, it stands to reason that other traumatic experiences, like that of the violence linked to partition, would be just as likely to lead to such intergenerational transmission of trauma. There are important differences to note though: unlike the violence of the Holocaust, violence during partition was not restricted to a particular community or class. Both of the large subcontinental communities were perhaps equally victims and perpetrators in acts of brutality.
Adequate descriptions and first-person accounts of the events during partition are now publicly available. One might, therefore, ask: had psychiatric and counselling services been available at the time, would the nature of trauma and emotional distress have been recognised? While it is certainly important to consider what kinds of models of intervention would be considered, if they had been available, it is perhaps also appropriate to start conversations on how a larger awareness of these issues would have influenced subsequent historicity.
Apart from this, we also need to explore the frameworks that mental health professionals would use to assess the impact of political violence and communal conflict, specifically on the recognition, intervention and ‘understanding’ of the symptoms described by individuals.
Excerpted with permission from Partition: The Long Shadow, edited by Urvashi Butalia, Zubaan Books, Viking.
A 41-year old man developed symptoms of feelings of despair, loss of self esteem and flashbacks. He had lost his ancestral fertile land and soon after that his father was killed. The subject, though young, had to travel a lot in search of jobs as he has two younger sisters and carried the responsibility of getting them married. He lost faith in his ability; he didn’t know how he could manage to get his sisters married. He had to work very hard to manage all these issues throughout his life. He had flashbacks of the past, his happy childhood and wished that it could come back. He didn’t want to move on.
Abrupt and sudden dislocation, loss of social rootedness and exposure to social unrest have all been identified as causes of trauma. It is now also widely accepted that such trauma can make people more susceptible to developing physical and mental health problems. There has been considerable documentation of the long-lasting effects of politically motivated violence, on both victims and perpetrators.
The partition of India in 1947 was accompanied by large-scale migrations, violence and the breakdown of established civic life in large parts of the region. While this can be seen as part of the general shifting of populations in the post-World War II reorganisation of ‘national boundaries’ in Europe, its effects on the newly decolonised regions in Asia and Africa were vastly different. These emerging states did not have the adequate administrative or medical infrastructure to cope with this unprecedented transmigration, especially since this was attended by horrific acts of violence, looting and sexual assault.
While the Holocaust, the disintegration of Yugoslavia and violence in Africa have been associated with high rates of trauma and disease, other events such as the reunification of Germany do not seem to have resulted in any major impact on mental health. There is, however, very little literature in the medical field on the impact of political violence on mental health parameters in the ‘developing’ countries of the Third World.
In the specific context of India, partition was accompanied by significant difficulties of both mental and general health.
There was widespread violence, the death of about half a million people (estimates vary widely), and significant physical and sexual assault, arson and looting as well as the destruction of property (Brass 2003). It was against this backdrop that the largest transmigration of people in human history took place, and it is estimated that upwards of 15 million were moved across the new borders in traumatic and tumultuous circumstances.
The available infrastructure to either control the violence, or support the migration and ‘resettlement’ of the refugees was woefully inadequate; the magnitude of the phenomenon had clearly been underestimated, and apparently ‘unexpected’. There is considerable documentation of the migration and translocation, as well as the acts of brutal and inhuman violence in which both major religious communities were equally victims and perpetrators.
The likelihood that this would cause psychological impact in the short and the long term seems obvious. Intriguingly, however, there is little documentation or exploration of this kind of psychological impact – something that seems strange for what was clearly a phenomenon of some magnitude.
Over the past decades, there has been increasing awareness of the ‘silence’ regarding this event, and awareness of its long-lasting psychological consequences has also grown.
In the absence of any public acknowledgement of the trauma, or an understanding of its reasons and how it can be addressed, most individuals and families have coped as best as they could. The absence of any discussions about these events, and their impact on health, has led to a spiral of silence, so that the impact of subsequent political violence on social parameters (including health services) or psychological health is also largely absent from the public gaze. The human cost of these is, thus, not understood, and no interventions are planned.
In recent times, however, we have seen a growing awareness of the ‘inter-generational transmission of trauma’. While most of the available literature on this focuses on victims of the Holocaust, it stands to reason that other traumatic experiences, like that of the violence linked to partition, would be just as likely to lead to such intergenerational transmission of trauma. There are important differences to note though: unlike the violence of the Holocaust, violence during partition was not restricted to a particular community or class. Both of the large subcontinental communities were perhaps equally victims and perpetrators in acts of brutality.
Adequate descriptions and first-person accounts of the events during partition are now publicly available. One might, therefore, ask: had psychiatric and counselling services been available at the time, would the nature of trauma and emotional distress have been recognised? While it is certainly important to consider what kinds of models of intervention would be considered, if they had been available, it is perhaps also appropriate to start conversations on how a larger awareness of these issues would have influenced subsequent historicity.
Apart from this, we also need to explore the frameworks that mental health professionals would use to assess the impact of political violence and communal conflict, specifically on the recognition, intervention and ‘understanding’ of the symptoms described by individuals.
Excerpted with permission from Partition: The Long Shadow, edited by Urvashi Butalia, Zubaan Books, Viking.
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