The history of insanity is a burgeoning sub-field in the larger genre of the social history of medicine in colonial India. Sarah Pinto’s work on the asylums of Bombay presidency during the colonial period is a significant addition to the history of madness in India. The book locates the failure of the incarcerating institutions for the insane, causing, spreading, and originating from colonialism and its „epistemic violence.“ Pinto argues that „while violence and abuse within the asylum was a source of trauma to patients, the undermining of Indian worldviews, cultures and beliefs further added to their wounding.“ (p. 8) The mental hospitals in Bombay presidency along with other mental health institutions were symbols of colonial medicine and modernity. The insane hospitals were custodial in nature since their intended aims were to provide security and safety to „dangerous lunatics“ from harming themselves and others. Pinto investigates the nature of these institutions, the local responses and familial involvement in the lives of the so-called mad people.

The history of psychiatry in India is still at an infantile stage with only a few scholarly works focussed on the topic.1 The fragmentary nature of the records makes it an intimidating task to write histories of the „mad“ people, of disease and the institutions. Most of the files available in the archives are colonial reports written by the superintendent-in-charge of these respective asylums. These archival repositories are colonial in character, which means the records do not include any personal testimonies by the patients and their families. Discussing this lack, Pinto unpacks the problem in the existing archives by pointing to the often-ambiguous nature of the sources. One example of such ambiguousness is, according to her, that „in the asylum records ‘Caste’ features alongside the religious categories of Hindu, Muslim and Christians“ (p. 29). Another problem of the existing archives is the incompleteness of the records. As the files were supposed to be maintained in these institutions, they were not preserved elsewhere. In the institutions, however, many of these documents were burnt „due to the lack of space“ (p. 29), leaving only a fragmentary picture behind.

Pinto begins her investigation by looking at the local beliefs and traditional ideas regarding insanity. She argues that Indian communities relied on spiritual-somatic approaches. The colonial approach to confine the insane was alien to Indians. By contrast, the colonial officials denigrated the Indian belief systems and regarded them as sheer superstition. For instance, shamans, ojhas and fakirs were regarded as healers amongst Indians. In the eyes of the British Indian state, however, they were perceived as „eccentric“ or „weird“. More than this, fakirs were often confined in the asylums themselves since the British felt threatened with their mobile lifestyle. This clash of ideas along with mismanagement of the asylum system made these institutions extremely unpopular amongst Indians. Besides, asylums were very limited in scope and organisation. The disorganisation can be seen in the simple fact that the harmless insane were herded together with the „criminal“ lunatics. There was no scope of understanding, forget empathising with the Indian value system.

Another theme, taken up by Pinto, is the state’s attempted imposition of the capitalistic-individualistic approach of care and healing of Indians. This met, as she convincingly argues, with resistance and was vehemently opposed by Indians who thoroughly disliked any incarceration of their loved ones. More importantly, Pinto argues that the asylums were based on common sense treatment, a treatment that revolved around clothing, feeding and labour. The Indian asylums could not be compared to the mental hospitals in England which catered to the individual needs of the „inmates“. Labour in the Indian asylums formed a crucial part of the daily regimen of patients. As part of this labour, the task of preparing food was more or less done by the patients. However, the food’s distribution and consumption were strictly controlled by the authorities. Thus, although patients became involved through cooking, at the same time the former felt alienated behind the asylum walls due to their non-control over the food’s distribution. Lunatic asylums in colonial Bombay argues that „psychological limits“, such as isolating patients, imposed by the state led to a complete failure of the asylum system.

As Pinto also shows, asylums were the „dumping“ ground for dangerous and unamenable patients. While the state used them to incarcerate the unruly patients, for the patients’ families asylums were only their last resort. The families’ preferred methods of treatment were indigenous forms of healing. Asylums were „unpopular“, and stigma was widely attached to these institutions. Pinto argues that the perceptions about asylums hindered families to see these institutions as a suitable option for treatment.

Using the methodology of soundscape, Pinto also investigates „shouts“ and „shrieks“ of the patients in the asylum. She propounds that lunatic asylums were located outside the walled city because of the noises related to them. The asylums were not soundproof, partly as they lacked facilities like the padded room. Padded rooms were discussed variably in asylum reports, in which the „noisy“ Indian institutions were compared unfavourably to the „quiet“ and „civilized“ asylums in England. Not just in this case did the records, as Pinto shows, use all sorts of racist pejoratives and delineated the old story of „white-man’s burden“. The colonial state, for instance, inadvertently argued that Indians are used to noise and the violence surrounding it. Case records also included discussions on the patient’s ability to speak, as speaking coherently was regarded the marker of his or her sanity. Incoherence in speech was understood as a sign of madness. Pinto’s engaging with soundscapes enhances the methodological conceptual outlook of the book, although the author of this review feels she could have further developed her theoretical framework. The use of soundscapes enables the reader to vision and hear the records more lucidly. Unfortunately, the records are not really coherent and too scanty to give us an all-comprising picture of the soundscape(s) of asylum.

Nonetheless, the book has moved beyond asylum-centric histories. It examines the reasons behind the failure of asylum structures. It illustrates that not only the concept of incarceration was alien to „natives“, but also the implementation and management of these asylums in India was shoddy. The apathy of the „white“ medical staff towards both, the Indian insane and the lower-class Indian staff made asylums mere pagalkhanas („madhouse“) and mere „receptacles“ of the insane.

Overall, the book narrates the historical genesis of the lunatic asylums in the Bombay presidency. Through the focus on multiple historical actors, such as patients, the staff and the superintendent, it unravels the ways in which colonial institutions impacted the lives of ordinary people who were regarded as „abnormal“. It also shows the importance and effects of violence in the context of asylums which was emotional, perpetual and generic. This violence was deep-enough to perpetuate already existing soul wounds. In doing so, it partly caused the deep-rooted stigma and shame attached to mental illness in the postcolonial India.

Lunatic asylums in colonial Bombay is an interesting read which boldly takes up a charge of assessing „the socio-cultural, spiritual, psychological and physical“ (p. 191) impact of asylums on Indians and Indian society. Unfortunately, the book contains an unconscious glorification of eastern spiritual values. It is not to deny that Indians applied their own treatment methods when it came to insanity and its cure. The British attack on the Indian value system was a double-edged sword as it forced Indians to readjust to new realities called „modernity“ and „colonialism“. Indian perception about madness, however, would also need to be viewed critically since their kindness (sometimes though not always) turned into cruelty when Indians saw their burdensome relatives as bhoot (devil) and chudial (witch). Therefore, we need to be extremely careful in delineating contributions of eastern spirituality as well western modernity.

Note:
1 See for instance: Waltraud Ernst, Colonialism and transnational psychiatry. The development of an Indian Mental Hospital in British India, c. 1925–1940, London 2013; James Mill, The history of modern psychiatry in India, 1858–1947, in: History of Psychiatry 12 (2001), pp. 431–458; Shruti Kapila, Masculinity and Madness. Princely Personhood and Colonial Sciences of the Mind in Western India, 1871 – 1940, in: Past & Present 187/1 (2005), pp. 121–156; Debjani Das, Houses of Madness. Insanity and Asylums of Bengal in Nineteenth Century India, Delhi 2015.