The
Oral Histories Archive is a small, but growing collection
of people’s stories, testimonies, audio-visuals, personal narratives,
case papers, photographs, letters, movement newsletters, campaign
materials, audio-visual material and other arte-facts about emotional
well-being and ill-health. The Archive stands as evidence of our
profound experiences with mental well being, ill health and the
diversity of our experiences with the mental health service delivery
system in India.
Initially,
when we started talking to people about an oral history archive
of stories from persons subjected to psychological distress and
to inhuman, degrading treatments, we had to face many questions.
How can such persons share their stories? Will they remember anything?
Can they talk rationally? Oh, well, they are too dangerous to
talk to! Will their story be aesthetic enough? Etc.
The
marginalization of persons with a psychosocial disability from
the mainstream human rights movements and intellectual currents
was evident in such queries. There was also little recognition
of the fact that often our entire personhood has been robbed off
by many years of using brain damaging, health compromising, violent,
and harmful psychiatric treatments. The memories of those who
are surviving or have survived many “doses” of shock, with or
without anesthesia, has been damaged to such a degree, that telling
their story becomes difficult for them.
There
were also questions about the human rights of persons with a psycho-social
disability: Can “mentally ill” people have civil liberties or
fundamental freedoms? Will they use it responsibly? Should there
not be a guardian or a spokesperson? Etc. These questions came
from very reasonable and intelligent people, people who were themselves
highly effective social change agents and creators of culture
in our society.
Our
sisters and brothers inside lock ups, solitary cells and isolation
wards, tied or chained to their cots, have sordid stories to tell
about rights violations. Few of us, users and survivors of psychiatry,
have lived to tell the tale of lives lived inside custodial institutions,
and if we have survived, it has been at great cost to our creativity,
skills and abilities.
The Oral Histories Archive validates our belief that those labeled
with a “mental illness” have memories, histories, personal experiences
and a coherent story to tell. The Oral Histories Archive is home
to the collective memory of a set of persons otherwise erased
from cultural, social and political history.
Objectives of the Oral Histories Archive
| The
objectives of our Oral Histories Archive is multifold: |
| To
bring before the reading public, the lives and experiences of
persons who have been through a psycho-social disability, their
stories of healing and recovery |
| To
bring public visibility to the everyday violations of respect,
personal dignity and human rights of persons with psycho-social
disabilities |
| To
contest and counter the harmful forces of psychiatry on the
lives of users and survivors of psychiatry |
| To
foreground the many thoughts and actions that we take on our
own energies to help ourselves and people like us |
| To
inspire and inform our activism and our work on policy, legal
and human rights advocacy |
| To
mobilize users of psychiatric services and other mental health
care services in the local, regional and national context |
| To
give substance and life context to our community publications
on emotional well being |
| To
serve as testimony of the poor and degrading quality of care
experienced by users of the so-called modern institutions and
mental health services in India |
| To
provide a basis for the sustaining and life affirming quality
of traditional healing practices, such as possession and trancing |
We
will share this invaluable collection with the community through
our library and documentation center. We will also regularly publish
documents, reports and try to bring them out in the form of publications
and documentaries. We will mobilize user / survivor workshops
and sharing groups to take our activism forward.
An
invitation
We
invite you to be a contribute to our oral histories archive. Connect
with us and share your story with us. Let us together build our
solidarity as a strong user / survivor group, so that we can raise
our collective voice against the system using as many non-violent
tools as possible. Use our spaces (physical, philosophical and
psychological) for building your own resilience and resistance.
Contact:
Puja Modi
Center
for Advocacy in Mental Health
(a research centre of Bapu Trust)
Kapil Villa, Plot no. 9
Survey No. 50/4, Kondhwa Khurd
Pune-411048
Tel: 020-26837644/47
Email: wamhc@dataone.in; info@camhindia.org
