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A
Report
Photo
Exhibition and Symposium
On Traditional Healing Practices And Mental Health
Details
of the Programme:
Bapu
Trust had organized a three daylong photo exhibition cum
symposium on the topic of traditional healing practices and
its relevance for mental health, on the 13th, 14th and 15th
January 2006. The event took place at Balgandharva Kaladalan,
Pune.
The
exhibition was inaugurated on 13th January, by noted psychiatrist
and film personality, Dr. Mohan Agashe. This was followed
by a daylong symposium, in which four speakers presented
their views and perspectives on various aspects of traditional
healing practices. The day ended with the screening of
a documentary film directed by Nilita Vachani, titled, ‘Eyes
of Stone’. No other programme was organized on the 14th
and 15th January, except for the photo exhibition.
The
photo exhibition consisted of photographs taken across
three religious healing sites in Western Maharashtra viz.
Balumama Devasthana, Admapur, Sailani Baba Durgah, Sailani,
Buldhana and Chakrapani temple, Phaltan. Some photographs
from the traditional festivals of Adiperukku, Taipoosam
and Adithiruvizah in Tamil Nadu were also included. In
all, 43 colour and black/white photographs were exhibited,
with accompanying scripts in English and Marathi, in order
to give the audience a context for viewing the photographs.
The
event had received considerable publicity throughout the
local English and Marathi dailies, in the form of write-ups
and articles on the upcoming event.
Objective
of the event:
We have been engaged in
research on traditional healing practices and its relevance
for mental health, in the area of western Maharashtra, since
October 2003. This exhibition was an attempt to reach
out to the larger community with our perspective, as also
to generate a discussion on traditional healing practices
from a subaltern point of view. We took a community perspective
in this debate, and tried to present why people are flocking
to such centers, while the elitist discourses have derided
them as backward, regressive practices.
Opinions
and popular perceptions about traditional healing range
from curiosity to fear to even anger. Such practices are
also branded as superstition, blind faith and violative
of human rights. Very recently the Maharashtra State Government
passed the ‘Anti-Superstition Bill’ to curb the exploitation
that happens due to these practices. Some years back, the
Supreme Court also came up with judgments which will bring
more surveillance of traditional healing centers. In some
parts of India, notably Tamil Nadu, this vigilance has
led to the closure of such centers, and creation of more
mental hospitals. Therefore, this exhibition had good contemporary
policy relevance in the mental health sector.
The
exhibition, the presentations in the day long symposium
and the documentary film, all three underlined the fact
that traditional healing practices needed to be viewed
in their larger socio-cultural, community context and in
the context of the benefits that communities derived from
them. Our contention that traditional healing practices
could be therapeutic from a mental health point of view,
and may be giving people something more than just symptom
relief, was a significant departure from the popular understandings
of these practices.
The
photographs were grouped on the basis of specific themes
pertaining to the role of faith in the context of health,
significance of ritual performance, strengthening of community
feelings, the celebratory aspects of healing cults, healing
rituals of trance and spirit mediumship. These themes were
elaborated upon in the accompanying scripts.
Report
on the symposium:
The exhibition was inaugurated by Dr. Mohan Agashe. In his
inaugural address, he touched upon several issues pertaining
to traditional healing practices and mental health. Admitting
that mental health care today has a biological bias, he emphasized
the need to adopt a multidisciplinary approach in the context
of mental health care. He elaborated upon the importance
of faith in the process of healing, be it in the context
of traditional healing or modern medical treatment. That
this faith could also be abused or exploited in both the
systems was, according to Dr. Agashe, a matter of concern.
He ended by stressing upon the need to study the relevance
of traditional healing practices in current times.
After
this, Bhargavi Davar, managing trustee of Bapu Trust and
the project director on the research project on traditional
healing practices, briefly presented the larger perspective
that informed this research study as well as the exhibition.
She clarified in the beginning that this exhibition was
not trying to make any argument in favour of the existence
of
‘God’ or a supernatural power; rather the idea was to examine
the role that spirituality plays in our mental well being.
The modern world, according to her, limits human experience
to only a part of human consciousness, i.e. the rational,
logical, cognitive part. The ability to access the entire
range of experiences, intuitions, self awareness and other
faculties offered by human consciousness, is accorded by
many traditional healing practices like trance. The area
of alternative stream of consciousness, the role of the limbic
system of the brain in maintaining emotional well being,
the role of alternative healing techniques (such as drums)
are all emphasized by traditional healing practices. Modern
neuro-scientific studies show the benefits of practices such
as shamanistic trance, meditation, and possession. These
could hence have important consequences for mental well being
of the persons engaged in these activities.
 Mr
V. Karthik, who photographed all the photographs exhibited
here, spoke about his personal experience of capturing
some extremely intense moments at the healing centers.
According to him, those undergoing suffering are automatically
drawn towards such centers because of their faith. He also
mentioned that this work was a part of a personal spiritual
journey for his own self.
This
was followed by presentations by speakers on various aspects
of traditional healing.
The
first presentation was made by Deepra Dandekar and Madhura
Lohokare from Bapu Trust, research team members on the
project on traditional healing. This presentation focused
on the therapeutic benefits derived from ritual performance
in traditional healing practices, from a mental health
perspective. It was based upon the existent research literature
in this area as well as preliminary observations from fieldwork.
Besides this, the issues of human rights violations within
traditional healing practices and their intersection with “superstitions” were
also looked at. The presentation ended by elaborating upon
the dilemmas faced while advocating this position on traditional
healing, especially in the context of caste, class and
gender hierarchies being consolidated in these practices.
Dr.
Anil Saraf, from BAIF, Pune, was the second speaker. Dr.
Saraf has been working in the area of health, especially
with the traditional healers’ community in Gujarat. They
have done extensive documentation of about 700 traditional
healers to study their practices. According to Dr. Saraf,
traditional healing practices cover a wide spectrum of
practitioners, including those who heal only on the basis
of faith and those who dispense medicinal herbs and jadi-booti.
Though initially they faced a lot of resistance from the
former, once a rapport was established they could study
the context of traditional healing practices closely. Their
work also included imparting
‘scientific’ training to these practitioners so that they
would be able to identify cases, which need to be referred
to doctors. They have also initiated the opening of a traditional
healing center in their field area.
The
post-lunch session consisted presentations by Mr. Sumeet
Jain and Manisha Gupte.
Mr.
Sumeet Jain is a psychiatric social worker by training
and is currently working on his doctoral thesis on community
mental health from University College, London. In his presentation
he tried to place traditional healing practices in the
larger context of community mental health, based upon his
fieldwork in Kanpur, U.P. Tracing the community mental
health services in the pre and post colonial period in
India, he contended that traditional healing practices
have always been invisible in strategies of community mental
health programmes. He raised some pertinent questions about
the integration of traditional healing practices within
the mainstream community mental health services. Two main
points were highlighted in his presentation. One point
was about the central place occupied by Traditional healing
centers in the community’s notion of the “community”. THCs
were one of the core concepts of community living, whereas,
the PHCs were at the periphery. The second point emphasized
by Mr Jain was the flow of knowledge in the mental health
system, which is always top down. The reverse flow which
is expected to inform mental health policy, i.e. from the
community to the policy makers, has not happened. Mr Jain’s
presentation highlighted the point that a more rigorous
investigation of the community mental health program must
happen in India.
The
last speaker for the symposium was noted feminist and health
activist, Manisha Gupte. Ms. Gupte criticized the politics
of denouncing only certain practices prevalent amongst
the lower sections of the society as superstitions and
blind faith. She expressed the need to integrate the critique
of oppressive social structures within any research on
traditional healing, since till the former do not change,
healing in its real sense would not be achieved. She pointed
out that chances of abuse and exploitation could be higher
within traditional healing practices and that advocating
for these could be interpreted as obscurantist and an alignment
with neo-conservative politics.
The
following were some of the issues discussed during the
question and answer session that followed these presentations:
- Do
these practices constitute coping mechanisms or do they
actually heal?
- How
to address issues of gender, class and caste politics
within the analysis of traditional healing systems?
- Can
we say that users of traditional healing systems access
them out of consent? What is the extent of volition involved
in traditional healing systems?
- Do
communities access traditional healing systems due to
the absence of medical care?
- Should
journalistic ethics be used in such programs, or should
we go by more rigorous research ethics?
The
symposium was followed by the screening of a 90-minute
documentary film, “Eyes of Stone” made by Nilita Vachani.
The film follows the cure of a young girl in Rajasthan,
who is afflicted by evil spirit possession. It brings out
the perceptions of the girl’s family as well the girl herself,
regarding her affliction and it’s healing in the Bankhya
Mata temple. The film, which represents an anthropological-feminist
perspective towards these practices, was extremely relevant
for our work and hence appropriately fitted the occasion.
Profile
of visitors to the exhibition:
Roughly around 3000-3500 people visited the photo exhibition
over a period of three days. The exhibition was aimed at
the larger community and in that sense succeeded in its objective
of reaching out to the general public.
Special
invitations were sent to traditional healers from all the
places that we had visited during our fieldwork. In all
21 healers from across five traditional healing centers
in Maharashtra and 2 individual healers visited the exhibition.
Also, their feedback about the exhibition was recorded
in detail.
Besides
this, feedback from the other visitors was also recorded
separately. Several critical as well as appreciating comments
were given within this. A common strain in some of the
critical comments received was the reason behind advocating
these practices, since they are “mere superstitions and
blind faith”. Many also endorsed our standpoint, claiming
that they themselves had had healing experiences from alternative
/ spiritual therapies.
Research
team members were present at the venue throughout the duration
of the exhibition in order to interact with the general
public and answer queries, comments regarding the work.
Besides this, other staff members of Bapu Trust were also
sufficiently oriented towards our perspective and work,
so that they would be able to answer queries.
Our
review of the photo exhibition
CAMH office, 17th January 2006
Present: Bhargavi Davar, Ketki Ranade, Deepra Dandekar, Madhura
Lohokare, Sachin Shinde, Kavita Sanju Nair, Yogita Kulkarni,
Deepak Salunke, Vijay Mane, Darshana Bansode, Aparna Waikar,
Atul Sutar and Harischandra Lagad.
What
went well?
The choice of venue (Balagandharva) and dates (weekend) were
excellent. On an average 1000 or more people visited the
exhibition everyday. The turnout was approximately 3500 people
over the three days of the exhibition. The publicity made
by the Bapu team for the event was impressive and imaginative.
The photographs of Mr. V. Karthik were appreciated by one
and all, even if people did not value or agree with the perspective
presented there. The film “Eyes of Stone” by Nilita Vachani
was also very good, and it had people glued to their chairs.
It was played to a houseful audience. The poster made by
Geminarts for the event was very striking in its appeal.
It was a good idea to put out fliers about the event in newspapers.
The event was prominently featured in the city’s leading
newspapers, both English and Marathi. A diverse set of people
attended the event, including students, NGOs, doctors, academics,
and the general public. 123 individual feedback comments
were obtained as people volunteered their suggestions and
feedback. The catering on the day of the symposium was without
fuss and efficient. The organization and planning part for
the exhibition, thematisation and ordering of pictures and
scripts, was executed very efficiently by the IDPAD team
before the event. Several visits made to the venue and the
co-ordination with the photographer, on the choice of prints
and print sizes, was also smooth and efficient. This made
it easy to upload the pictures onto the panels as the exhibition
was set up. The art gallery, being an extremely busy one,
and located in the center of the city, is the city’s cultural
hub. The gallery was handed over to us for setting up the
show only at 9 p.m. in the evening. The exhibition had to
be set up late in the evening. The team spirit, camaraderie
and solidarity in the Bapu team, as we worked until the early
hours of the morning setting up the exhibition, was excellent.
Sachin’s pohe was very welcome in the wee hours of the morning
and greatly appreciated. The introductory photographs were
striking and served as a good entry point. The team presence
throughout the three days of the exhibition, both physically
and mentally, was good. This dedication was necessary, as
the turnout for the event was quite high, and the constant
demand for responding to queries was adequately addressed.
The team’s patient response to queries from the visitors
was very good. There was a brisk sale of our publications
and posters, and other materials. One of the Trustees of
Bapu, Ms Lakshmi Rameshwar Rao, attended the program and
was appreciative of the effort. She commented positively
on both the pictures as well as the narration.
Noteworthy,
from the point of view of the impact of the project are
the following two points:
1. We
were very happy that several traditional healers (21),
many traveling from outside Pune district, attended the
program. The following is the list of healing institutions
from where we had active participation.
> Kohlapur - 9 healers, from Balu Mama Trust, Admapur
> Solapur- Kharadi, 4 healers, from Sitaram Maharaj
> Sangli-Walwa Taluka- 2 healers non-institutional
> Ahmednagar - 2 healers from Tanaj Padale Nimblele
> Pune- 2 healers from Saadal Baba Dargah Yerawada
2. There
were many visitors who did not have a particular view on
the subject but who wanted to know more. The exhibition
proved to be a space where dialogue happened on a large
scale with the visiting public, and it was possible to
engage many, many people on the complex issues evoked by
traditional healing. Some offered to contribute to the
Trust’s activities, especially students.
What
can be improved?
Controversies were expected, given the rationalist, modernist
culture, which has looked at traditional healing practices
as “superstition” and “blind faith”. Two incidents of conflict
were reported, when dialogue with visitors went out of control,
and the visitors started getting unduly aggressive. Some
strategies for conflict resolution were charted out for use
in the future, including:
(1)
Deciding how much time can be given to individual visitors
and how far to entertain their queries (2) When we sense
that the situation can get out of control, to have some
fire fighting strategies within the group, such as distraction,
leading the person out of the room etc. (3) Encouraging
such persons to write / fill out a feedback form, etc.
(4) Ensuring that the exhibition site is maintained as
a zone of silence by putting up relevant messages in the
room.
If
we are taking the photo-exhibition out to other places,
as on offer, we have to re-script the narration for the
exhibition, including:
- A
panel and / or collage introducing Bapu as an organization,
and its activities.
- A
panel giving the mental health service picture in Maharashtra,
and in general, in India. The panels need to have more
clear mental health messages.
- A
panel giving details of the ethical issues faced during
the process of research and photography, to inform the
public about how we addressed these issues.
- A
panel giving different perspectives about traditional
healing in mental health, such as psychiatric, anthropological,
sociological, feminist and integrative.
- A
panel on the health benefits, mental health benefits
and physiological effects must be put up more explicitly,
with academic references if necessary.
- The
text has to be linked to contemporary mental health practice.
- The
text has to be linked to gender, caste, class and the
political economy of traditional healing.
- A
panel stating clearly the aims and the objectives of
the exhibition.
- Include
narration of case studies or life experiences of people
who have used these sites for healing.
- A
panel must clearly state disclaimers (such as we do not
make referrals, we do not endorse any individual healers’
philosophy or practice, we are not making an argument for
or against god, etc.)
Other
suggestions:
- Develop
methods by which the visitors can be guided through the
exhibition (such as placing arrows from the introduction
to the exit)
- Many
people don’t actually read the script. Striking one liners
could be prominently placed. Also add sound recording
as a voice over so that people can listen.
- Publicity
for the symposium should be done separately from the
publicity for the photo-exhibition. A letter of invitation
should go out separately to the universities, colleges,
research institutions, etc. The target group for the
symposium must be more carefully planned. For the inauguration,
special preparation must be made. The poster for the
exhibition can be improved upon, as the text was ambiguous
about the first day’s program leading to confusion.
- A
booklet / catalogue on the photo-exhibition must be brought
out for the next event.
- A
flier on FAQs must be put out for the event.
- Adequate
number of Bapu publicity, campaign and published materials
must be carried with us, and also displayed prominently.
- Ethics
of using frontal shots where consent has not been taken
from individuals needs to be addressed.
- Enough
time must be allocated by the research team to prepare
the whole organization for the event. Internal capacity
building of the whole bapu team must be carried out.
Bapu’s role as an advocacy agency dictates that every
activity in bapu should have advocacy questions, if not
solutions. Also, nearly all training sessions elicit
keen discussion on traditional healing, and so the respective
trainers need to be aware of the field of work. With
the work on traditional healing, this is not clear. The
group and the research team needs to spend more time
(at least 1 or 1 ½ days workshop) on understanding
this area more meaningfully.
- Such
forums must be used more rigorously for wider dissemination
of some of our activities, such as JMAA, library, archive,
etc.
- Instead
of a register for feedback, a suggestion box should be
kept.
  
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