Mental Health in India: Purity, Pollution, Caste, and Mental Health
In India, our approach and understanding of mental health concerns are often further complicated by the historical weight of the caste-system and a yearning for cultural ‘purity’. By Sadaf Vidha
Selective Scarcity: A Queer Lens at India’s Health Care Imbalance
Survival in the pandemic continues to favour the powerful and privileged, while those in the margins face a scarcity and failure of the health care system. Aryan Somaiya and Sadaf Vidha confront this imbalance from a queer lens.
Mental Health in India: Academic Spaces as Centres of Well-Being and Resilience
After a lengthy lay-off, Indian academic institutions have begun to re-open and welcome students back to campus. In interviews with students from around the country, Sadaf Vidha explores how visible and invisible structures in academic spaces affect their mental health.
Mental Health in India: Gaps in mental health care for India’s LGBTQ+ community
There are no special provisions for mental health for India’s sexual minorities, considering that they are often more likely to be economically marginalised, and may need more support. Sadaf Vidha explores the gaps and possible silver linings.
Mental Health in India: Religion and mental health distress
Historically, religion has had a complicated role in serving as an alternative to therapy. Sadaf Vidah explores the opportunities and challenges from both Indian and Western religious traditions in regards to mental health.
Mental Health in India: Capitalism, Productivity and Mental Health Distress
How a for-profit society creates not just joblessness, productivity cults, and work anxiety, but also other forms of inequality, leading to a mental health crisis in the country. - By Sadaf Vidah
Mental Health in India: Looking Through a Filter of Colonialism and Casteism
India has to grapple with both caste and colonisation to get a holistic understanding of mental health issues, stigma, treatment and community interventions. - By Sadaf Vidah
Stained Khaki: The roots and aggravations of police brutality
The lockdown has worsened systematic failures in the Indian police, rooting from implicit biases and leading to more violence. Sadaf Vidha takes stock of the American movement against police brutality to frame against the glaring issues back home in India.
In its efforts to truly understand Bengali culture, the BJP government must accept that it will gain nothing by asserting its influence over Durga Puja pandals. Any attempt to politicise and constrain their artistic freedom diminishes the distinctive flavour of the spectacle. By Sujoy Sarkar