TheDaak review

Shamans, Mystics and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and Its Healing Traditionsby Sudhir Kakar, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, , 2013, Pg 310

By Shambhavi Tiwari

Introduction

To curious onlookers of Kosala, the renowned saint Kalakvrikshiy claimed proudly

“My crow knows all, the past, the present and the future! All that is apparent as well as what is kept hidden! Even if the king of the land were to ask him, he could reveal the name of all the corrupt ministers in his court through this lustrous beak of his!”  — Kalakvrikshiy, Folklore

And so it happened, Kshemdarshi, the young king of the land of Kosala, where the saint was divining for a crowd of curious onlookers every day with his crow, heard of his claims and promptly summoned him to court. When asked to prove the validity of his claims, the saint asked for a day of respite for himself and the exhausted bird. The king arranged suitable resting quarters for him and asked him to keep his bird ready with the identities of the corrupt ministers the next day. Quite inevitably, the crow was murdered at night. Next morning, with the pretext of initiating the conversation granted to him by the departed bird, the saint instructed the king in his administrative and punitive duties with reference to Rajadharma.

Despite being instrumental to and even being the focal point for initiating dialogue on the intended theme, the crow could not escape being sacrificed for the advance of the plot, it may seem. This was my first impression of the fate of the vast anthropological research conducted by Sudhir Kakar for his work Shamans, Mystics and Doctors with reference to the multitude of traditions operating in the Indian context aimed at providing some kind of restoration of what may be deemed as ‘mental health’. Kakar juggles between necessary space and expression to cultural relativity and locating it in a wider international space. This space is largely defined by a West-based and Eurocentric psychological universalism. What strikes one the most is the internal duality of this paradigm, chiefly characterised by interactions between Freudians and Jungians. In attempting to engage with this universalism through the Indian lens, Kakar finds his crow of cultural relativity incapacitated, if not dead, by the end of his ordeal.

This paper is a review of the methodologies employed by Kakar in his anthropological exploration into the Indian cultural psyche through the lens of therapeutic practices pertaining to mental health pervading the Indian socio-cultural and biomedical landscape. It should be clarified here that as the text originally does not contain any explicitly organised or clear research methodology, the review is based on my reading of the text and the coherence I have constructed of its peculiar methods of delving into its objectives.

Starting with an introduction to Kakar’s position and what he felt or determined he could and could not achieve through the space he inhabits, we would move on to an outline of the methodical framework he uses to interact with the subject persons, positions and places of his research. Consequently, we would also attempt to acquire an understanding of the key concepts implicit in his readings of the Indian traditions and how they fit into or are led astray within and without the wider framework of his enquiries. 

Ambivalence and Marginality of the Psychoanalyst

Kakar is a trained psychoanalyst. In the introduction to the text itself, Kakar acknowledges that the Western psychoanalytic paradigm (psychoanalysis as both a method of therapy and theory of human nature) could not take roots into the Indian soil. The primary reason he gives is the stark contrast between the two knowledge traditions with regard to the nature of self and reality and the concept of person. Further, Kakar notices a certain kind of ambivalence and marginality, which is produced as a result of his position as an Indian psychoanalyst. This places him such that despite his familiarity with the traditions he explores, owing to his Indianness, he also finds them equally or perhaps more strange at some points.

Kakar’s identity as a psychoanalyst adds to the charm of his research since he  occasionally engages with the subjects of his research as an alternative healer and  as a detached observer. He often presents his own psychopathological and diagnostic categories in a reflexive methodological exercise, invoking continuous reflection and critical analysis of his methods. The explanations he provides are derivatives of the understanding and knowledge of the healer rendered coherent through the usage of the language of Western psychoanalytic knowledge. In such an understanding, the hegemony of what Kakar deems merely ‘psychological universalism’ often supersedes and negates the significance and signification of the traditional understanding. 

While Kakar’s charming imagery is indeed commendable if Shamans, Mystics and Doctors were to be read for its literary seduction, as anthropological research, it appears to be upholding some kind of exoticisation of the indigenous- a folly often attributed to those trained in Western anthropological research methodologies.

While the Indian healing systems appear quite fluid and meshed, often visibly into and with each other, they seem completely disconnected and distinct from their psychoanalytic parallel. References to European traditions of community or faith healing do little rather than nothing to address the situation. Kakar’s comparative analysis leads to understandings which reflect hegemonic explanations instead of equivalent exchanges of knowledge. Accordingly, one can’t help but wonder if this is a problem of othering and indigenisation and not merely of comparison.

Participant Observation: Mad, Healers and the Sacred

Along with interacting with the healers and their diverse clientele, Kakar also actively interacts with the community and, to some extent, with what may be deemed sacred.

While he extensively explores the indigenous conceptualisations of sacred and parenthood and compares these to their European parallels, he provides no more than singularly descriptive accounts of his own experiences. This undermines his perception and understanding of the sacred since the latter’s exploration necessitates some amount of faith and belief and not merely participation. Kakar is not overtly positivistic, but he does appear to be trying to maintain an empirically evident and logically coherent distance from what may be deemed ‘sacred’.

Self, Body and Person: The Indians’ place among the Freudians and Jungians

Kakar has primarily used participant observation and archival research methods for Shamas, Mystics and Doctors. He travelled across Northern India during his research, and various chapters are based on research conducted at different sites. Research pertaining to Shamanic methods of healing was done at Patteshah Dargah in Delhi, Mehendipur Balaji in Rajasthan, the Oraon tribe in Chhotanagpur and among the Lamas of McLeodganj. Further, explanations of mystical healing methods pertaining to spiritual healers who make various claims related to the restoration of soul health were sought from engagements with Radha Soami Satsang Beas in Haryana, Tantric traditions and Mataji cult. Finally, with a renewed focus on biomedical traditions related to mental health, Kakar promptly delved into Ayurveda through extensive and intensive archival research along with fieldwork and undertook participant observation at a Manasik Chikitsa Kendra in Jharsetli, Haryana. Along with interacting with the healers themselves, Kakar also actively interacts with the patients, the community and, to some extent, with the sacred. 

Kakar presents vividly descriptive accounts of Indian healing knowledge-practices followed by their hegemonic Western Freudian parallels. Instead of universalising the meaning and implication of the particular knowledge practice, this method posits the indigenous as an explicandum and, consequently, the Freudian parallel as a comprehensible explicans- something Kakar insists on wanting to avoid explicitly. Epistemological power hierarchies, which can often be traced to cultural differences and have been a major focus of Kakar’s other works on the linkages between psyche and culture, have been largely overlooked in this text.

Conclusion

Going back to the little tale of the clever sage, cultural relativism in Shamans, Mystics and Doctors is analogous to the unfortunate crow. Everything ranging from the appearance to the performance to the claims related to its supernatural abilities and, finally even its death was an enactment of the knowledge practice of Rajadharma. However, the crow’s saga was deployed as no more than an instance, an allegory to create the grounds for a more structured and coherent knowledge of Rajadharma. To this end, Kakar’s explorations into the Indian healing networks appear to be merely an enquiry to broaden the scope of his understanding of Western psychoanalysis, especially his forte and magnum opus- an enquiry into what he deems the cultural psyche. While Kakar’s crow of cultural relativism is what the story of Shamans, Mystics and Doctors is all about, and it is very flamboyant, charming and crow-like indeed, it is plastic at best, held in its form by screws and bolts of Freudian psychoanalysis.