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I’m not Mad! Says a Mental Health Activist. Watch Bhargavi talk to Shruti on 13 June @9

imageBhargavi Davar who went on to become a mental health activist had set her vision since childhood. The horror she had seen and imagined, shock treatments and confinements that goes on behind those four walls. The stigma that is attached to it. People who believe in supersitions as a cure, who consider mental illness as “madness” more than an illness which need special attention and care. Bhargavi, whose trauma seeing her mother being labeled as “mad” and taken to fakir babas for so-called cure and then later on forcefully admitted in mental institution that people commonly call as “paagalkhana”. Later on, she underwent post-partum depression after the death of her newborn. And when her daughter was born 6 years later, she lived with the “lingering” fear of losing her. All these fear not only embodied her but made her to do something and hence Bapu Trust was born.
In 1999, Bhargavi started the Bapu Trust for Research on Mind and Discourse, Pune, India, to give public vision and visibility to user/survivor-centred mental health advocacy. She is a front runner in regional and national level campaigns for human rights in mental health, particularly raising a call to abolish oppressive laws and institutions.

She is a trainer in mental health advocacy and runs a yearly course on gender and mental health in India for the development sector.

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Extraordinary Stories about Ordinary Women...a one hour show on women achievers, who have achieved great heights personally and professionally inspite of the struggles, hardships and excruciating trials and tribulations. The show is aired every SAT-SUN, at 9 pm, on Doordarshan National, and is repeated MON-TUES, @ 10 am. Produced by Blackswan Productions, the aim of the show is to bring forth burning issues related with girl child and women and tell motivating stories of courage, hardships and bravery. Issues like violence against women, crime, education,livelihood,dowry,human trafficking,gender descrimination, safety, sanitation and freedom of speech and right to live with dignity are just a few issues discussed. Well known actors, singers,musicians,activists come on the show to give support to the women.

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4 thoughts on “I’m not Mad! Says a Mental Health Activist. Watch Bhargavi talk to Shruti on 13 June @9”

  1. Bhargavi, far from being mad, is a very committed scholar and an insightful person who has seen the inside-out of mental suffering, from close quarters. She has also contributed immensely to scholarship in mental health and is always looking out for ways to present alternatives – both in conceptualizing mental health and in recovery solutions.

    And though, as to be expected with everyone seriously involved, she is extremely well known within the circles of mental health professionals (who mostly dread her), activists and others, including peers like me, she needs to be known more and more for the sheer amount of work she has done. I am glad that Stree Shakti has identified her- about time.

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