Anjali

ANJALI

Ratna, founder of ANJALI, an NGO dedicated to help the mentally ill, know how to tell story. Ratna started this project after she found out the horrifying condition of mental hospital in India. For a mental ill person, your social right is immediately being deprived once a doctor diagnosed you are mentally ill. Your husband could seek for divorce, your property right immediately cease to exist, you do not even have the right to legally defend yourself as the court believe you are not capable to do so. For 80% of Indian family, the way to solve the problem of having someone mentally ill at home is to take their mentally ill relative and get them admitted into a mental hospital and then disappear. They simply discard their problem-their son or daughter...


For the medical profession, mentally ill has to be treated with electrification, beating and drug treatment until they "behave". The resource government has devoted for this sector is negligible consider almost 5% of the total population in west Bangel has mental illness. They have a total of 3000 psychiatrists, 1000 nurses... At the front line, abuse is very common, both physical as well as sexually. Those who do not conform face the punishment of shutting in isolated cells until they conformed.

It is very emotional when you hear how family members discard their son and daughter and leave them in these crazy hospitals. To watch how desperate these eyes of those kept patients is even more terrifying. But here they are, waiting forever for their family member to take them home, begging every visit to help them find their family. We visited the hospital and experience their deep desire to talk to visitors. I toke some pictures for some of them and show the pictures to some of the patients. The emotion encounter is hard to describe but their big smile on their face is unforgettable.

ANJALI has only little resource. They do not accept any funding from their government to preserve their independence being a critic. TATA foundation is their donor and their 6th year maximum support period is approaching. Difficulty in solicit donation for mentally ill is huge as it is perceived as a small problem. We are worrying for ANJALI but Ratna is all optimistic, charging ahead with their youth program (Lotto), women support program, etc

When challenge why they are so enthusiastic helping those patients day after days and week after weeks, they tell me a small story. Patients quite often are found feeding one of the inmates to eat if one of them refuses to eat. They say when they see this kind of HUMAN QUALITY among the mentally ill, how could they give up on helping. I was totally touch by the word of HUMAN QUALITY as this phase did not appear on any of my school books nor in any of the many books that I study in order to get ahead of others. The whole education system and whole social norm teach us that if we are ahead, that is because you are better, stronger, faster and smarter.... I remember the bible teaching of "God make you strong because he want you to take more responsibility to help others" May be the beauty of Human quality are the true driving force supporting us to tackle social injustice head on to change the world!

Patrick