OPEN LETTER TO MINISTER OF HEALTH, DELHI GOVERNMENT
From concerned friends, well wishers of Ms. Jhilmil Breckenridge
ADDRESSED TO: The Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Delhi government
Dear Honourable Shri Dr. Ashok Kumar Walia,
Our dear friend, Ms. Jhilmil Breckenridge, is in double lock up at IHBAS- the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, Shahdara, Delhi (also known as Shahdara Mental Asylum) since the last 2 days. She was towed away there much against her will and consent: This situation has alerted and shocked many of us who have undergone similar incarceration and emotional trauma within the mental asylum system. She was picked up by policemen in her own home and is in lock up at the asylum presently.
We are attaching hereby the testimony of Ms. Jhilmil for your kind interest.
Ms. Jhilmil, a wonderful, warm, vibrant woman and mother of 4 children, has been forcibly institutionalised in the Shahadara mental asylum. Jhilmil is eminently able to take care of herself, is a yoga teacher, and has a self discipline about her own well being and recovery. She is an inspiration to many regarding psychosocial disabilities, recovery and well being. She has contributed to the development of the communities through her work, as several of us will testify.
Ms. Jhilmil has been in the middle of a difficult divorce where there is day to day conflict and threat of violence in the household. She fears losing her children. Her reactions from holding on to her child, to being moody and difficult are being classified as ‘mad’, whereas they are the naturally angry responses of any mother. She was kept in ‘high security ward’ by the asylum authorities. After challenging this action by us, now she is moved to the private ward, where she is kept ‘for observation’. The superintendent, Dr. Desai, has informed us that it will take two weeks to evaluate Ms. Jhilmil or take decision to release her!!!
Why should it take two weeks to evaluate a person by an expert doctor: Anyway, there is no instrument or x-ray, or pathological analysis, which will give us clear evidence of ‘mental illness’ which she is said to suffer from. Psychiatry has no such physical test or parameter to tell us if she is suffering or not from any mental disorder. She has a supportive doctor who has confirmed over many instances throughout communications between her family and friends that she is NOT going through any symptoms of mania. Why is she being kept there in confinement for 2 weeks? Why can she not access treatment from her own doctor?
While patients in the public and private hospitals are given love and affection, what kind of system of care it is, when they tow away people in this undignified manner?
You will know, dear sir, that India has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Jhilmil has to be provided with all rights of any person with a disability. Under the mandate of this convention, institutionalizing her in the said manner violates:
Article 5: Equality and Non-Discrimination
Article 6: Women with Disabilities
Article 10: Right to Life
Article 12: Equal Recognition before the Law
Article 13: Access to Justice
Article 14: Liberty and security of the person
Article 15: Freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Article 16: Freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse
Article 17: Protecting the integrity of the person
Article 19: Living in the community
Article 25: Health
Her case is that of thousands of other women in this country who have had to face atrocities and eventually lock up, due to regressive laws on ‘unsoundness of mind’ that continue to function despite the ratification of UNCRPD in 2008. How many, many women have been towed away into asylums on an insanity petition in the context of marriage and divorce, so that the man can gain custody of children, be irresponsible about alimony, hide domestic violence, and obscure an extra marital affair before the public eye and the eye of justice? How many women have had to swallow their anger, because expressing anger would mean further shame and punishment through inhuman treatments?
Do you know sir, about the vested interests involved in damning someone as ‘mentally ill’, putting them away in asylums, and depriving them of all rights to a decent life and livelihood, and giving them torturous treatments?
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We, the undersigned, are calling on the intervention of yourselves to immediately release Jhilmil Breckenridge and put an end to such forms of ‘treatments’. Jhilmil is a victim of marital discord and sheer prejudices against women and a relentlessly harsh asylum system, has resulted in this situation where she is seen as crazy and not the husband, and she is forcibly committed.
We demand the Delhi Ministry should immediately look into how ‘legal incapacity’ and finding of ‘mental illness’ is misused by vested interests and causes harm by institutionalising women, especially in the context of Marriage and Divorce, custody, adoption and family laws, within the Delhi courts of law.
We, the undersigned, are calling on your Ministry to take responsibility and step in to stop such unlawful, inhuman and torturous practices, and misused / abused forms of ‘determination’ of ‘mental illness’ and treatments, for the sake of vested interests. She must be treated with all dignity as a person with a psychosocial disability, in accordance with the UNCRPD.
We request your full co-operation in an investigation into this matter, and release of Ms. Jhilmil, with immediate effect.
Yours truly,
Bhargavi Davar, Pune
Abdul Mabood, Director Snehi, Delhi
Human Rights Law Network (HRLN)
Rahul Cherian, Advocate, Inclusive Planet, Chennai
Aparna Sanyal, Mixed Media productions, Delhi
Rajive Raturi, Disability Rights Initiative, HRLN
Reshma Valliappan, The Red Door, Pune
BAPU Trust for Research on Mind & Discourse, Pune
Pavan Muntha, Swaadhikar, Hyderabad
Indu Prakash Singh, activist, Delhi
CREA, DELHI
Chris M Kurian, New Delhi
Shaweta Anand, Delhi
Janaki Visvanath, representing all women
Saher, NDTV, New Delhi
Dr.Vedhakumar Valliappan, Scientist and Father of a User Survivor of Psychiatry
Aarti Lukka, care giver
Jahnavi Mirashi, care giver
Minakshi Dewan, New Delhi
Divya Padmanabhan, New Delhi
Anita Iyer, EKANSH, Pune.
Gagandeep Singh, supporter for Human Rights
Gayatri Buragohain, Feminist Approach to Technology, Delhi
Nandini Rao, New Delhi
Minakshi, Delhi
Gail Warner, Hartman de Souza, Ratnakar, Anubhuti, Lovely, Kala Ramesh
Vilasini
Shruti, Dheeraj Jain, Sonja Chandrachud, Amit Bhattacharya, Shankar,
Anjana, Savita Narayan, Pallavi Mehta
