New Delhi: As many as 300 Indian practitioners in the area of mental health have called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Today is a year to the escalation of violence in West Asia after the armed Palestinian group Hamas sought to attack Israel, leading it to launch a yearlong retaliation involving relentless strikes that have been called a genocide.
Practising psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, counsellors, psychiatrists and social workers have noted the detrimental effects of trauma and violence on individuals and societies. Such trauma persists across generations, they write.
In a statement, they have also sought to highlight that passive bystanding has ideological costs. While India often expresses concern and “pain” at the continuing deaths of civilians in Gaza, it has also India abstained on a widely supported United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for an end to Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank within a year.
The full statement is below.
Indian Mental Health workers call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Israel- Gaza conflict and end of the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in the region. With thousands of children and civilians, journalists, health care workers and non-human lives killed, maimed, injured and displaced, the staggering level of suffering demands our collective action. In response to the militarized violence and loss of lives, we express concern for all Palestinians, Israelis and others impacted by the conflict in the Middle East and elsewhere. It is urgent to note that due to the unprecedented and disproportionate military action, the entire population of Gaza is experiencing catastrophic levels of food insecurity, shortage of lifesaving drugs and near complete destruction of critical infrastructure, including safe zones for shelter. As we write this, possibility of peace in the region has become more precarious with the escalation of Israeli cross-border military operations which has brought Lebanon under siege leading to the death and forced migration of Lebanese civilians.
As concerned psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, counsellors, psychiatrists and social workers we are aware of the detrimental effects of trauma and violence on individuals and societies that persist across generations. The long-term negative impact of armed conflict is seen in increased psychological vulnerabilities in the population for whom the wounds remain undigested, unformulated and prone to re-enactments, both at an individual and societal level. The failure to secure human rights, health, food and education infrastructure as well as cultural life of people exposes war torn areas to repetitive symptomatic social, economic and political fault lines. We express our concern about the degree of inaction created by passively standing by to extraordinary human suffering.
Living amidst many economic, climatic, ethnic, communal, caste-based, gender-based violence or imbalance of power predisposes individuals to apathy, helplessness and isolation. It also fosters hope, solidarity and need for action. More than ever, it is imperative for mental health professionals and institutes to acknowledge the injustices and asymmetries of power that function as regimes of repression and silencing. This is even more urgent as we work with personal and collective history, the power it holds over our unconscious lives, not just for individuals but also in large groups. In the clinic as well as in the polis, we bear witness to the power of the irrational mind, transgenerational transmission of trauma, inter-group conflicts and processes of othering by those who wish to exploit these forces within the human mind. We stand in solidarity with voices of freedom, democracy and compassion, world over, that resist regimes of repression and seek to interrupt the rise of virulent nationalism, imperialism, antisemitism and islamophobia.
As we witness one year to the devastating destruction of lives in Israel- Gaza war, Indian Mental Health workers urge all actors to engage in dialogue towards a sustainable resolution of Israeli- Palestinian conflict, the total and un-ambivalent protection of civilian lives and strict adherence to international humanitarian law.
