RAJKUMARI: FOR A GREATER COMMON CAUSE

Sze Chun (JC) Chan, New York City
For the Madurai Messenger, March 2010

R. Rajkumari, Executive Director, M.S. Chellamuthu Trust and Research Foundation, Madurai, recalls one of her most unforgettable experiences with a patient. Arjunan, a mentally retarded boy in shabby clothes once roamed his village. Shunned and discarded by his own family and stoned by the local community, the boy was a social outcaste. He is also physically handicapped, deaf, and dumb. Nobody spared the time or effort in looking after Arjunan.

His father took pity on him one day and brought him to the mental health rehabilitation clinic being run by M.S. Chellamuthu Trust and Research Foundation.

“If you can do something about this person I’ll be happy, but if you cannot, just give him a little poison and kill him. He is suffering and he’s such a shame to our whole family and to our village,” pleaded the father.

An Act of Kindness

The M.S. Chellamuthu Trust and Research Foundation took the boy in, treated him, cleaned him, gave him medication, and put him in a rehabilitation programme as a gardener in training. The boy appreciated his new work and improved until he became a professional gardener. Upon seeing this, the father no longer found his son to be a liability but rather an asset to family and society. He had newfound pride in Arjunan and now wanted him to get married, but knowing his background it would be quite an endeavour.

A Dramatic Turn Around

Luckily, another family offered their physically handicapped and polio-stricken daughter in marriage. The couple got married under a banyan tree in the same village where people once threw stones at him. Today, Arjunan has a child, and works as a gardener at the Shristi Psycho-Social Rehabilitation Centre, and in 2008 won the “Best Individual Award” for persons with disabilities. He was one in only three people throughout India to be presented that award.

Of Dreams, Sacrifices, and New Visions

The empowerment of Arjunan and other mentally ill required personal sacrifi ces and the forgoing of dreams for a cause bigger than oneself. Rajkumari, the Executive Director and Trustee of the M.S. Chellamuthu Foundation recalls her husband and founder psychiatrist Dr.C.Ramasubramanian’s original aspirations (whose father’s name the organization bears).

“He was aspiring to be a thoracic surgeon, a heart specialist, (but) his father called him and said, ‘We are suffering so much in our family, because of your brother who is affected with mental illness. There may be many more families suffering like this. We have to do something for society. Close your dreams to become a heart specialist. You have to get into the psychiatric field’.”

In response to his father’s fervent desire, Ramasubramanian agreed and asked his wife, Rajkumari to help. At the time Rajkumari was on a path to become a journalist, and aspired to work for a leading national newspaper such as The Hindu. Their chosen calling in life came when there was no psychiatric rehabilitation in this part of South India and change was desperately needed. Rajkumari has a postgraduate degree in English Language and Literature.

She also had six months of intensive training in psychological rehabilitation at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru.

Secrecy, Shame, Silence

A general lack of mental health institutions and public awareness was rampant throughout India in the 1980s. Old stigmas were deeply embedded. For some, mental illness was a curse that unfortunate individuals were carrying; and not a biological illness. A common perception was that these people were suffering because of the religious belief that they were paying for something ‘bad’ or sinful they did in a past life. There is also the stigma common in urban areas of having a mentally ill person in the household. Even educated families tend to keep them inside and keep their socialisation to a minimum. Worse, they try to manage these people at home, until they cannot stand the tantrums and erratic behavior inside the household anymore and then and only then do they try to seek help.


Mental illness was a curse that unfortunate individuals were carrying; and not a biological illness.

“Mentally ill patients have been chained and kept inside dark rooms,” Rajkumari said. “Because they believe that on some particular day the god will come and break the chains on a full moon and have to sprinkle some scared water on these patients and then they’ll be fine.”

Among the 300 residential beds and 500 patients under daycare at the M.S. Chellamuthu Foundation, 60 percent are men and 40 percent are women. Women who are mentally or even just physically sick face further stigmas because families won’t expose them to others in fear of damaging their candidacy for marriage.

Unmet Demands

A wide gap between demand and services exists in India. In an estimate by the World Health Organization, only 20 percent of those affected by schizophrenia and epilepsy are treated in India compared with an 80 percent treatment rate in the West. Worldwide, twenty-fi ve percent of all people are affected by mental disorders in some time of their life. The M.S. Chellamuthu Foundation found 1,090 mentally disabled persons out of 180,000 surveyed in Madurai. Although the availability of mental health clinics has improved over the decades, many Indians in the medical fi eld fl ock to physical medicine and few go on to become psychiatrists.

“It’s a joke in some psychiatric conferences. They say there are more Indian psychiatrists outside of the country than inside of the country,” Rajkumari said. “Because they all study here and go outside of the country for their earnings, few stay back here to serve their own.”

Community, Compassion, and Care

The M.S. Chellamuthu Foundation has a variety of projects to rehabilitate the mentally ill and train them in various tasks for reintegration into the workforce. Depending on a patient’s family background (rural or urban), and education, vocational programmes are available for the printing press, bakery, gardening, computer training, and other skills. Mental health services are available to persons from a very poor background, 10 percent of patients are under treatment at no cost.

“This is a population which every individual in the society should show some care, concern, and spend some time for them. These people are the silent sufferers, suffering for no fault of theirs.” Rajkumari said. “They are not suffering because they have done some sin or anything like that, but because of the illness. This illness can come to anybody. When it comes, it’s very severe. It is society’s responsibility to remove the stigma from such persons, take care of them, (and) spend time with them… I’d rather do this work till my last breath.”