Interview

with Sudhir Kakar

Have you ever dealt with child survivors of sexual abuse in your career as a psychoanalyst? If yes, what would be the common psychological issues faced by such victims?

Sudhir Kakar: I have not dealt with children but with a large number of adults in my practice who were sexually abused as children. There is no way to generalize the psychological impact of such abuse. First, the impact is guided by the resilience and personal factors unique to the individual child: the child’s temperament, personal history, age and stage of development, level of anxiety, security of early attachments and so on. Second, the type of abuse and the child’s relationship to the abuser, if any. And finally, in a country such as ours where family and kin play such an important role in the psyche of an individual, the child’s reaction to the abuse is considerably shaped by the meaning his/her group attributes to the sexual abuse.

For instance, whether the sexual abuse of young boys by older boys or young men in the extended family is seen as almost inevitable, whose effects too shall pass, as is the case in many cultural groups in India, or whether it is viewed as a horrific one-time occurrence that calls for urgent redressal in the form of immediate therapeutic measures for the child and strong retribution in case of the abuser, as in many western countries.

The issue is further complicated when the abuse is incestuous. With our family system, the meaning of what is incestuous is widened by the inclusion of such adults in the family as grandparents, uncles and aunts who are quasi parents, as well as cousins who are equivalent to real siblings. The charge carried by the word incest is also weakened by widening its focus from parents and real siblings to all these other members of the extended family. And since it is not individual well-being but maintaining the solidarity of the family that is viewed as a higher good, the experience of most survivors is that the abuse is ignored by the rest of the family in order not to rock the boat. That is, unless it becomes blatant, such as the serial abuse of daughters by a father. Even in the most blatant cases, what the survivor wants is not the punishment of the abuser but for the abuse to stop and for her caretakers to accept that it is taking place.

 

In your opinion, what would be the impact of a death penalty on the victim’s psyche particularly in cases of incest?

Sudhir Kakar: Death penalty in case of incestuous child abuse is perhaps one of the more absurd suggestions on how to deal with the problem. Given the nature of our culture, dominated by what I call ‘familism’, the death of the family member convicted of abuse will be even more traumatic for the survivor than the original abuse. He/she will carry a lifelong burden of guilt for betraying the ideal of family solidarity, of somehow selfishly looking out for his own well-being rather than considering the effect the retribution will have on family bonds and the family’s reputation in the outside world which can have many deleterious effects on other members of the family, for instance, on the marriage prospects of the survivor’s siblings.

 

Are there situations where retribution could be detrimental to the survivor? And what in your opinion would be a better alternative to the death penalty from the survivor’s perspective?

Sudhir Kakar: For me what takes precedence over retribution is stitching together the child’s envelope of safety that has been torn by the abuse. What the court can do in the first instance is to focus on the family’s own attempts to cope with the abuse. The emphasis would then be on strengthening the caretakers to strengthen the cared for child. Mandatory group sessions of family members where the abuse and its effect on the child is openly recognized would be one step in this direction. For the survivor, the recognition and regret of the family for what the child has gone through is more important than any punishment for the accused. The necessary punishment will then be an indicator of the wider society’s concern and condemnation rather than being viewed as dictated by the interest of the survivor.

 

* In the first part, Sudhir Kakar answers some questions posed to him by the editors. Rachana Johri contextualizes his answers in the following piece.