PSYCHOANALYSIS IN COLONIAL INDIA, By Christiane Hartnack,Oxford, Rs 495 In 1931, on his 75th birthday, Sigmund Freud received a marble image of Vishnu as a gift from the Indian Psychoanalytical Society. A few years later, he entered, almost prophetically, in his journal, 'Can the god, being used to Calcutta, not stand the climate in Vienna?' The sandalwood base of the image had developed cracks. Psychoanalysis arrived in India at the beginning of the 20th century, amid ambivalence and conflict. British psychiatrists suddenly found themselves treating an increasing number of European patients, mostly British officers. Psychoanalysis, in their hands, proved more than a mere therapeutic tool. The European Mental Hospital in Ranchi opened in 1918 and Owen Berkeley-Hill took charge as its head in 1919. Three years later, he was one of the 15 founding members when the Indian Psychoanalytical Society came into being. Berkeley-Hill alone represented the Society at the International Psychoanalytical Congresses in Berlin and Oxford in the Twenties. This is important if one considers his views on the Hindu psyche in his essays. He suggested a 'flatus complex' in the Brahmanical notion of the atman, in Hindu liturgical chants, and in the breathing exercises of hatha yoga, concluding that 'Hindus do not have a psychological disposition for leadership'. Another important figure in Hartnack's book is C.D. Daly. He was with the Indian army fighting in France in 1916 when forced into analysis because of a severe nervous breakdown. While practising psychoanalysis in Vienna after retirement, he published two papers dealing with India - 'Hindu Mythology and Castration Complex' (1927), and 'The Psychology of Revolutionary Tendencies' (1930). In his opinion, the Hindus suffer from 'collective compulsions', have 'childlike and feminine character traits', and 'thrive only under very firm and kindly administration'. He emphasized the 'vast responsibility of the British officers in educating the childlike Indians'. According to Hartnack's historical framework, colonial India was caught between 'identifying with the aggressor' and the threat of Western science swallowing up the 'indigenous intellectual traditions' of the East. In 1915, Narendra N. Sengupta established the department of psychology at Calcutta University. Among his first students was Girindrasekhar Bose, the 'doyen of psychoanalysis in India'. Bose was a curious combination of science, nationalism and neurosis, who washed the goat to be eaten at his daughter's wedding with antiseptic lotion. After graduating from the Medical College in Calcutta in 1910, Bose continued his research in experimental psychology. When the Indian Psychoanalytical Society was formed in 1922, the venue was 14 Parsibagan Lane, Bose's north Calcutta residence. In 1935, Bose published his 'Opposite Fantasies in the Release of Repression', where he rejected some of the fundamentals of Freudian psychoanalysis. He even replaced the classic couch with a deck chair in his consulting room. In his many essays, published in the Society's journal, Samiksa, he invoked the psychological wisdom contained in the Hindu shastras. But he still explained miracles through science. Hartnack's account of the Indian psychoanalysts suggests a lack of co-ordination of ideas amongst them. There were also wide generalizations based on limited experience. Bose was an exception, and yet today, it is difficult to obtain his works in English or Bengali. This book deals with the British and the Indian psychoanalysts in two separate parts, giving a structural symmetry to the argument and reflecting the divisions in the reception of psychoanalysis in British India. Hartnack's account also helps to locate the preoccupations of modern commentators on the 'Indian psyche', like Sudhir Kakar and Ashis Nandy, within a history. Her objectives are 'to present information that is difficult to obtain, to integrate scattered material into an argument, and to contribute to an ongoing discussion'. In the lucidity of her prose, her thorough archival research and in her exhaustive bibliography, Hartnack has achieved these objectives to an impressive extent.