(University of North Bengal, 2021) Bhattacharya, Dahlia
The Lunatic Asylums in the colonial period did not have proper medical
treatment or identification of female patients. The infrastructural facilities for
the women were not given attention by the asylums.The Victorian morality
recognized ‘work’ as a therapy and the ‘mentally ill’ were made to work in the
garden, carpentry, grinding wheat and other works, leading to monetary gain in
the asylums of Bengal.. The funds were applied to maintain the asylums,
sometimes the local jails and led to profits for the British. The paper seeks to
look into the colonial policy with regard to asylums and the hard work imposed
upon the female lunatics leading to asylum ‘industries’ and how it received a
new direction of economic gain.
