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The myth that psychopaths and sociopaths are out there in slums, ghettos and mental asylums stands shattered by the frequent reports of brutal torture of maids and domestic servants in middle-class homes. It turns out that the manager next door, the air hostess in the flat above or even the doctor across the road could be battering that tribal girl from Jharkhand in central India. Dr Jagriti Singh, accused of beating her maid Rakhi to death, in all likelihood tries her best to cause least discomfort and pain to her patients while performing dental surgeries at the well known Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi.
A clear distinction between the “good” and the “bad,” between “Bhagwan” (translation God) and “Shaitan” (translation Devil) comforts us. In north India, every year the victory of Rama, the mythological hero of Ramayana, over evil is celebrated on the festival of Dushhera by the blowing up and burning of the effigy of the 10-headed Demon-King Ravana accompanied by much sound and fury. The more philosophical and inward oriented interpretation that it is symbolic of the weeding out of one's own inner demons has few takers. Kakar (1982) in the context of the healing traditions with regard to mental illness in India, writes of the Pir of Patteshah Dargah in Delhi “And then, like psychotherapists everywhere, he called on the clinical evidence of ‘thousands of patients I have treated personally’ … that conclusively “proved” the role played by demons in the etiology of his patient's illness” (p. 23).
The violent perpetrator “out there” can be handled rather than the acknowledgment of our murderous wishes. Freud (1915) observes, “The very emphasis laid on the commandment ‘Thou shall not kill’ makes it certain that we spring from an endless series of generations of murderers, who had the lust of killing in their blood, as, perhaps, we ourselves have today” (p. 296). Akin to the “Ravana” at Dushhera, it is likely that one of the important factors in the floundering of