Acharya Dr. Girindrashekhar Bose (135th Birth Anniversary
- Acharya Dr. Girindra Sekhar Bose, also known as ” Father of Psychology in Asia “
- Today is his 135th Birth Anniversary
- So that people can know about this great son of our motherland and his immense contribution towards our society
- Acharya Dr. Girindra Sekhar Bose and Professor Dr. Sigmund Freud carried out dialogues for 20 years , which is famously known as ” Bose – Freud Correspondence “
Acharya Dr.Girindrashekhar Bose, born on January 30, 1887, was the younger brother of one of the most famous Bengali litterateurs, Rajshekhar Basu, better known as Parasuram. After passing out from the Presidency College, he became an MB in 1910 and eventually evolved into the first Psychoanalyst and eventually Psychologist and Psychiatrist of India, and Asia. His doctoral thesis was “Concept of Repression” which blended Hindu thoughts.
The pioneer of psychological study in the Orient, Dr. Basu was an early example of a non –Western contestation of Western methodologies.
His thesis is well known for disputing the specifics of Freud’s Oedipal Theory.However, he had a well- formed conversation with Freud for 20 years through letters and trunk calls. The letters have been published in Bose- Freud Correspondence. Though, they never met, yet, Dr. Basu became a member of the ‘International Psychoanalytical Association’ and found the Indian Psychoanalytical Society in 1922. A ‘master of hypnotism’, Dr. Basu included hypnosis and yoga in his treatment. One of his best known patients was poet Kazi Nazrul Islam who was admitted to the hospital , i.e., the Lumbini Park Mental Hospital which was established on February 5, 1940 by Basu with the help of his family. Freud respected Basu’s treatises and therefore, there is a gallery dedicated to Basu in Vienna and also in the Freud Archive of London and his books are available in 5 foreign languages (French , German , Japanese ,English & Russian ) . Even Rabindranath Tagore took a reference and letter from Dr. Bose when he went to meet Freud in Vienna .
Besides, helping in freedom movement against the British Government by providing funds to Anushilan Samity, Dr. Basu along with his three elder brothers was also a founder of Utkendra Samity in the ground floor of their ancestral house at Parsee Bagan .
The regular guests were Acharya Jagadish chandra Bose, Acharya Prafulla chandra Roy, Jatindranath Sen, Satish Dasgupta etc., while the other guests were Sarat Chandra Bose , Satyendranath Bose, Saratchandra Chattopadhyay, Dr.Bidhan chandra Ray, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Biplabi Pulin Behari Das , Lord Sinha , Aurobindo Ghosh and more. Even Tagore came a few times along with Netaji Shubash Chandra Bose.
Dr. Basu, along with his family and members of Anushilan Samity hoisted the first ever national flag of pre-independent India in August 7, in 1906 in the compound of their mansion in Parsee Bagan Lane that time known as ( Parsee Bagan Square ) . This was a novel venture in the history of British India. Besides treating patients for free and writing psychological treatises, he also wrote’ Lal Kalo’ which was cinematically adopted in the filmChiti Chiti Bang Bang (2015). Establishing the Psychoanalytical Society Of India and the first OPD of Asia for Psychiatric patients in Carmichael Medical College (R. G. Kar) were amongst his ambivalent contributions to the history of India.
_Soumya Shankar Bose, General Secretary IHRO West Bengal
