VIKRAM PATEL

India’s Mental Health Care Act is one of the most progressive legislations on mental health globally, and should be read as a bill of rights for people with mental disorders. Fundamentally, the Act enshrines equality for mentally ill people with those who have physical health problems in all matters related to health care. Conceptually, it transforms the focus of mental health legislations from supposedly protecting society and families by relegating people with mental disorders to second-class citizens, to emphasising the provision of affordable care, aligned with the preferences and needs of the affected person, financed by the government, through the primary care system.

Involuntary treatment and confinement in mental hospitals, which have historically been associated with profound depravity and abuse of human rights and which have been robustly contested by the Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, has been greatly reined in with stringent procedures to ensure that these are restricted to the rarest of circumstances with systemic supports to enable the right of the person to make his/ her own decision.

However, it is hard to imagine these visionary ideals finding their way into the grim realities of the lived experiences of the tens of millions of Indians living with a mental disorder and the countless more of their family members and friends who are also affected. The National Mental