The Savage Freud: The First Non-Western Psychoanalyst and the Politics of Secret Selves in Colonial India

Abstract

Abstract Marxism and psychoanalysis are perceived to be attributed with the most influential critiques of European schools of thought that emerged during the nineteenth century and that have played no small part in shaping our self-definition. Because both foster a certain degree of ambivalence towards their cultural origins, they attempt to examine the institutional and normative inconsistencies brought about by the Enlightenment. Such schools of thought are expected to own up to their cultural origins through reinforcing the theoretical and aggressive critiques that are apparently Eurocentric towards non-Western cultures. Both schools, however, have also expressed self-doubts and have come up with ideas such as regression and primitive communism. This chapter attempts to look into how culture is dealt with by psychoanalysts by examining the cultural meanings acquired in the early years of such thought in India that are derived from personal experiences, intellectual concerns, and other such aspects.

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