India
Mentally ill man in fetters for 20 years
By Rohit Ghosh, IANS
Feb 7, 2006, 15:15

For the past 20 years, a mentally ill man has been kept chained to a post in this Madhya Pradesh village.

Mansharam, 55, is bound by a three-foot chain to a wooden post at his home in Baoli village of Vidisha district, not more than 50 km from state capital Bhopal, in central India. His family says he spends time sitting quietly, virtually unmoving.

Mansharam was chained after he started attacking family members as well as other villagers without any reason, says his brother Bhogchand, a farmer.

"We spent a lot of money to get him treated but nothing helped. He would start beating people the moment he was freed. For us, the last solution was to tie him up permanently," Bhogchand told IANS.

But for all the violence that his family claims he exhibited earlier, Mansharam is a very quiet man today. He spends his days not moving an inch or even trying to talk to anyone.

His son, Saudan Singh, a college student, has always seen his father bound in chains.

"Only once or twice my father tried to talk to me and that was when he was hungry or thirsty. We have also lost the key of the padlock," said Saudan, who maintains he has never seen his father in a violent mood.

"As he has the reputation of a mad person, nobody tries to talk to him," the son added.

Mansharam's wife Harbai says her husband's signs of mental illness surfaced soon after they were married. "He would not talk to me and beat me without any reason," she said.

Mansharam is given food by the family thrice a day.

"In the summer we provide a fan in Mansharam's room. In winter, we give him a quilt and burn cow dung cakes to keep his room warm," said Bhogchand. "We have also constructed a toilet and a bathroom inside his room."

Kanhaiyya Tiwari, a village elder who remembers Mansharam since the time he was a toddler, says: "I have seen him in a violent mood a couple of times. Once he nearly killed a man."

Tiwari has seen the chained Mansharam age over the years.

"I have seen the man spending the prime time of his life sitting at one place without any movement and becoming old."

According to Ruma Bhattacharya, a Bhopal-based psychologist, the act of keeping a person in fetters for 20 years is very inhuman. "After all he is not a criminal."

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