Kamalini Sarabhai (1925-1981) was probably the first non-white clinician to train and work at the Tavistock Clinic. She is a key figure because she took the theories and practices of the Tavistock Clinic to India, where she established a school, a community mental health programme and the BM Institute of Mental Health in Ahmedabad, which was widely considered to be a model of good practice not only in India, but across South- East Asia.
Kamalini Sarabhai
Born in 1925, Kamalini Sarabhai was the daughter of Dharamsey Mulraj Khatau and Champubai Khatau. Her father, Dharamsey, was a board member of the Khatau Group of Companies, which is one of the oldest business conglomerates in India and one of the leading Indian industrial houses of the mid-twentieth century, with ventures in textiles, chemicals, shipping, cement, aviation, automobile, and other industries.
Sarabhai House in Ahmedabad
Kamalini married Gautam Sarabhai (1917-1995). Historically the Sarabhai family were Jains and headed one of the largest industrial concerns in India[1]. The family were connected with the Calico Mills in Ahmedabad from 1880 and up to 1947 when India became independent[2]. After independence they diversified from textiles into pharmaceuticals, chemicals, advertising and a range of other industries, becoming the Sarabhai Group[3].
Mridula Sarabhai and Ghandi
The Sarabhais were a wealthy and influential family with close ties to Ghandi[4] and India Today described them as the Indian Rockefellers[5]. Gautam became the head of Sarabhai Industries in 1940. His sister Mridula was a freedom fighter in the Vanara Sena (‘Monkey Army’ – a group of child activists organised by Indira Gandhi). She became a politician and Nehru appointed her as one of the General Secretaries of the Indian Congress. Gautam’s brother Vikram was an Indian physicist and astronomer who established the Indian National Committee for Space Research in 1962 (later renamed the Indian Space Research Organization) and became Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India in 1966[6].
Vikram Sarabhai
In the early 1940s Kamalini Sarabhai went to London with her two daughters and trained for six years at the Tavistock Clinic and British Psycho-Analytical Society (BPAS)[7],[8],[9]. She developed links with Anna Freud[10] and became a member of the BPAS with a special interest in child development[11].
After training in England she returned to India and Ahmedabad, where she founded the Balghar School in 1949[12]. This was an experiment in nursery education (now primary school), where children could learn at their own pace without outside imposition[13].
Then in 1951, together with her husband Gautam and the American psychologists Lois and Gardner Murphy, Kamalini Sarabhai set up the Bakubhai Mansukhai Institute of Mental Health (BM Institute), very much along the lines of the Tavistock Clinic School of Family Psychiatry and Community Mental Health[14],[15].
BM Institute
The BM Institute is situated in two separate buildings along banks of river Sabarmati[16]. The buildings were designed by Kamalini’s husband Gautam, who was also an architect[17]. Kamalini Sarabhai was the director of the BM Institute from its founding until her death in 1981[18].
BM Institute
BM Institute
Gautam Sarabhai, the architect
Kamalini Sarabhai’s training in psychoanalysis at the Tavistock Institute helped to shape the BM Institute’s model of child‐focused research and practice which aimed to supply a secure foundation for constructive programmes in mental hygiene, education, family and group living[19].
The BM Institute of Mental Health in Ahmedabad played a pioneering role in psychological research in India throughout the 1960s and 1970s[20]. During the period when psychological research in India was still in its nascent stage, the BM Institute was already experimenting with child psychology, behavioural therapy, cures for mental illnesses and autism[21]. It became considered a model institute by many, not only in India, but across all of South-East Asia[22].
Erik H. Erikson
The BM Institute was regularly frequented by psychiatrists and psychologists of international repute in the 1960s and 70s. This includes Erik H. Erikson, who held a seminar at the BM Institute in 1962 and reported in Childhood and Society on an investigation of the play constructions of preadolescents in India, led by Kamalini Sarabhai[23].
It would seem that Kamalini’s training at the Tavistock Clinic also extended its influence to the wider Sarabhai Industries, because in the mid-50s the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR), led by AK Rice, conducted a research programme on organisational work groups at the Calico Mills (a subsidiary of Sarabhai Industries) and cotton mills at Ahmedabad Manufacturing[24].
This research programme applied the socio-technical methods developed by the TIHR during the National Coal Board studies to develop an experimental automatic loom shed and initiate changes to how the work was organised[25]. Automatic looms were introduced in one of the mills in 1952 and an experimental shed containing 224 looms was developed the following year[26].
Calico mill
The experiments also involved the establishment of semi-autonomous work groups, with responsibility for production and routine maintenance of a group of looms[27]. Working in the capacity of professional consultants, TIHR worked with the Calico Mills in a Development Group to address social and production problems at the mills[28].
The experiment resulted in the creation of internally-structured and led small work groups, a reduction in the number of those reporting directly to the supervisors and the withdrawal of higher management from the running of the sheds[29]. These methods of group working and organisation were then rolled out across the company’s mills[30].
The parallel research programmes led by AK Rice in India and Britain made a comparison possible between work in the two countries[31]. This demonstrated that it is possible to redesign a socio-technical system in manufacturing industry so as to simultaneously satisfy the technologist as well as human needs and constraints. This research and the connection with TIHR also led the Sarabhais to play a role in founding the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad[32].
Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad
As well setting up Balghar School and BM Institute, Kamalini Sarabhai had a vision for community welfare, art and culture[33].
In 1962 AK Rice returned to Ahmedabad, but this time with Jock Sutherland, Medical Director of the Tavistock Clinic[34]. They helped the Sarabhais up a Community Mental Health Service in a large industrial settlement in Ahmedabad[35]. Kamalini worked closely with Jock Sutherland on this project[36].
Jock Sutherland
Kamalini, her husband Gautam and his sister Gira all had an interest in art and architecture[37].
Gira Sarabhai (centre)
When India had become independent in 1947[38] Lahore, which had been the capital of Punjab, went to Pakistan[39]. So Nehru invited Le Corbusier to come and design a new capital of Punjab at Chandigarh[40]. While he was there the Sarabhai family commissioned Le Corbusier to create five buildings in Ahmedabad and this included the Sarabhai Retreat[41].
The Sarabhai house by Le Corbusier
In in 1954 Kamalini, Gautam and Gira invited the American kinetic artist Alexander Calder to come and work in the Retreat[42]. Calder and his wife came in 1955 and stayed for three months[43]. A studio was set up for him and he used the Sarabhai Retreat as a base from which to explore[44].
Alexander Calder in India
In the following years many prominent artists visited the Sarabhai Retreat, including: Le Corbusier, Isamu Noguchi, John Cage, Richard Neutra, Charles Eames, Merce Cunningham, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Rauschenberg[45].
Robert Rauschenberg at the Sarabhai Retreat
Later Charles and Ray Eames returned to make a proposal to the government of India to establish an industrial design institute, so that Indian industrial products would have a design input to make them more acceptable for exports[46]. As a result of this, in 1961, Gautam Sarabhai helped found a National Institute of Design in India, with assistance from the Ford Foundation[47]. This new institute made a break with traditional education instead adopting philosophies from TIHR and the Bauhaus, which emphasise learning by doing.
Gautam Sarabhai at the National Institute of Design with a visitor from the Ford Foundation
Kamalini Sarabhai’s legacy to India includes the Balghar School and BM Institute. Her training at the Tavistock Clinic helped her establish a model of child‐focused research and practice in these institutions. It also helped her influence her husband’s commercial and industrial projects, bringing new methods of work organisation to India. She worked closely with the Tavistock Clinic’s Medical Director, Jock Sutherland, to establish community mental health projects. Through her work, Kamalini Sarabhai became one of the leading names in the field of mental health services in India and was key to developing the BM Institute into one of the pioneering mental health institutes of Asia.
[1] https://www.psychoanalytikerinnen.de/asia_biographies.html
[2] Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project, ‘The Reminiscences of Asha and Suhrid Sarabhai’, Columbia Center for Oral History Research, Columbia University, 2015
[3] Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project, ‘The Reminiscences of Asha and Suhrid Sarabhai’, Columbia Center for Oral History Research, Columbia University, 2015
[4] Erik H. Erikson, Gandhi’s Truth, W. W. Norton & Company, 1969
[5] ‘The Sarabhais: Even more versatile than the Rockefellers’, India Today, April 15, 1987
[6] ‘Vikram Sarabhai: Indian physicist and industrialist’, 2021 Encyclopædia Britannica, downloaded 31/3/2021
[7] http://www.moderntimesworkplace.com/archives/ericsess/tavis2/tavis2.html
[8] https://www.psychoanalytikerinnen.de/asia_biographies.html
[9] Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project, ‘The Reminiscences of Asha and Suhrid Sarabhai’, Columbia Center for Oral History Research, Columbia University, 2015
[10] Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project, ‘The Reminiscences of Asha and Suhrid Sarabhai’, Columbia Center for Oral History Research, Columbia University, 2015
[11] https://www.psychoanalytikerinnen.de/asia_biographies.html
[12] https://www.psychoanalytikerinnen.de/asia_biographies.html
[13] https://www.psychoanalytikerinnen.de/asia_biographies.html
[14] http://www.moderntimesworkplace.com/archives/ericsess/tavis2/tavis2.html
[15] https://www.psychoanalytikerinnen.de/asia_biographies.html
[16] https://www.bminstituteofmentalhealth.com/about-us/
[17] https://www.bminstituteofmentalhealth.com/about-us/
[18] https://www.psychoanalytikerinnen.de/asia_biographies.html
[19] https://www.psychoanalytikerinnen.de/asia_biographies.html
[20] Parth Shastri, ‘Alumni to breathe new life into BM Institute’, The Times of India, 2 February 2011
[21] Parth Shastri, ‘Alumni to breathe new life into BM Institute’, The Times of India, 2 February 2011
[22] https://www.psychoanalytikerinnen.de/asia_biographies.html
[23] https://www.psychoanalytikerinnen.de/asia_biographies.html
[24] ‘Textile industry cotton mill studies: Ahmedabad Manufacturing and Calico Printing Co. Ltd / Ludlow Mills’, The library at Wellcome Collection, Reference: SA/TIH/B/2/4, http://archives.wellcomelibrary.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=show.tcl&dsqSearch=(RefNo==%27SATIH%2FB%2F2%2F4%27) (downloaded 25/03/2021)
[25] ‘Textile industry cotton mill studies: Ahmedabad Manufacturing and Calico Printing Co. Ltd / Ludlow Mills’, The library at Wellcome Collection, Reference: SA/TIH/B/2/4, http://archives.wellcomelibrary.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=show.tcl&dsqSearch=(RefNo==%27SATIH%2FB%2F2%2F4%27) (downloaded 25/03/2021)
[26] ‘Textile industry cotton mill studies: Ahmedabad Manufacturing and Calico Printing Co. Ltd / Ludlow Mills’, The library at Wellcome Collection, Reference: SA/TIH/B/2/4, http://archives.wellcomelibrary.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=show.tcl&dsqSearch=(RefNo==%27SATIH%2FB%2F2%2F4%27) (downloaded 25/03/2021)
[27] ‘Textile industry cotton mill studies: Ahmedabad Manufacturing and Calico Printing Co. Ltd / Ludlow Mills’, The library at Wellcome Collection, Reference: SA/TIH/B/2/4, http://archives.wellcomelibrary.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=show.tcl&dsqSearch=(RefNo==%27SATIH%2FB%2F2%2F4%27) (downloaded 25/03/2021)
[28] ‘Textile industry cotton mill studies: Ahmedabad Manufacturing and Calico Printing Co. Ltd / Ludlow Mills’, The library at Wellcome Collection, Reference: SA/TIH/B/2/4, http://archives.wellcomelibrary.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=show.tcl&dsqSearch=(RefNo==%27SATIH%2FB%2F2%2F4%27) (downloaded 25/03/2021)
[29] ‘Textile industry cotton mill studies: Ahmedabad Manufacturing and Calico Printing Co. Ltd / Ludlow Mills’, The library at Wellcome Collection, Reference: SA/TIH/B/2/4, http://archives.wellcomelibrary.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=show.tcl&dsqSearch=(RefNo==%27SATIH%2FB%2F2%2F4%27) (downloaded 25/03/2021)
[30] ‘Textile industry cotton mill studies: Ahmedabad Manufacturing and Calico Printing Co. Ltd / Ludlow Mills’, The library at Wellcome Collection, Reference: SA/TIH/B/2/4, http://archives.wellcomelibrary.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=show.tcl&dsqSearch=(RefNo==%27SATIH%2FB%2F2%2F4%27) (downloaded 25/03/2021)
[31] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p211, Routledge, 1970
[32] ‘The Sarabhais: Even more versatile than the Rockefellers’, India Today, April 15, 1987
[33] Vandana Kalra, ‘Ahmedabad to London’, The Indian Express, 27 June 2012
[34] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p211, Routledge, 1970
[35] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p211, Routledge, 1970
[36] https://www.psychoanalytikerinnen.de/asia_biographies.html
[37] Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project, ‘The Reminiscences of Asha and Suhrid Sarabhai’, Columbia Center for Oral History Research, Columbia University, 2015
[38] Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project, ‘The Reminiscences of Asha and Suhrid Sarabhai’, Columbia Center for Oral History Research, Columbia University, 2015
[39] Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project, ‘The Reminiscences of Asha and Suhrid Sarabhai’, Columbia Center for Oral History Research, Columbia University, 2015
[40] Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project, ‘The Reminiscences of Asha and Suhrid Sarabhai’, Columbia Center for Oral History Research, Columbia University, 2015
[41] Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project, ‘The Reminiscences of Asha and Suhrid Sarabhai’, Columbia Center for Oral History Research, Columbia University, 2015
[42] ‘Claw: a masterwork made by Alexander Calder in India’, Christies, 13 November 2019
[43] ‘Claw: a masterwork made by Alexander Calder in India’, Christies, 13 November 2019
[44] ‘Claw: a masterwork made by Alexander Calder in India’, Christies, 13 November 2019
[45] Vandana Kalra, ‘Ahmedabad to London’, The Indian Express, 27 June 2012
[46] Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project, ‘The Reminiscences of Asha and Suhrid Sarabhai’, Columbia Center for Oral History Research, Columbia University, 2015
[47] ‘History & Background’, National Institute of Design, https://www.nid.edu/institute/history-background.html downloaded 29/3/2021