BML Munjal University holds remembrance event for late psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar

The School of Liberal Studies (SoLS) of BML Munjal University on Friday held a talk in partnership with Oxford University to celebrate, remember, and discuss the contributions of the late Sudhir Kakar, who was popularly known as the father of Indian psychoanalysis.

The School of Liberal Studies (SoLS) of BML Munjal University on Friday held a talk in partnership with Oxford University to celebrate, remember, and discuss the contributions of the late Sudhir Kakar, who was popularly known as the father of Indian psychoanalysis.

The talk, held at India Habitat Centre, was held in the wake of the psychoanalyst’s death on April 22.

“Kakar was able to examine the symptoms of our society, like how a clinician would see a symptom as not something to be criticised, but instead, something that is full of meaning, in order to empathetically understand and negotiate with it,” said Rachana Johri, a professor at SoLS.

Ramin Jehanbegaloo, a professor at the Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Peace Studies, said that Kakar’s death was a “great loss to the world of psychoanalysis in India and across the globe”. “He had a dimension of a global intellectual, and future generations will remember him as somebody who possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge,” he added.

Kakar, who died aged 86, was renowned for his contributions to the fields of cultural psychology and psychology of religion. French magazine Le Nouvel had, in the past, described him as “one of the major 25 thinkers of the world”. His vast works, spanning both fiction and non-fiction, included The Mind in the World, a collection of four volumes published by Oxford Printing Press.

Sudhir Kakkar who passed away recently in April and is remembered for his contributions in the field of cultural psychology and psychology of religion. He has written extensively both in fiction and non-fiction. French magazine Le Nouvel had once described him as one of the major 25 thinkers of the world.