ABSTRACT
The majority of publications by historians on madness in South Asia have been written since the 1990s. Despite certain scholarly lacunae, the history of madness in South Asia in its manifold guises seems to be in good health. Alongside its African twin, it occupies a prominent niche in the wider field of history of psychiatry. One concerns a critical conceptual approach that acknowledges connections and crossovers rather than merely dissemination and transfer, without losing sight of issues of power, resistance, and hegemony. Another relates to the woefully marginal position to which histories of madness in non-European/North American are relegated by 'mainstream' histories of psychiatry, which on their part remain uninformed by the manifold insights they could garner from its subalternised 'others'. Globalising and localising the history of madness is not enough; it also needs to be self-reflective and beware of historiographic hegemony.
