Past Issues

Background: Mental health care in India has progressed from its rich ancient traditional medicine systems, embracing the modern approaches and developments with time. Postindependence, India has shifted from a custodian approach to a decentralized community-based approach, recognizing the need for therapeutics and rehabilitation in mental health. In this article, we attempt to provide a comprehensive description of mental health care in India, highlighting its rich past, contemporary developments, current status, and future road map. Methods: The authors collected and reviewed secondary data related to mental health, from government official websites, annual reports, journals published by national and state psychiatric associations, as well as other indexed journals and books with their own inputs. Results: Mental health care is primarily the responsibility shared by the central and state government, with significant contribution from private institutes and nongovernment institutes. While there have been serious and persistent attempts to improve mental health care from concerned stakeholders in India, the gap between the demand for mental healthcare needs and the availability of resources needs to be bridged. The legislations and laws pertaining to mental health have taken progressive leaps, but implementation needs improvement. The community mental health-based approach has widened the access to mental health care. Conclusion: There is a need to increase the involvement of nongovernment stakeholders, which can contribute to the primary prevention of mental ill-health conditions. Awareness regarding mental health conditions has improved, and consultation pattern of patients has also changed who have well adapted to the technological advances post-COVID-19 pandemic.