‘In early 1970s, Indian Psychiatric Society mooted the concept of Zones……as it was felt that one annual meeting was not sufficient to provide the platform for professional advancement and discussion of regional and local issues’ (Agarwal 2003).Thus the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh formed the Central Zone of Indian Psychiatric Society. Prominent personalities in the field were asked to nominate Zonal Representatives to be sent to the central body.
Prof. BB Sethi was entrusted with the task, and he nominated himself and Prof. ON Srivastava, and the former was nominated as the Coordinator for the Zone. However, as no annual conference could be organised during the following year, Prof. AK Agarwal was nominated as the Coordinator, and under his leadership, first 2 conferences in 1975 and 1976 were organised at Lucknow.
An interesting version of this period has been given by Prof KC Gurnani.
Prof Gurnani (2021-05-05 )
The version of Prof. Sitholey has made me to recapture some old memories and his version just can not be kept aside. It is great on the part of Prof. Agarwal that he has given credit to the two luminaries of their time but a few faint memories of mine give some different view to be pondered upon.
Along with Dr. VK Bhat, we three other faculty, Dr. Behere, Dr. Indira Sharma and myself, were involved in the initial process of organising the third conference.
The very natural question which would have arisen in any person’s mind at that time would have been that when and where the last conference was organised and who were the office bearers. In the light of towering image of Prof. Sethi, we had presumed that it would be naturally him only who would be the president. And I get a kind of flash memory / or a kind of retrospective falsification, a conversation amongst we three, leaving Dr Indira Sharma aside, as she had come from KGMC itself and the fact was not new to her, that it was not Prof. Sethi but Dr. Agarwal who was the president. And this information was a kind of wide opening of our eyes.
The young generation of psychiatrists may not be aware of the influence of those two towering figures of their time. I get a feeling that in the present group of central zone, beside Prof. Agarwal and myself there may not be any one else who had had close encounter with those two illumanaries together, albeit in a different fashion. And hence, the news was a kind of shock to us.
And so, when Dr. Shashi Rai conveyed the version of Prof. Agarwal, it appears he stated so out of his respect for our seniors and the makers of psychiatry in UP and MP. The two states at that time had not further divided.
What I have narrated may be my retrospective imagination only, but Dr. Indira Sharma, Dr. Mahendru, Dr. AK Tandon and Dr. C S Rastogi were present in that conference and these all are the alumni of KGMC. They must be having a better information than me.
Incidentally Dr CS Rastogi (cf Dr CK Rastogi) was elected as Hon. Secretary of the association.
The Central Zone of Indian Psychiatric Society was registered in 1983, and in 2019 the name was changed and registered as Central Psychiatric Society, thus signifying a break from the ‘apron strings’ of the mother society.
The Zone organised the first conference in 1975 with Prof. BB Sethi as the President, and Prof. Anil Kumar Agarwal was the Honorary General Secretary. The conference was held at Nur Manzil Hospital, Lucknow.
The first conference was attended by the leaders in the field such as Prof. KC Dube from Agra, Prof. ON Srivastava and Dr. Shabd Saran from Gwalior; Lucknow had the biggest representation with Prof. Sethi spearheading KG Medical College, Dr. VR Thacore and Dr. M Foye from Nur Manzil hospital, and Commander TR DeNitho from the Command Hospital in the city. The attendees were requested to ‘present the faculty present in their centers and to suggest the ways for advancement of psychiatry in the (irrespective) areas.’.
The next conference was held again at Lucknow in 1976, with Prof. AK Agarwal (Lucknow) as the Organising Secretary, and was attended by a large number of delegates from both the states – 12 in total! (It is to be seen in the context that there were a handful of psychiatrists in the country, and the states of UP and MP were no exception, and at this time, only Lucknow, Agra and BHU (?1973 onwards, with Prof. ON Srivatava as the first Head) were training centres in Psychiatry). To accommodate this large number of delegates, the conference was held in Brown Hall of KGMU which can accommodate at least 100 people. Prof Agarwal endeavoured in these early stages, to involve prominent psychiatrists from both the constituent states of the Zone, who will then nurture the fledgling organisation in their respective areas.
The next conference was held after a gap of 4 years (the story goes that Prof. Agarwal left for UK for 1 year fellowship in 1976, and as he was the impetus behind the fledgling organisation, and no further conference was organised for next 5 years).
Prof. VK Bhat of BHU took the lead in organising the next meeting in 1981, and at this meeting Prof. CK Rastogi (Gorakhpur) and Prof. Anil KumarTandon (Allahabad) were elected as General Secretary and Treasurer respectively. Prof. Gurnani was the organising secretary for the 3rd annual conference, heading the coordinated effort of all the faculty of BHU at that time – Drs. Behre and Indira Sharma.
Since then a conference is held every year, and the number of delegates and choice of venues increased consistently. Subsequent conferences were organised in diverse places like Nainital, Faizabad, Raipur, to name a few.
The year 2020 was exceptional with the the Corona pandemic stopped all such meetings. After much deliberations in online EC meetings, the 2020 conference was held on the Zoom platform in Jan 2021.
The term – Annual Conference of Central Zone of Indian Psychiatric Society, continued till about 20 years since the inception of the Zone. The more familiar name of CIPCON was instituted only in the annual conferences in 1995 organised by Prof. Gurnani at Agra.
The early conferences were ‘informal affair’ where the ‘hospitality’ was the onus of the organisers. The money generated for the organisation of the conference was earned through delegate fee and advertisements of pharmaceutical companies in the published Souvenir. In other words, there was no sponsorship from pharmaceutical companies for the conferences.
Prof. PK Joel shared an interesting recollection from his memory. These early conferences were a ‘family affair’, where the respective wife of the Organising Secretary, although the name was never mentioned in the Souvenir, had the responsibility for organising activites for wife and children of the delegates attending!
The conferences were also ‘given’ rather than ‘bid for’ in the Annual General Body Meetings.
For the decade of 1970s, the Zone only had a Coordinator. Subsequently, various posts such as it exists now, were instituted in later years. The post holders for President, General Secretary, Treasurer and Editor were created at 1981 Varanasi conference.
The Zone had instituted Central Zone Oration, the origins of which are lost in the mists of the time, and probably began in mid-80s when the Zone had become ‘an adolescent’. Prof. BB Sethi, a nationally recognised figure and the first Coordinator of the Zone, passed away in 1996 or 1997, and in 1998, Prof. Narottam Lal suggested that the CZ Oration be named after this towering personality, which was agreed. I am assuming that this would have taken place in the 1998 conference.
Dr. Hemant Naidu of Nur Manzil hospital at Lucknow, had been an active member of the Zone. In the 1992 conference at Faizabad, he proposed the aforesaid award in the memory of his late wife. It was agreed and the first Tara Naidu award was given at the Lucknow conference of 2003.
Both the above awards are seriously contested at the time of writing this missive.
