The Association was born in 1984 with great hopes under the giant leadership of stalwarts like Professor A. Venkoba Rao, Professor V.K. Varma, Professor S.M. Channabasavanna, Professor S.D. Sharma, Professor B.B Sethi and Dr M.A.M. Khan. However, its gestation of the IASP can be traced back to a transcultural psychiatric meet organized by Late Professor A. Venkoba Rao in August 1981 at Madurai. The participants in the meet felt a great need in the country to have a separate professional organization for social and/or transcultural psychiatry, which could also examine the interface between culture and personality and be conducive to the scientific study of the social issues relevant to the country and the society. The organization would primarily attempt academic and intellectual exercises and bring a multidisciplinary approach to bear on these issues. In January 1982, an ad hoc committee was formed to usher in the new organization. After a preparatory phase of approximately two years, at a historic meeting held in Ranchi on 14 January 1984, the Indian Association for Social Psychiatry was formed, its constitution and by-laws adopted and the office-bearers selected. Professor A. Venkoba Rao was elected as the first President of the Association. He served in that capacity from 1984 to 1986. Professor V.K.Varma was the Founder Secretary General. First conference of the Association was held at Kodaikanal on 24-25 February 1985 under the chairmanship of Professor A Venkoba Rao. The first issue of the Indian Journal of Social Psychiatry was published in 1986 under the editorship of Professor B.B.Sethi. The Association had had as its office bearers leading mental health professionals of the country, who are acclaimed internationally for their professional achievements. Some of them included Professor A Venkoba Rao, Professor V.K. Varma, Professor S. M. Channabasavanna, Professor B.B Sethi, Professor S.D. Sharma, Professor L..P.Shah, Professor Anil Shah, Professor N. Chakraborty, Prof P Kulhara, Professor S.C.Malik, Professor R.S.Bhatti, Prof Savita Malhotra and Prof Anil Malhotra. Its website was launched in July 2008.
Table 1 gives names of various office bearers, since the Association was formed.

The Purposes and objectives of the Association as outlined in its Constitution are:

• To study the nature of man and his cultures and the prevention and treatment of his vicissitudes and behavior disorders.
• To promote national and international collaboration among professionals and societies in fields related to social psychiatry.
• To make the knowledge and practice of social psychiatry available to professionals in social psychiatry and other sciences and to the public by such methods as scientific meetings and publications.
• To advance the physical, social, psychological and philosophic well-being of mankind by such methods as promotion of research and deliberations into it.
• To extend consultations and carry out charitable and voluntary work for the furtherance of the objectives mentioned above.
• To do all such things and matters that are incidental or conducive to the attainment of the above objectives.

The Association has been holding regular conferences, which have been held in various cities representing different parts of the country. The first annual conference was held in Kodaikanal in February 1985. Later the conferences have been held in North in Delhi and Chandigarh, in East in Kolkata and Ranchi, in the West in Ahmadabad and in South in Bangalore, Trichy, Hyderabad and Chennai. Each conference was held with a socially relevant theme and included symposia, free papers and a number of guest lectures and popular lectures. Table 2 gives the dates, venue and themes of various IASP conferences.
IASP also organized the Regional Symposium of WASP along with its annual conference in Feb 1989 at New Delhi. It also hosted the XIII Congress of WASP in Nov 1992 at New Delhi under the leadership of Professor V.K. Varma. IASP became formally affiliated to the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) in June 1993. Later in 1995, IASP hosted the Regional Symposium of Transcultural Psychiatry Section of the World Psychiatric Association in March 1995 at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research under leadership of Professor V.K.Varma. The Association is holding its Silver Jubilee Year Conference at Lucknow on 15-17 November 2009. The theme of the conference is Mental Health: Prioritizing Social Psychiatry.

The Association has its own journal by the name Indian Journal of Social Psychiatry, which is being regularly published since 1985. Professor B.B. Sethi was its founder editor. Professor P Kulhara, Professor P. Raghurami Reddy and Professor G Banerjee have been the other illustrious editors of the Indian Journal of Social Psychiatry. It is currently being published form Central Institute of Psychiatry, Ranchi. Professor V.K. Sinha is its current editor. The issues from the year 2006 onwards can be freely accessed on the Association’s website.

IASP encourages scientific research by the membership. To encourage the research in various fields of social psychiatry, the Association has instituted many awards, number of which has also grown, as the Association is growing. The awards are given every year in the national conference. There are awards both for young as well as senior mental health professionals. Dr N.N. De oration is delivered every year by a senior fellow of IASP, decided on the basis of evaluation of nominations from the membership. The oration is decided one year in advance. Balint Award was instituted out of an endowment on behalf of the Foundation of Psychosomatic and Social Medicine by Dr. Med. Dr. H.C. Boris Luban-Plozza, CH 6612 Ascona, Collina, Switzerland. It is based on a write up and presentation of a paper based on their personal experience of relationship with patients. Dr G.C.Boral Awards I and II of the IASP, instituted out of a donation from Dr G.C.Boral, a Fellow, are for the best papers presented at the annual conferences of the Association by a fellow and an associate member of IASP respectively. During the 2008 National Conference of the IASP held at New Delhi, three new awards were instituted, which have been introduced from 2009, the silver jubilee year of the Association. These include Dr Venkoba Rao Oration, instituted in memory of Prof A Venkoba Rao, Founder President of IASP, Dr V.K.Varma Award and Dr. B.B. Sethi Award. Dr Venkoba Rao Oration will be given to an outstanding mental health professional above the age of 55 years, who has contributed in the field of social psychiatry. Dr V.K.Varma Award has been instituted to encourage publications in the field of social psychiatry in Indian journals and is to all the members who have published a paper in psychiatry based on original research in any Indian Journal. Dr. B.B. Sethi Award would be given to the best poster presented in the Annual National Conference of the Indian Association for Social Psychiatry

IASP has a number of sub committees, which are chaired by a senior fellow and have at least 5 members. The sub committees include constitution and bye laws committee, programme committee, ethics committee, elections committee, CME committee, awards and oration committee and membership committee. All the committees have been working hard to meet the objectives of the Association. Recently IASP has made 3 task forces on ‘Mental health legislation’, ‘Mass media and mental health’ and ‘Mental health policy’. Professor R Srinivasa Murthy, Professor A K Kala and Dr U C Garg respectively are the convenors of these task forces. All these three areas are of national importance and need active inputs form the mental health professions, and therefore IASP has taken initiative in this area.

The Indian Association for Social Psychiatry has been actively associated with the international developments in the field of mental health. The Association became formally affiliated to the World Association for Social Psychiatry (WASP) in October 1985. The Indian Association is acclaimed as one of the more active and emergent regional societies of the World Psychiatric Association. In that, it is fortunate to receive the patronage of many of the world leaders in social psychiatry. The Indian Association for Social Psychiatry has also made rapid strides in the global perspectives. Through its own activities and the activities of its members, the Indian Association has been receiving greater recognition and visibility at the global level and at the level of the World Association for Social Psychiatry (WASP). Professor S.D. Sharma, a past President of IASP has also served as the President of the World Association for Social Psychiatry. Even many young members of the Association have represented the association in various WPA meetings at different times. Professor J K Trivedi, one of the senior fellows has been a regional representative from Southern Asia zone to the WPA. Prof K Roy Abraham, the President Elect of IASP, is the current Co Chairperson, Preventive Psychiatry Section of the WPA.

The IASP, like the WASP takes a holistic view of mankind. This is evidenced from the laudable objective in the Constitution, namely that of the advancement of the mental, social and philosophic well being of mankind. Some social issues and problems have more clearly attracted the attention of social psychiatrists in India. Social psychiatrists have been increasingly venturing out of the narrow confines of clinical psychiatry into the social issues and problems. Some of these are in terms of the position of women in the society and crimes against them, the status of suicidal acts in the society, the social and legislative aspects of mental illness and alcohol and drug abuse, imprisonment of the non criminal mentally ill, etc. IASP has always taken initiative in promoting various social issues related to mental health especially psychosocial factors involved in etiogenesis and managements of mental illnesses and their psychosocial consequences. For example, in some of its recent conferences, the focus has been to bring discussion on destigmatisation of mental illnesses, psychosocial intervention in health and disease, and new horizons for social psychiatry in the new millennium. The Global Burden Disease Study released in 1996 has highlighted the importance of the mental illnesses in causing burden and disability and attracted the attention of public health experts to put focus on this relatively neglected area of the health. The World Health Report of 2001, which was exclusively devoted to mental health, brought further attention of the various countries of the world especially those from the low and middle income group, to develop strategies at improving the mental health sector. It is important to mention here that the Editor in Chief of this report was Professor R Srinivasa Murthy, one of senior fellows of IASP. There is further need to examine the impact of various social issues and problems like social inequalities, migration, poverty, natural and manmade disasters, wars, increasing violence and their impact on the health and general functioning of the population, and to find solutions to such problems. A number of geographical areas in India faces many natural disasters like floods and landslides every year and may place s are prone to terrorist violence, which has their own adverse consequences on mental health, which need focus of the social psychiatrists. Social issues like increasing suicide rate in the country over the last 10-15 years, and also that involving some specific population like farmers, adolescents and very high rates reported from some specific geographical locations need particular investigations by the social psychiatrists in collaboration with other social scientists.

Professor Mario Maj, President, World Psychiatric Association in his message for the Silver Jubilee Year Conference of the Indian Association for Social Psychiatry has remarked that the meeting would review the progresses made in the field of social component of psychiatry especially looking into social consequences of mental disorders, like stigma, discrimination and burden on caregivers, effectiveness of psychosocial interventions for major mental disorders, and links between the organization of mental health services and patients’ quality of life and satisfaction with care.
Professor Julio Arboleda-Flórez, President, World association for Social Psychiatry (WASP), has complimented IASP on keeping the theme of prioritising social psychiatry in mental health for its Silver Jubilee Year Conference. The theme is very close to the aims and ideals of the WASP. Psychiatry must focus its interventions at the interface of the individual and society where psychiatry.

In cotemporary psychiatry, in the background of George Engel’s biopsychosocial model of disease, role of psychosocial factors in mental health promotion, and in genesis and management of illness is often being eclipsed under the biological research and promotion by the pharmaceuticals. In this background the silver jubilee year conference of IASP has chosen ‘Mental Health: Prioritizing Social Psychiatry’ as the theme for the conference so as to further the role of social psychiatry in mental health promotion, and in prevention and treatment of mental disorders. Emerging issues in mental health like burden and disability caused by mental illnesses, mental health promotion and developing preventive strategies for mental illnesses and identifying and ameliorating the risk factors are some important areas, where IASP has to take a lead in the coming years.