Click to play videoThe whole nation has been outraged at what has happened in Nithari. Moninder Singh along with his servant Surinder accused of raping and killing children. While both have confessed to their crimes, those who have known of them over the years, just refuse to believe that people who were so lovable and common, could actually be playing the part of serial killers.
Is it really possible for these seemingly ordinary normal people to be converted into real life Jekyll and Hyde?
But what is it that can change simple looking ordinary folk into devils. Could it be split personality, something, which has intrigued us for a long time?
Is there an unknown or maybe even a dark side to all of us? This was the topic of discussion in India 360 on CNN-IBN.
To discuss the matter on the panel of experts were Dr Rajat Mitra, Criminal Pshycologist/Director, Swanchetan, Sunita Chabbra, Astrologer and film director Tanuja Chandra.
Is split personality a common disorder?
Who are these kind of people who may be looking very ordinary, very normal but somewhere there is a streak in them – the unknown side or the dark side, which often comes up.
Talking about the kind of people who have split personality syndrome Dr Rajat Mitra said, “They may be behaving normally they may be doing a lot of normal things but there is another side to them. If you see that serial killers who have been caught all over the world people around them haven’t said that they were crazy. They said that they behave normally they are fine. They do things, which are normal. But at the same time they have their fantasy life which they enact out through such crazy behaviour.”
These kind of people may see absolute normal but they also could be leading a double life. Is this a common disorder and is this present in everybody. Because we often say we ended up doing something, which was not in our control.
“We all have a different side of our personality but that is latent. For these people for some reason it is not latent, it is operational. For many of us we have fantasies but we don’t act upon them. These people are not able to hold on their fantasies. They act up on them and they carry them out into action, “ Dr Rajat added.
Giving astrological perspective to these kind of people, astrologer Sunita Chabbra said, “A French psychologist and a sedatition conducted a research and found that in the charts of the criminals the red planet of energy Mars was very strongly placed. The energy can be positive it can motivate you to do things but it can be destructive. If it’s destructive it can cause killings any kind of killings. If it is Uranus, which is sudden happenings, a person may just pick up the weapon of destruction and then do the killing. But with a split personality Rahu, a masking ability planet, we mask our abilities.”
On the celluloid screen, there are many examples of people with such disorders. From Hollywood to Bollywood, multiple personality syndrome has always been a much talked about subject.
Filmmaker Tanuja Chandra said, “I don’t think we would be able to function in so called normal society if we were all to act up on our basic instinct and on our fantasies. There is a certain amount of life that we have to deal in order to be sociable and in order to be social with each other and to lead a kind of civil life. But of course here we are talking about people who are completely crazy in their mind.”
“The movie that I had made like Sangharsh in which there was such a character who was sacrificing children that in fact was taken from real life. In fact I had read about case in the newspaper where a person sacrifices own child in order to get rid of kind of terminal disease. The rapist are very violent people and they look very normal and they looks like man next door who you would never suspect,” she added.
Multiple personality disorder vs Schizophrenia
Lets now take a look at how multiple personality disorder (MPD) differs from Schizophrenia. MPD is a rare condition indicated by the absence of a clear and comprehensive identity. Schizophrenia on the other hand is characterized by impairments in the perception or expression of reality and by significant social dysfunction.
In case of MPD two or more independent and distinct personalities develop in the same individual, but a schizophrenic is typically seen as demonstrating disorganised thinking and as experiencing delusions or hallucinations.
It’s generally viewed as resulting from dissociative mental processes-that is, the splitting off from conscious awareness and control of thoughts, feelings, memories, and other mental components.
Schizophrenia caused by bad parenting, and lack of moral fibre. People with schizophrenia are unstable and violent, and could go "wild" without any warning.
Can these people really reformed?
It’s all very well to talk about getting or identifying someone who may be suffering from either of these disorders, but can these people really reformed?
Dr Rajat said, ”It is very difficult to reform these kind of people. It is first important to understand them how their mind functions but reformation is something which is extremely difficult with such people. They have grown and developed over the year they have their own ways of looking at things, which cannot be reformed from external source.”
Agreeing to what Rajat said, Sunita added, ”Yes they can’t be reformed because this is one planetary combination that’s only in the case of criminals. This is only in the cases of criminals. There is a dark side to all of us but criminals have something different which is not there.”
Should we say that these people are suffering from multiple personality syndrome or should we say that these people are just anti-social elements?
“I would say they are definitely anti-social elements. I haven’t seen or met any of these people. But I can say they have evil side they have a side which acts up on their fantasies and they act crazily without any feeling,” Dr Rajat said.
Replying to the fact that it’s not easy to reform these people Tanuja said,” Large part of this is genetic up on which the society feeds on and then it feeds on the society and through conditioning they arrive at a certain point where they just driven to be doing these kind of activities. Film wise of course it’s a very attractive kind of character to have in movies because it’s interesting to watch and its very fascinating as well, but when it comes to real life then it’s something which is too terrifying and horrible.
(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter and Google+)
displayed with permission. Use of the CNN name and/or logo on or as part of CNN-IBN does not derogate from the intellectual property rights of Cable News Network in respect of them.