India's OCD prevalence estimate is 0.6 percent, versus 2–3 percent globally.

In India, OCD compulsions may be masked as socially sanctioned rituals to ward off the evil eye.

OCD treatment must consider social and cultural contexts, not view compulsions as purely individual.

This post is written by Muskan Soni, Research Author, Department of Sociology, Monk Prayogshala, Mumbai, India.

It is not uncommon to find praise prefaced with paranoia in Indian households; compliments are often followed by the perfunctory: "nazar na lage" (may you be spared of the evil eye).

For a disorder that looks for comfort in routines, the arsenal of remedies available in India could only be a delight for the obsessive-compulsive brain. Different subcultures offer their own snack bar of options to soothe the anxious mind: salt, chillies, lemons, camphor, alum. The evil eye is hardly unique to the subcontinent, but it deeply permeates Indian social culture: black dots behind ears, a string of chillies at the door, saying "mashallah" at the end of compliments, and the list goes on. These are routines, practised daily to ward off bad luck. But what really happens when a disorder looks curiously like someone following cultural norms?

Can culture camouflage compulsions?

A 2024 study on cultural variations in how obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) manifests found that compulsions take different forms across cultures: religious and ritual........

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