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Accepted Paper:

Power and powerlessness: colonial- and post-colonial governance, and international health in India, 1920-1980  
Sanjoy Bhattacharya (University of York)

Paper short abstract:

My paper will seek to fill this historical gap by studying how tropical medicine was perceived at different levels of colonial and independent Indian administration, and how, in turn, this affected negotiations in relation to the design and application of a number of internationally-funded programmes within different locations.

Paper long abstract:

Much has been written about the support received by Patrick Manson and Ronald Ross from within the British Government's Colonial Office. Thanks to this scholarship, we have been left better informed about the growth of tropical medicine as a specialism in Britain and several of its colonies. There have been occasional references to the disagreements within the structures of colonial government about the efficacy of metropolitan tropical medicine, and the efforts to translate and transform policies to the specificities of India. However, the majority of work has concentrated on high-level debates and the musings of elite actors. There has, on the other hand, been little systematic analysis of the attitudes within complex health bureaucracies and their varied roles in using the science of tropical medicine in health programmes.

My paper will seek to fill this historical gap by studying how tropical medicine was perceived at different levels of colonial and independent Indian administration, and how, in turn, this affected negotiations in relation to the design and application of a number of internationally-funded programmes within different locations. By highlighting the fact that the Indian state and international health agencies were not monolithic and marked by attitudinal complexities, I hope to highlight the importance of recognising the co-existence of many forms of tropical medicine, and the many scientific, political and infrastructural factors that ensured this. This, in turn, will underscore the usefulness of developing multiple histories of tropical medicine, which can be combined to present a complex mosaic of interlinking theories and practices.

Panel P07
Knowledge, power and health in South Asia: historical tensions and emerging issues
  Session 1