14 * 15 JUNE 2001
CAMBRIDGE, UNITED KINGDOM
Imperialism, Medicine & South Asia:
A Socio-Political Perspective, 18001980
On the initiative
of Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Biswamoy Pati, and Gordon Johnson,the workshop
'Imperialism, Medicine, and South Asia: A Socio-Political Perspective,
1800-1080' was held in the very pleasant environs of Wolfson College,
University of Cambridge, over a two-day period. It involved participants
from all over the world and, happily, the meeting was, by all accounts,
considered a great success, despite the withdrawal and the replacement
of a few participants almost at the last moment.
* By SANJOY BHATTACHARYA
The quality of the meeting exceeded all
expectations. Among the main aims of the event had been to uncover a
variety of new work on the history of South Asian medicine, and to create
links between scholars studying its more technical aspects and those
examining the popular perceptions and social impact of health initiatives.
A large number of extremely innovative papers, based on hitherto unused
archival material and private correspondence, were presented, engendering
a series of very productive discussions about the origin and the location
of these sources, as well as how they were being interpreted by different
historians. The meeting helped inform its participants about a great
variety of historical source material, which, it is hoped, will help
generate a wide range of new research.
All papers presented at the conference were of a high
academic standard. Niels Brimnes (University of Aarhus, Denmark) kicked
off the meeting in great style, with an extremely well researched article
dealing with the British East India Company's deployment of native medical
practitioners in the Madras presidency during the early nineteenth century.
This was followed by two papers dealing with variola, vaccination, and
smallpox control strategies in the South Asian subcontinent presented,
respectively, by Paul Greenough (University of Iowa) and Sanjoy Bhattacharya
(University of Oxford). They stressed the importance of paying attention
to regional specificities of variola and vaccination practices, as well
as the varied modes of funding smallpox immunization networks in western,
central, and eastern India.
SANJOY BHATTACHARYA
Richard Newmann and Mark
Harrison.
Malaria and its control
Then followed three very interesting papers on malaria
and its control. V.R. Muraleedharan, (Indian Institute of Technology,
Chennai, India) spoke about the Rockefeller Foundation's involvement
in anti-malarial measures during the Madras presidency, while Kalinga
Tudor Silva (University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka) dealt with colonial
and anti-colonial discourses regarding malaria in British Ceylon. Kohei
Wakimura (Osaka City University, Japan) rounded off the panel with a
paper on the effects of growing plantation and agricultural coverage
on the spread of malaria, and the bitter official debates that this
trend engendered.
Waltraud Ernst (University of Southampton, UK) opened
the next panel, describing the deployment of the practice of mesmerism
in British India. He was followed by Mark Harrison (University of Oxford)
dealing with the development and effects of the science
of pathology in British India during the early nineteenth century. Finally,
Biswamoy Pati (University of Delhi, India) described tribal attitudes
to disease and allopathic medicine in colonial Orissa. The last panel
of the day dealt with the question of indigenous systems of South Asian
medicine. Whilst Neshat Quaiser, of Jamia Milia Islamia, India, assessed
the place of unani
medicine in the 'medical public sphere' of nineteenth- and twentieth-century
India, Sanath Arseculeratne, (University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka) spoke
about government efforts to provide a combination of ayurveda,
siddha and allopathy
through networks set up or subsidised by its health agencies.
A wide
array of topics
Mridula Ramanna (University of Mumbai, India) started
the second day of the conference, presenting an extremely interesting
article dealing with the important role played by voluntary agencies
in buttressing official healthcare provisions in colonial Bombay in
the first two decades of the nineteenth century. Laura Briggs (University
of Arizona) held an equally thought provoking presentation on international
linkages with regards to colonial syphilis control measures and the
regulation of prostitution. Richard Newman (School of Oriental and African
Studies) followed this up with a presentation referring to the use of
opium as a medicine in nineteenth-century India. Afterwards, Michael
Worboys (Sheffield Hallam University) spoke on the effects of the advances
of bacteriology on the leprosy control policies being developed and
deployed in the British Empire between 1870 and 1900. The last paper
of this panel was presented by Alex McKay (SOAS and Associate Fellow
of IIAS). He provided us with an extremely entertaining and original
treatment of the politics of voluntary medicine in Tibet during the
twentieth century: a complex game involving formal and informal representatives
of the British, Chinese, and Nazi German governments.
The next panel was equally diverse and rich in its
focus and content, and concentrated primarily on medical aspects in
the post-colonial Indian context. Geetanjali Gangoli, (University
of Delhi, India) spoke on the reproductive health needs of sex workers,
while Samrat Chaudhury (attached to the same institution) presented
a paper dealing with the attitudes that plantation labourers in Jalpaiguri
district, Bengal have towards disease and state-sponsored health institutions.
The last two papers of the conference dealt with the nature
and the effects of international assistance towards nation-wide
health campaigns launched in India. Sunniva Engh (University of Oxford)
spoke about the forms and the degree of Danish and Norwegian government
aid to the family planning programme. John Wickett (World Health Organization)
closed the meeting in a high note, with a very interesting presentation
dealing with the challenges faced during the last phase of the smallpox
eradication campaign.
Follow-up
These papers will be used to prepare two separate publications.
One, which will be prepared first, is going to be a special issue of
the journal Social Scientist.
Edited by Sanjoy Bhattacharya, it will contain the papers dealing with
the independent Indian context. The other is going to be a volume edited
by Sanjoy Bhattacharya and Biswamoy Pati, and is going to contain a
selection of the other papers the editors have been in negotiations
with Orient Longmans Ltd, Hyderabad, India, for the publication of this
piece.
All in all, therefore, the conference was a great success.
Apart from helping the organizers to bring together a wide range of
very interesting scholars, it has accorded them the opportunity to produce
two edited works that are certain to be significant contributions to
the field of the history of medicine. Moreover, the meeting provided
many of the conference participants with the opportunity to discuss
future collaborations indeed, concrete moves have already been
made towards the creation of at least one formal collaborative network,
involving the University of Iowa, the University of Aarhus, the Indian
Institute of Technology Chennai, India, and the Wellcome Centre for
the History of Medicine at University College London. Other fruitful
academic partnerships are likely to follow. *
This
workshop was funded by the Asia Committee of the European Science
Foundation, the University of Oxford, and Sheffield Hallam University.
Dr
Sanjoy Bhattacharya works for the Wellcome Unit for the History
of Medicine, University of Oxford and specializes in the history of
South Asian medicine, with particular emphasis on the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. He is currently completing a monograph dealing
with the control and eradication of smallpox in India between 1850
and 1977.
E-mail:
joygeeta@hotmail.com