A Social History of Healing in India

This book re-connects the history of medicine with the social and political history of India and analyses the popular and subaltern healing practices in the region. Moving away from the view that a relatively homogenous and discrete set of practices organized under the name of ‘indigenous’ medicine confronted an equally homogenous and discrete set of ‘modern’ practices in a colonial situation, the author argues that both the pre-existing domain of healing as well as the new forces of modernity was heterogeneous and pluralised. The book argues that owing to this plurality on both sides their relationship was not an uniformly confrontational one. Different aspects of the pre-existing healing praxes articulated with different aspects of colonial modernity through a range of ways ranging from mimesis to confrontation. The first full-length first historical exploration of the histories of ‘minor/non-classical’ domain of healing, the book maps the intellectual history of ‘subaltern’ healing in the region. It will be of interest to academics working in the field of Indian history, the history of medicine and public health.

1. Introduction: Medical Modernity in Colonial Bengal 2. Casting Ayurveda: Vaidyas and the Classicism of Indigenous Medicine 3. Reading the Pulse: The Politics of Tradition 4. Sex, Medicine and Morality: The Medicalization of Sexuality 5. Chandshir Chikitsa: Medical Institutionalisation and Non-National Pasts 6. The Magic of Modernity: Islamiya Tantra 7. Spaces of Cure: The Spatiality of Modern Healing 8. Conclusion: Healing Modernities