Revisiting Health in Colonial Bengal: A Literary Overview (1880 -1930)

Abstract

The essential theme of this paper is to highlight the condition of health and hygiene in the British Bengal
from the perspective of official documents and vernacular writings, with special emphasis on the journals
and periodicals. The fatal effects of the epidemics like malaria and cholera, the insanitary condition of the
rural Bengal and the cultivated indifference of the British Raj made the lives of the poor natives miserable
and ailing.The authorities had a tendency to blame the colonized for their illiteracy and callousness which
became instrumental for the outbreak of the epidemics. On the other, in the late 19th and the beginning of
the 20th, the vernacular literature played the role of a catalyst in awakening health awareness, highlighting
the issues related with ill-health, insanitation and malnourishment. More importantly, it became an active
link between the society and culture on the one hand, and health and people on the other. The present
researcher wants to highlight these opposite trajectories of mentalities with a different connotation. The
ideologies of the Raj and the native political aspirations often reflected in the colonial writings, where the
year 1880 was considered as a landmark in the field of public health policies. On the other, the dichotomy
between the masters and the colonized took a prominent shape during 1930s.Within these fifty years; the
health of the natives witnessed many upheavals grounded on the social, economic and cultural tensions.