A Social History of Healing in India : De-Centring Indigenous Medicine

This book re-connects the history of medicine with the social and political history of India. It analyzes the popular and subaltern healing practices in the region, and moves 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 pluralized. The book discusses 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, such as mimesis and confrontation. The first full-length historical exploration of the histories of minor/non-classical domain of healing, this book maps the intellectual history of `subaltern' healing in the region. It is of interest to academics working in the field of Indian history, the history of medicine and public health.