The Birth of the “Indian” Clinic: <i>Daktari</i> Medicine in <i>A Ballad of Remittent Fever</i>
This article locates the clinic as a historically contingent space which faced cultural resistance and remained alien to the colonized population in India. It corroborates the socio-political tension in setting up a clinic within the colony and investigates how the Western clinic as a colonial appar...
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MDPI AG
2024-12-01
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| author | Thiyagaraj Gurunathan Binod Mishra |
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| description | This article locates the clinic as a historically contingent space which faced cultural resistance and remained alien to the colonized population in India. It corroborates the socio-political tension in setting up a clinic within the colony and investigates how the Western clinic as a colonial apparatus was resituated as the “Indian clinic” per se. With the historical emergence of a new class of medical practitioners called “<i>daktars</i>” (a Bengali vernacularization of the term “doctor”), the health-seeking behaviour and public health model of colonial India witnessed a decolonial shift. Unlike their English counterparts, <i>daktars</i> did not enjoy a privileged position within the medical archives of colonial India. This archival gap within Indian medical history presents itself as a viable topic for discussion through the means of the literature of the colonized. Bengali writer Ashoke Mukhopadhyay’s novel <i>Abiram Jwarer Roopkotha</i> (2018), translated into English as <i>A Ballad of Remittent Fever</i> in 2020, remedies the colonial politics of the archive by reconstructing the lives of various <i>daktars</i> and their pursuit of self-reliance. The article takes a neo-historical approach towards understanding and assessing the past of <i>daktari</i> medicine and thereby offers comments on its traces in the contemporary public health of India. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-1d425d5f1d294a2681e4807f0634601c |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2076-0787 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-12-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Humanities |
| spelling | doaj-art-1d425d5f1d294a2681e4807f0634601c2024-12-27T14:29:36ZengMDPI AGHumanities2076-07872024-12-0113616910.3390/h13060169The Birth of the “Indian” Clinic: <i>Daktari</i> Medicine in <i>A Ballad of Remittent Fever</i>Thiyagaraj Gurunathan0Binod Mishra1Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Haridwar 247667, Uttarakhand, IndiaDepartment of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Haridwar 247667, Uttarakhand, IndiaThis article locates the clinic as a historically contingent space which faced cultural resistance and remained alien to the colonized population in India. It corroborates the socio-political tension in setting up a clinic within the colony and investigates how the Western clinic as a colonial apparatus was resituated as the “Indian clinic” per se. With the historical emergence of a new class of medical practitioners called “<i>daktars</i>” (a Bengali vernacularization of the term “doctor”), the health-seeking behaviour and public health model of colonial India witnessed a decolonial shift. Unlike their English counterparts, <i>daktars</i> did not enjoy a privileged position within the medical archives of colonial India. This archival gap within Indian medical history presents itself as a viable topic for discussion through the means of the literature of the colonized. Bengali writer Ashoke Mukhopadhyay’s novel <i>Abiram Jwarer Roopkotha</i> (2018), translated into English as <i>A Ballad of Remittent Fever</i> in 2020, remedies the colonial politics of the archive by reconstructing the lives of various <i>daktars</i> and their pursuit of self-reliance. The article takes a neo-historical approach towards understanding and assessing the past of <i>daktari</i> medicine and thereby offers comments on its traces in the contemporary public health of India.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/13/6/169<i>daktars</i>clinic<i>daktari</i> medicinepublic healthcolonial IndiaIndian literature |
| spellingShingle | Thiyagaraj Gurunathan Binod Mishra The Birth of the “Indian” Clinic: <i>Daktari</i> Medicine in <i>A Ballad of Remittent Fever</i> Humanities <i>daktars</i> clinic <i>daktari</i> medicine public health colonial India Indian literature |
| title | The Birth of the “Indian” Clinic: <i>Daktari</i> Medicine in <i>A Ballad of Remittent Fever</i> |
| title_full | The Birth of the “Indian” Clinic: <i>Daktari</i> Medicine in <i>A Ballad of Remittent Fever</i> |
| title_fullStr | The Birth of the “Indian” Clinic: <i>Daktari</i> Medicine in <i>A Ballad of Remittent Fever</i> |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Birth of the “Indian” Clinic: <i>Daktari</i> Medicine in <i>A Ballad of Remittent Fever</i> |
| title_short | The Birth of the “Indian” Clinic: <i>Daktari</i> Medicine in <i>A Ballad of Remittent Fever</i> |
| title_sort | birth of the indian clinic i daktari i medicine in i a ballad of remittent fever i |
| topic | <i>daktars</i> clinic <i>daktari</i> medicine public health colonial India Indian literature |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/13/6/169 |
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