Article ID: CBB646215349

Gomastahs, Peons, Police and Chowdranies: The Role of Indian Subordinate in the Functioning of the Lock Hospitals and the Indian Contagious Diseases Act, 1805 to 1889 (2022)

unapi

Recent scholarship on the social history of health and medicine in colonial India has moved beyond enclavist or hegemonic aspects of imperial medicine and has rather focused on the role of Indian intermediaries and the fractured nature of colonial hegemony. Drawing inspiration from this scholarship, the article highlights the significance of the Indian subordinates in the lock hospital system in the nineteenth century Madras Presidency. This study focuses on a class of Indian subordinates called the “gomastah”, who were employed to detect clandestine prostitution in Madras to control the spread of venereal disease. It also underlines the role of other native and non-native subordinates such as Dhais, Chowdranies and Matrons, the ways in which they became indispensable for the smoother operation of the Contagious Diseases Act and the lock hospitals on a day-to-day basis. By emphasising how Indian subordinates were able to bring in caste biases within colonial governmentality, adding another layer to the colonial prejudices and xenophobia against the native population, it underlines the fact that there was not a one-way appropriation or facilitation of the coloniser’s knowledge or biases by the colonised intermediaries. Rather, it argues for an interaction between them, and highlights the complexities of caste hierarchies and prejudice within the everyday colonial governmentality. Moreover, the article focuses on the consequent chaos and inherent power struggle between different factions of colonial staff.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB646215349/

Similar Citations

Book Samiksha Sehrawat; (2014)
Colonial Medical Care in North India: Gender, State, and Society, c. 1830-1920 (/isis/citation/CBB698190327/)

Article Sara Honarmand Ebrahimi; (2022)
Medical Missionaries and the Invention of the “Serai Hospital” in North-western British India (/isis/citation/CBB500519781/)

Book Ebrahimnejad, Hormoz; (2009)
The Development of Modern Medicine in Non-Western Countries: Historical Perspectives (/isis/citation/CBB000933048/)

Article Gautam Chandra; (2022)
Medical profession and unemployment in colonial Madras (1835–1930) (/isis/citation/CBB106867993/)

Book Pati, Biswamoy; Harrison, Mark; (2001)
Health, Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Colonial India (/isis/citation/CBB000631004/)

Article Heiningen, Teun van; (2003)
Sebald Justinus Brugmans' strijd tegen de hospitaalversterving (/isis/citation/CBB000770575/)

Thesis Siva Prashant Kumar; (2021)
Colonizing Time: Caste, Colonial Rule, and the Exact Sciences in India, 1783–1874 (/isis/citation/CBB845659840/)

Article Li, Shang-jen; (2003)
Shijiu shiji hoqi Yinguo yixuejie dui Zhongguo mafongbinqin de diaocha yenjiu (/isis/citation/CBB000350224/)

Book Moro, José María; (2003)
Las epidemias de cólera en la Asturias del siglo XIX (/isis/citation/CBB000530367/)

Book Leung, Angela Ki Che; Furth, Charlotte; (2010)
Health and Hygiene in Chinese East Asia: Policies and Publics in the Long Twentieth Century (/isis/citation/CBB001252082/)

Book Gaudillière, Jean-Paul; Löwy, Ilana; (2001)
Heredity and Infection: The History of Disease Transmission (/isis/citation/CBB000101679/)

Book Inglis, Kerri A.; (2013)
Ma'i Lepera: Disease and Displacement in Nineteenth-Century Hawai'i (/isis/citation/CBB001420196/)

Book Khalid, Amna; Johnson, Ryan; (2011)
Public Health in the British Empire: Intermediaries, Subordinates, and Public Health Practice, 1850--1960 (/isis/citation/CBB001033381/)

Article Guillaume Linte; Paul-Arthur Tortosa; (2023)
“The Most Unhealthy Spots in the World”: Thinking, Dwelling In, and Shaping Pathogenic Environments (/isis/citation/CBB003763861/)

Authors & Contributors
Guillaume Linte
Sehrawat, Samiksha
Paul-Arthur Tortosa
Chetan, Chetan
Kumar, Siva Prashant
Honarmand Ebrahimi, Sara
Concepts
Medicine
Colonialism
Public health
Hospitals and clinics
Communicable diseases
Disease and diseases
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
18th century
21st century
20th century, late
Places
India
Great Britain
Tropics
Istanbul (Turkey)
Nigeria
East Asia
Institutions
Universiteit Leiden
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment