In Sickness And In Death: How Faith, Medicine and Race Shaped British India

When the British came to India to trade, explore and eventually rule, they knew that deadly diseases lurked in the 'miasmas' of the tropical subcontinent. Sahibs and soldiers, armed with muskets, ledgers and scientific arrogance, soon found themselves struggling to just stay alive. Death loomed over army cantonments, Civil Lines and even the carefully sequestered 'white towns', as diseases ravaged urban hubs and remote mofussils alike. What nobody foresaw was how the relentless toll of disease would expose the fragility of colonial control, ultimately shattering the triumphalist illusion of the invincibility of the white race. In Sickness and in Death examines how the colonial state studied, managed, and often misunderstood diseases-and the 'diseased body'-in India, and reveals how disease reshaped policy, contested imperial ambition and altered everyday life. In the post-pandemic present, it reminds us that the politics of disease, shaped by fear, force and power structures, remain glaring today, just as they were two centuries ago when India was cast as the 'jewel in the crown'.