Homoeopathic Families, Hindu Nation and the Legislating State
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Homoeopathic Families, Hindu Nation and the Legislating State: Making of a Vernacular Science, Bengal 1866-1941 Shinjini Das University College London Dissertation submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2011 1 Declaration I, Shinjini Das, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 Abstract This dissertation explores the cultural production of homoeopathy as a ‘vernacular science’ in Bengal between 1866 and 1941. In mapping homoeopathy’s vernacularisation, it studies the disparate ways in which the historical understanding of ‘homoeopathy’ and ‘family’ in late nineteenth- early twentieth century Bengal informed one another. It builds upon the historical literature published on homoeopathy and family in colonial Bengal in studying the myriad registers in which the two categories intersected. The first Bengal based private family firm investing in homoeopathic publications and in the importation and sale of homoeopathic drugs was established in 1866. In 1941 under the imperatives of the nationalist Congress Party, homoeopathy was formally recognised as ‘scientific medicine’ by the colonial state and a State Faculty of Homoeopathy was established. This dissertation looks at the interactions and conversations between North Calcutta based familial homoeopathic firms, sporadically dispersed mofussil actors, the British colonial state and the emergent nationalist governments to explore the ways in which homoeopathy was domesticated as a specific worldview, an ethic, a vision and regimen of looking at and leading life in Bengal in the period under study. Imbued with potent nationalist sensibilities and invested with deep religio-cultural resonances, homoeopathy managed to inhabit the liminal space between being a European science and an indigenous quotidian life practice. By examining such ambiguities inherent in Bengali homoeopathy this dissertation draws upon and speaks to the histories of nationalist imaginings, colonial modernities and governmentality. In so doing, it elaborates on the centrality and recurrence of the category ‘family’ in the history of homoeopathy by studying cultures of business practices, of biographising, processes of translations, indigenisation, and quotidian health managements. 3 Table of Contents Declaration 2 Abstract 3 Table of Contents 4 Acknowledgements 6 Note on Translation and Transliteration 9 Introduction – A Familiar Science: Homoeopathy and the Vernacular in Colonial Bengal 10 Historiographic Interrogations: ............................................................................................ 15 Themes and Concerns .......................................................................................................... 21 Chapter Plan ......................................................................................................................... 35 Chapter One – Homoeopathies and Institutions: Print Market, Medical Bureaucracy and Family Business in colonial Bengal 37 Homoeopathy and the world of Bengali Fiction .................................................................. 41 Homoeopathy: a ‘Growing Scandal...Under British Rule ’ ................................................. 46 The Competing Companies .................................................................................................. 50 ‘One cannot accumulate wealth without trade and business’ .............................................. 58 Business as Family, Family as Business .............................................................................. 65 The Exclusive Family .......................................................................................................... 73 Index of Success: Family Business ...................................................................................... 77 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 81 Chapter Two – Writing Lives, Forging Identities: Life Stories, Biographies and Histories of Homoeopathy 83 Service as a Way of life ....................................................................................................... 87 Geography of Service .......................................................................................................... 96 Enigma of the Founder ....................................................................................................... 102 Mahendralal as Hahnemann- a Tale of Two Lives ............................................................ 107 ‘Crusade against Orthodoxy’: Homoeopathy and the Brahmo Movement ....................... 111 ‘Utility of a Biography’: Historicizing pasts, memorialising lives .................................... 118 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 128 4 Chapter Three – Making Vernacular Science: Homoeopathy and Practices of Translation 131 Codes of Translation, Conflicts of Language .................................................................... 135 Translation beyond Language: Homoeopathy and ‘Hindu Philosophy’ ............................ 147 Translation as Exclusion: Homoeopathy vs. Allopathy ..................................................... 155 Policing ‘Mofussil’ Practices ............................................................................................. 160 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 164 Chapter Four – Innovating Indigeneity, Reforming Domesticity: Nationalising Homoeopathy in Colonial Bengal 167 Innovating Indigeneity ....................................................................................................... 172 Frail Families, ‘Endangered Grihasthas’ ........................................................................... 181 A Necessary Tool for the ‘Ideal Hindu Wife’ ................................................................... 191 Celebrating the Indigenous: From Consumption towards an Ethic of Production .......................................................................................................................... 211 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 221 Chapter Five – ‘Into the heart of the nation’: Homoeopathic Families, Nationalism and the Politics of Legislation, 1920-1941 224 Nationalism, Homoeopathy and State Legislations ........................................................... 227 Drive to ‘maintain the purity of the pathy’ ........................................................................ 234 Of Families, Associations and ‘Model Institutions’ .......................................................... 242 Manoeuvres towards State ‘Recognition’ 1937-’41 .......................................................... 249 Resistance and Purity ......................................................................................................... 256 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 262 Conclusion – Swadeshi Homoeopathy 265 Bibliography 273 5 Acknowledgements This dissertation has been shaped in course of my journey spanning three distinct locations. It was conceived as a set of fledgling research ideas with Gautam Bhadra at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. He first directed me to explore the depths of the vernacular archive that in many ways defined the course of my research. A generous funding from the Wellcome Trust Centre at University College London enabled me to pursue my doctoral studies in London between 2007 and 2010. Support from the UCL Graduate School further helped me undertake research related travels in Kolkata and in London. Substantial parts of this dissertation have been written in Cambridge where I have lived from January 2011. I humbly acknowledge the numerous intellectual debts, which I have accumulated at these various institutional settings. I deeply thank the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London for providing generous academic and infrastructural resources. I remain grateful to my supervisors Sanjoy Bhattacharya and Guy Attewell for their faith in me and in this project, and for their comments on various drafts. I have learnt considerably from their engagements with my work. I thank others in the faculty of the Centre especially Roger Cooter, Stephen Jacyna, William MacLehose, Carole Reeves, Helga Satzinger, Sonu Shamdasani and Emma Spary for their suggestions and concerns. I thank members of the administrative staff including Sally Bragg, Lauren Cracknell, Debra Gee, Alan Yabsley and Adam Wilkinson for always being forthcoming with logistical support. It was a pleasure to share the graduate school woes and worries with fellow survivors Maria Correa Gomez, Theresia Hofer, Tom Quick and Michael Stanley- Baker. My interest in history has been relentlessly stoked by my wonderful teachers. I fondly recall the guidance and encouragements I have received from Rajat Kanta Ray and Subhash Ranjan Chakrabarty since my undergraduate days at Presidency College, Calcutta. It is always a happy feeling revisiting the initial excitements and joys of discovering the immense scope and nuances of the