Please join us for a seminar with Thiyagaraj Gurunathan, Jamnalal Kaniram Bajaj Fellow at the Mittal Institute, examining the history of cholera outbreaks and public health responses in Tamil-speaking regions of South India during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
In the aftermath of the sixth cholera pandemic (1899–1923), cholera became endemic across parts of southern India, including the princely state of Travancore. The seminar explores how Christian medical missionaries responded to these outbreaks, challenging caste barriers and establishing themselves as important providers of public health services in rural communities. Bringing together histories of medicine, religion, and social inequality, the talk examines how caste and Christianity shaped the experience and management of epidemic disease in colonial South India, with particular attention to marginalized communities who were both disproportionately affected by cholera and actively involved in medical missions.
Drawing on missionary archives, Tamil literature, print journalism, and the writings of social reformers and medical practitioners, the seminar offers a historical perspective on the intersections of cholera, caste, Christianity, and public health.
Speaker: Thiyagaraj Gurunathan PhD, Jamnalal Kaniram Bajaj Fellow, Mittal Institute
Moderator: David Shumway Jones, Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health