Jindal Global Law School, O. P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
Glob Public Health. 2022 Oct;17(10):2361-2372. doi: 10.1080/17441692.2022.2110913. Epub 2022 Aug 11.
Colonial medical education and public health policies emerged from an intriguing discourse of negotiation between the government and the people. These 'structured conflicts', rooted in the politics and the debates of the colonial institutions not only provided opportunities for creative thinking about public health but also for imposing constraints. The colonial and post-colonial India medical legislative debates revealing a new language of protest, assumed greater significance with the growing nationalist movement and the general (though variegated) intellectual polarisation - western and indigenous systems of medicine. Problematising the historiographic assertion of medical modernisation in colonial India to be a part of 'civilising mission', this paper argues that legislature emerged as a platform of activism and protest against the colonial and post-colonial State's appropriation of modernity. While some members appealed for extending the benefit of 'modern' western medicine to the general Indian population, some debated in favour of introducing the indigenous medical systems to the terms of modern professionalisation. The post-colonial policies reveal the true significance of the legislative debates in reviving the position of indigenous systems of medicine in the context of professional modernity.
殖民医学教育和公共卫生政策源于政府与人民之间有趣的谈判话语。这些“结构性冲突”根植于殖民机构的政治和辩论之中，不仅为公共卫生的创造性思维提供了机会，也为其施加了限制。殖民和后殖民时期印度的医学立法辩论揭示了一种新的抗议语言，随着民族主义运动的兴起以及普遍（尽管存在差异）的知识两极分化——西方和本土医学体系，这种辩论变得更加重要。本文质疑了殖民时期印度医学现代化是“文明使命”的一部分的历史编纂学论断，认为立法机构是殖民和后殖民国家对现代性的挪用的一种激进主义和抗议的平台。虽然一些成员呼吁将“现代”西方医学的益处扩展到普通印度民众，但也有人辩论说，应该将本土医学体系纳入现代专业化的范畴。后殖民政策揭示了立法辩论在恢复本土医学体系在专业现代性背景下的地位方面的真正意义。
