Contraception, colonialism and commerce
Subtitle: birth control in South India, 1920-1940
By: Sarah Hodges.
Series: The history of medicine in context
Publisher: Ashgate
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Aldershot, England; Burlington, VT
Language: eng
Number of pages: 170
ISBN-13: 9780754638094
Subjects: Birth control -- India -- Madras -- History; Contraceptives -- India -- Madras -- History; Madras (India) -- Population -- History; Great Britain -- Colonies -- India -- History
Description: "Birth control holds an unusual place in the history of medicine. Largely devoid of doctors or hospitals, only relatively recently have birth control histories included tales of laboratory-based therapeutic innovation. Instead, these histories elucidate the peculiar slippages between individual bodies and a body politic occasioned by the promotion of techniques to manipulate human reproduction. The history of birth control in India brings these as well as additional complications to the field." "Contrary to popular belief, India has one of the most long-lasting, institutionalized, far-reaching, state sponsored family planning programs in the world. During the inter-war period the country witnessed the formation of groups dedicated to promoting the cause of birth control." "This book outlines the early history of birth control in India, particularly the Tamil south. In so doing it illuminates India's role in a global network of birth control advocacy. The book also argues how Indians' contraceptive advocacy and associationalism became an increasingly significant realm of action in which they staked claims not just about the utility of contraception but simultaneously over their ability and right to self-rule."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [153]-165) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction : late colonial biopolitics; title: Anxiety without action : contraception and the late colonial state; title: The Madras Neo-Malthusian League and global networks of contraceptive evangelism; title: An apocalyptic body politics of modernity : contraception and the self respect movement; title: Contraceptive commercialism; title: Epilogue : the state of the population : history and fertility in twentieth-century Tamil Nadu.