Abstract
Travancore is remembered for its numbers. By the late 1940s the state recorded lower infant mortality and higher female literacy than most provinces of British India, and historians of what came to be called the Kerala model have traced those figures back to decisions taken by the durbar well before independence.1 The same half century has a second history, less often told alongside the first, in which the state took to itself an authority over birth, sickness and death that no earlier government in the region had attempted to claim. Hospitals reserved for women opened. A register of qualified practitioners was drawn up, vaccination was made compulsory for whole categories of subjects, and sanitary officials were given statutory power to enter a dwelling and remove the people living in it. This paper explains the expansion in the distribution of medical authority among women in Travancore between 1896 and 1950.
Keywords
Gender
Caste
Medical Accessibility
References
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2. Bashford, Alison. Imperial Hygiene: A Critical History of Colonialism, Nationalism and Public Health. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
3. Census of India, 1901-1951. Travancore volumes. Trivandrum: Superintendent of Census Operations.
4. Census of India, 1901. Vol. 19, Cochin, pt. 1. Ernakulam: Cochin Government Press, 1903.
5. Devika, J. Her-Self: Gender and Early Writings of Malayalee Women. Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 2005.
6. Forbes, Geraldine. Women in Modern India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
7. Guha, Supriya. "From Dais to Doctors: The Medicalisation of Childbirth in Colonial India." In Understanding Women's Health Issues: A Reader, edited by Lakshmi Lingam, 228-51. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998.
8. Harrison, Mark. Public Health in British India: Anglo-Indian Preventive Medicine, 1859-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
9. Jeffrey, Robin. Politics, Women and Well-Being: How Kerala Became "a Model." Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992.
10. Jeffrey, Robin. The Decline of Nair Dominance: Society and Politics in Travancore, 1847-1908. New Delhi: Vikas, 1976.
11. Kawashima, Koji. Missionaries and a Hindu State: Travancore, 1858-1936. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.
12. Kitzan, Laurence. "The London Missionary Society and the Problem of Authority in India, 1798-1833." Church History 40, no. 4 (1971): 457-73.
13. Lal, Maneesha. "The Politics of Gender and Medicine in Colonial India: The Countess of Dufferin's Fund, 1885-1888." Bulletin of the History of Medicine 68, no. 1 (1994): 29-66.
14. Lang, Sean. "Drop the Demon Dai: Maternal Mortality and the State in Colonial Madras, 1840-1875." Social History of Medicine 18, no. 3 (2005): 357-78.
15. London Missionary Society. South Travancore District Reports, 1896-1950. Council for World Mission Archive, School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
16. Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2005.
17. Lowe, John. Medical Missions: Their Place and Power. Edinburgh: William Oliphant, 1886.
18. MacLeod, Roy, and Milton Lewis, eds. Disease, Medicine, and Empire: Perspectives on Western Medicine and the Experience of European Expansion. London: Routledge, 1988.
19. Menon, C. Achyuta. The Cochin State Manual. Ernakulam: Cochin Government Press, 1911.
20. Mohindra, K. S. "Dr. Mary Poonen Lukose." Hektoen International: A Journal of Medical Humanities 7, no. 2 (2015).
21. Nagam Aiya, V. The Travancore State Manual. 3 vols. Trivandrum: Travancore Government Press, 1906.
22. Nair, Aparna. "Vaccinating against Vasoori: Eradicating Smallpox in the 'Model' Princely State of Travancore, 1804-1946." Indian Economic and Social History Review 56, no. 4 (2019): 465-92.
23. Nair, K. R. Evolution of Modern Medicine in Kerala. Thiruvananthapuram: TBS Publishers and Distributors, 2001.
24. Nair, K. Rajasekharan. "A Pioneer in Medicine: Dr. Mary Poonen Lukose (1886-1976)." Samyukta: A Journal of Women's Studies 2, no. 2 (2002): 117-21.
25. Proceedings of the Sri Mulam Popular Assembly, 1904-1947. Kerala State Archives, Thiruvananthapuram.
26. Redfield, Robert. Peasant Society and Culture: An Anthropological Approach to Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956.
27. Rockefeller Foundation. Annual Report, 1928. New York: Rockefeller Foundation, 1929.
28. Singer, Milton. When a Great Tradition Modernizes: An Anthropological Approach to Indian Civilization. New York: Praeger, 1972.
29. Somervell, T. Howard. Knife and Life in India: The Story of a Surgical Missionary at Neyyoor. London: Livingstone Press, 1940.
30. Travancore Medical Practitioners Act, 1944. Travancore Government Gazette. Trivandrum: Government of Travancore, 1944.
31. Travancore Public Health Act, 1121 ME (1945-46). Travancore Government Gazette.
32. Travancore State Administrative Reports, 1879-1950. Kerala State Archives, Thiruvananthapuram.
33. Velu Pillai, T. K. The Travancore State Manual. 4 vols. Trivandrum: Government of Travancore, 1940.
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Dalia Varghese
(2026).
Colonial Medicine and Women's Healthcare in Travancore: A Historical Analysis of Gender, Caste, and Medical Accessibility (1896-1950).
Kerala History and Studies Journal,
1
(1)
, 86-106
.
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Dalia Varghese. "Colonial Medicine and Women's Healthcare in Travancore: A Historical Analysis of Gender, Caste, and Medical Accessibility (1896-1950)." Kerala History and Studies Journal, vol. 1, no. 1, 2026, pp. 86-106.
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MLA 9th edition
Dalia Varghese. "Colonial Medicine and Women's Healthcare in Travancore: A Historical Analysis of Gender, Caste, and Medical Accessibility (1896-1950)." Kerala History and Studies Journal 1, no. 1 (2026): 86-106.
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