Divya Rama Gopalakrishnan

Divya Rama Gopalakrishnan (PhD in History, 2023) ‘Venereal Diseases and Bodily Excesses: A Social History of Contagions in the Madras Presidency (c1780 to 1900)’

This thesis investigates the discourses around bodily excess and venereal diseases in colonial South India, or, as it was known in the nineteenth century, the Madras presidency. It highlights the epistemological exchange between Europe and the colonies regarding sexuality and venereal diseases and traces the colony’s contribution to ideas of public health, morality, and sexuality. Firstly, it shows how venereal disease — a disease essentially associated with the British army — came to be seen as a threat to ‘public health’, prompting the colonial government to try to control the disease among the European population, Indian prostitutes, and the general Indian population. Secondly, it examines the British claim to moral superiority, and how venereal diseases among British troops, and the administrative struggles to discipline the British army in the colony, threatened to tarnish this claim. Thirdly, the thesis studies colonial surveillance and its impact on women’s lives in India in the nineteenth century. It underlines the position of women in public, both European and Indian women who were suspected of practising prostitution in the colony and the British attitude towards them. Fourthly, it explores the anthropometric methods used in the lock hospitals to discriminate against and criminalise Indian women suspected of being prostitutes. Fifthly, the research emphasises the fractured nature of the colonial hegemony, highlighting the vital role of Indian agency in policy implementation regarding venereal diseases. Finally, it also attempts to retrieve subaltern women’s voices in the scattered sources masked by colonial authority, and by doing so traces the subaltern resistance and agency of women in lock hospitals.

Supervisors: Professor Andrew May, Associate Professor Kat Ellinghaus (La Trobe)