Healing the Zenana: The Role of Christian Medical Missionaries in Colonial Northern India (mid 19th century–1947)
Abstract
The Christian medical missionaries played an important role in promoting women's healthcare in Colonial Northern India between the mid-19th century and 1947. This study highlights various societal and cultural norms which prevented women from accessing different medical facilities. The British East India Company initially opposed missionaries but the Charter Act of 1813 officially authorized their entry into India. A major challenge for early missions was the purdah system, which prevented male doctors from entering the zenanas (women’s quarters) and treating the Indian women. To solve this, missions began sending female medical missionaries and trained female nurses who could enter the private zenanas. This study examines the unique strategies adopted by the missionaries such as conducting door-to-door visits and organizing medical camps in villages. Through which their aim was to provide a “dual cure” viz. healing of the body and the soul. The paper specially discusses the role of institutions such as Dr. Clara Swain’s hospital in Bareilly, CMC Ludhiana and St. Stephen’s Hospital in Delhi which created a professional female medical cadre. It also explores the interaction between Western medical training and the traditional knowledge of birth attendants (Dais).
Keywords: Christian Medical Missions, Colonial North India, Zenana Missions, Female Healthcare, Traditional Midwives (Dais).
References
- Arnold, D. (2000). Science, Technology and Medicine in colonial India (The New Cambridge History of India, Vol. III). Cambridge University Press.
- Balfour, M. I. (1927). Maternal Mortality in Childbirth in India. The Indian Medical Gazette, 646–655.
- Balfour, M. I., & Young, R. (1929). The Work of Medical Women in India. Oxford University Press.
- Basu, A. (1993). Mary Ann Cooke to Mother Teresa: Christian missionary women and the Indian response. In F. Bowie, D. Kirkwood, & S. Ardener (Eds.), Women and missions: Past and present: Anthropological and historical perceptions (pp. 187–207). Berg.
- Fitzgerald, R. (2006). Making and Moulding the Nursing of the Indian Empire: Recasting nurses in Colonial India. In A. Powell & S. Lambert-Hurley (Eds.), Rhetoric and reality: Gender and the Colonial Experience in South Asia (pp. 185–209). Oxford University Press.
- Forbes, G. (1996). Women in modern India (Vol. 4). Cambridge University Press.
- Gayathri, C. R. (2007). Female Health Care in Colonial North India: A Study of medical and Educational interventions [PhD thesis, Jawaharlal Nehru University].
- Guha, S. (1998). From Dais to Doctors: The Medicalisation of Childbirth in Colonial India. In L. Lingam (Ed.), Understanding Women’s Health Issues: A Reader (pp. 145–160). Kali for Women.
- Lal, M. (1994). The Politics of Gender and Medicine in Colonial India: The Countess of Dufferin’s fund, 1885-1888. Bulletin of Medicine, (68), 29–66.
- Mishra, K. (1926). Santan-Vriddhi Nigraha. Chand, 4(6), 559–564.
- Ray, S. (2015). Women’s Concern for Women’s Health in Colonial India. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 76, 539–545.
- Swain, C. A. (1909). A Glimpse of India: Being a Collection of Extracts From the Letters of Dr. Clara A. Swain. James Pott & Co.
- Vaidya. (1915). Hamari streeyon ka swasthya. Grihalakshmi, 6(1), 18–19.