Sanitation, Health and Identity Formation in Colonial Eastern Bengal (1905-1911)

Abstract

This thesis examines how identities in colonial Eastern Bengal were formed, interlinked with sanitation, health, and education during 1905–1911, a period marked by the brief partition of Bengal and significant administrative, social, and educational reforms. Drawing on diverse archival records, contemporary newspapers and periodicals, and scholarly works, this study investigates how colonial intervention in education and public health helped colonial rulers to consolidate authority as well as create a sense of self and social belonging among the locals. The first chapter demonstrates, through a review of the works of notable researchers, that these studies have explored identity creation in Bengal from political, social, economic, and spiritual viewpoints. Nonetheless, the interplay between identity formation in Eastern Bengal and sanitation and health has not been examined. Studies on colonial medicine predominantly concentrate on several facets of public health, while identity is comparatively underemphasised. A review of identity literature indicates that researchers in this domain mostly address the theoretical dimensions of identity. This study was justified by the intention to investigate identity formation in colonial Eastern Bengal in relation to sanitation and health. The second chapter examined the origin of racial hierarchy that spread to India, establishing the ideological underpinnings of colonial administration. The British rulers further used the civilizational differences between Hindus and Muslims to keep discrimination going and protect colonial control against unified protests. The chapter illustrates that with the partition of Bengal, the inhabitants of Eastern Bengal afforded the opportunity to thrive intellectually and challenge discrimination based on the idea of equality among all humans. It gave up a new way to look at how identity was formed xii in colonial Eastern Bengal, extending beyond the much explored political, cultural, and religious aspects of identity. The subsequent chapters focus on the government initiatives in the sanitary and health sectors, including expansion of drainage, water supply, conservancy measures, introduction of quinine, experimental treatments for cholera and leprosy, expansion of medical facilities, training of hospital assistants and sanitary inspectors, and the promotion of hygienic practices among local communities. These measures were intimately linked to changes in education, including making curricula more democratic and less racially biased, and giving Muslim and female students more chances to work at Dacca Medical School. The thesis posits that the examination of these changes collectively reveals that colonial reforms enabled the emergence of novel professional, civic, and communal identities, hence cultivating confidence, competence, and a sense of engagement in modernity among traditionally marginalised people. Finally, this study highlights the ambivalence of colonial modernity: reforms were both instruments of control and vehicles for empowerment, creating new forms of identity—professional, hygienic, and civic—that were actively appropriated by local populations to negotiate status, authority, and social belonging in a rapidly changing world. This study concentrated only on a brief but critical period of time, when sanitation and medicine became the language of modernity in Eastern Bengal. This helped Muslims, Hindus, and women all get positions as professionals, citizens, and civic actors who work for the well-being of the community. The identities it created were fragile, contested, and incomplete, but they were actual changes in how people saw themselves and their social status. It reminds us that health wasn't only xiii about getting rid of disease; it was also about who you were, who you could become, and how a community could imagine itself in a rapidly changing world.