Abhilasha NS

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA will explore the public health discourse in popular written texts, such as novels, poetry, and newspapers to name a few, using the example of Swasth Hind, a health magazine published by the Central Health Education Bureau, New Delhi and circulated in India from 1958 to 1999. Focussing on the collection of Swasth Hind available at the Archives at National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, Karnataka, this project will study the making of a public health discourse of a newly independent nation-state and examine the role of print media in shaping public health sensibilities in independent India. This project is in collaboration with the Archives at NCBS, Bangalore, Karnataka. The Archives at NCBS is a public centre for the history of science in contemporary India. Over 350,000 processed objects across 50+ collections are available in various forms, ranging from paper-based manuscripts to negatives to photographs, books, fine art, audio recordings, scientific equipment, letters, and field and lab notes. The holdings include the papers of the ornithologist, Ravi Sankaran, and the molecular biologist and co-founder of NCBS, Obaid Siddiqi. Abhilasha NS is the Project Coordinator for this project.

Abhilasha NS is a researcher working in the domain of public health. She has recently completed her doctoral degree from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam. She has been a recipient of the Inlaks Research and Travel Grant for 2022 awarded by the Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, Mumbai. Abhilasha, as a part of her doctoral research and beyond, has been exploring linkages between environment, public health and social history of disease and has presented at various national and international platforms on the same. She has a Master’s degree in Development from Azim Premji University Bengaluru, Karnataka. Given her research interest and work experience, Abhilasha is best suited to be Project Coordinator for this Foundation Project of IFA.

A close look at the digitised collection of Swasth Hind, available in the collection of the Archives at NCBS, reveals that despite its long life and its coverage of a wide range of topics, we know little about the magazine, its readership, and its role in health education in post-independent India. The Project Coordinator, through her examination and study of this collection aims to address the above mentioned gaps and trace how Swasth Hind contributed to the making of a public health discourse of a newly independent nation-state. For her research, Abhilasha will centre her study on the following questions: How far did the articles in the magazine convey the notions of public health and more broadly the ideas of nation-making that emerged in the post-independence period? In what ways did Swasth Hind interact, compete, and negotiate with other popular mediums such as television, radio, stamps, and other privately published popular texts? To what extent did Swasth Hind’s content get influenced by debates around Nehruvian socialism and science during the 1950s and 60s, the private-sector influx of the 1980s, and the international political economy? Did the articles have a transcendental quality in them to bridge social divisions? What nature of relationship did science–health–state forge through the print media, government departments, illustrators, private advertisers, contributors, and readers? In addition to the studying of the articles of the Swasth Hind, Abhilasha will also attempt to analyse the visual components accompanying the articles, such as illustrations, the advertisements to also understand the circulation of the magazine, its readership, and distributors which will hopefully reveal important relationships being built between ‘producers’ and ‘consumers’ of health. Apart from the archival research, the Project Coordinator also intends to interview various experts and scholars to understand the existing discourse on health, nation-building and print-culture.  

Abhilasha has divided her project term into five phases. Beginning with the archival research at NCBS, she aims to simultaneously conduct fieldwork and interviews with experts and scholars. These two phases will inform the next stage of documentation and the writing of the article. In the next phase, Abhilasha intends to collaborate with a designer to produce a creative visual for an exhibition which will draw from the archival research, highlighting shifts in public health research. The preparation of the exhibition will be in tandem with a workshop with a public health expert deliberating on the linkages between independent India, public health, and public policy.

The outcomes of the project will be a manuscript of an article. In addition, there will be an attempt to create an annotated archival catalogue along with an exhibition and workshop. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA along with the final reports will be the manuscript of the article, annotated archival catalogue and images and video documentation of the exhibition and the workshop.

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.

This project is supported by Tata Trusts.