The Last Great Plague of Colonial India

Review

"The Last Great Plague of Colonial India is a compelling work that revisits plague in the light of public and scientific deliberations in a complex colonial environment. It is a signifcant contribution to critical understandings of the synergy between science, policies, society and the social trajectory of disease during global pandemic situations." - Poonam Bala, Professor Extraordinarius, University of South Africa

"This is a remarkably comprehensive and pulsating history of the plague of 1896. It narrates how the plague initially overwhelmed the authorities and residents in the unsanitary and crowded city of Bombay and how the city learned to cope with it through human resilience, scientific intervention, and urban planning. It then takes that narrative to other parts of India and various parts of the world. A story of fear, death, colonial governance, and resistance, The Last Great Plague in Colonial India leaves readers with the lasting legacy of the pandemic on India and the world." - Pratik Chakrabarti, National Endowment for the Humanities-Cullen Chair in History & Medicine, University of Houston

"In this meticulously researched and fluently argued monograph Natasha Sarkar outlines the story of the last great plague epidemic in India in 1897 in vivid detail. State policy, indigenous responses, and the experiments of a scientist such as Haffkine unfold in a story that strikingly resonates with the present-day panic associated with Covid. The practices of innoculation, Ayurvedic medicine, missionary zeal and sanitation in cities are all explored with remarkable facility. This is a must read for students interested in the history of medicine and epidemic disease both globally and in Asia." - Vinita Damodaran, Professor of South Asian History and Director, Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex

“This book will interest scholars and students of the social history of health and medicine in colonial India and South Asia, as well as readers curious about exploring the lasting legacy of the plague pandemic on India and the world.”- Saurav Kumar Rai, History of Science in South Asia"

“One of the interventions Sarkar makes in relation to the existing scholarship is to pay attention to both rural and urban plague centres. While maintaining a focus on Bombay as the gateway to commerce and contagion in the British Empire, Sarkar does not neglect the rural-Punjab features in her analysis of the effects of the plague. At the same time, her focus on Bombay allows her to explore the effects of the plague in other outposts of the British Empire linked to India by trade and migration, including South Africa and Hong Kong.” - Archana Venkatesh, The English Historical Review

 “Despite covering a lot of ground, this book contains a surprising amount of detail, some of it fascinating. One example is the story of the ‘plague goddess’ Bhagirathi, one of many persons who purported to heal the plague in Bombay and other afflicted cities. Bhagirathi’s method appears to have entailed biting open plague buboes and pressing it with one of her toes – an extraordinary practice which drew great crowds and which eventually led to her arrest on the grounds of endangering public health. As with much of the rich detail in this book, this account is drawn from reports on vernacular newspapers, which are used extensively, alongside other vernacular sources, to complement official sources – scientific and governmental. Indeed, the book as a whole is well researched as well as being well organised and well written.” - Mark Harrison, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

 “[A]s Sarkar reminds us, pandemics are as much social and political phenomena as they are biological ones. The bubonic plague and Covid-19 both reveal how public health responses are shaped by the power structures of their time, often amplifying existing inequalities even as they drive progress.” - Anjana Basu, Outlook India

 Awards:

Winner of The British in India Book Prize 2025

Longlisted for the Karwaan Book Award 2025