Author: kirankumbhar

I am a medical doctor and health policy graduate, and currently PhD student at Harvard University (history of science). I write primarily about public health and the history and culture of medicine in India.
Why Indian historians do not write about the West as frequently as Euro-American historians write about India
History · Politics

Why Indian historians do not write about the West as frequently as Euro-American historians write about India

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This is an understandable discrepancy.. until one realizes that that history of colonial India and of what we know as India’s ‘struggle’ for independence is as much a history of the West and Western actors as of India! I wrote this as an answer to a Quora question (here). I copy most parts of that… Continue reading Why Indian historians do not write about the West as frequently as Euro-American historians write about India

History · History of Medicine · Medicine & Doctors

How the 1835 Calcutta Medical College catalyzed the ascendancy of biomedicine in India

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Two versions of this essay were published recently. I wrote one for the KEM Hospital Mumbai’s internal publication, named ‘Reflections on Medical Humanities’. The other version was published by the Wire on 29th March 2019, full article here. Below are some excerpts: One of the most striking developments in the first year of the CMC was human… Continue reading How the 1835 Calcutta Medical College catalyzed the ascendancy of biomedicine in India

Culture & Life · History · Recommended movies, books etc.

Dravidians, Aryans, and the question of how India/South Asia got its people

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[This write-up is also available on the website Quora, here] The humans (Homo sapiens) who first arrived in India were those early adventurers who left Africa – that is where our ‘modern human’ species first evolved – around 60000 years ago to reach India via land. Countless waves of migration happened later, and all of… Continue reading Dravidians, Aryans, and the question of how India/South Asia got its people

Culture & Life · History · Religion

The British colonial origins of gravity-defying ancient Indian science

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This was published in thewire.in on 13 January 2019. Here is the link, and below is an excerpt. All such developments from the 1800s gave rise to a trend that we sadly never fully abandoned. Faced with constant assaults on their traditions, the then-elite Hindus found solace and self-respect in ancient texts, and maybe didn’t… Continue reading The British colonial origins of gravity-defying ancient Indian science

Medicine & Doctors · Public health · Uncategorized

Cochrane and the challenges of producing trustworthy evidence in medicine

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This was published in the Wire on 18 Nov 2018. Here is the link, and below is an excerpt: “In 1972, a British doctor Archibald Cochrane wrote a book titled Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections on Health Services. It had a great influence on ideas about decision-making in medicine and public health. Archibald was concerned with… Continue reading Cochrane and the challenges of producing trustworthy evidence in medicine