Teaching AIDS: The Cultural Politics of HIV Disease in India

235 Pages·2019·3.722 MB·English

by  Dilip K. Das

Dilip K. Das
Teaching
AIDS
The Cultural Politics of HIV Disease in
India
Teaching AIDS
Dilip K. Das
Teaching AIDS
The Cultural Politics of HIV Disease in India
Dilip K. Das
Department of Cultural Studies
English and Foreign Languages University
Hyderabad, Telangana, India
ISBN 978-981-13-6119-7 ISBN 978-981-13-6120-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6120-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018968595
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This book is dedicated to the memory of my
father, Professor Sadhu Charan Das, whose
passion for learning I have always tried to
emulate, and my mother, Mrs. Annapurna
Das, who always supported me in the effort.
I also dedicate this book to my teacher,
Professor Prafulla C. Kar, and to Mrs.
Mokshada Kar, who have constantly inspired
me in my life and academic career.
Acknowledgments
The idea of working on the cultural politics of HIV/AIDS first came to me in 1998,
when Professor Prafulla Kar asked me to review Thomas Yingling’s AIDS and the
National Body for the Journal of Contemporary Thought. I owe to him the inspira-
tion for this book.
My work on the AIDS epidemic was enabled by a year’s sabbatical that I spent at
the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 2002–2003, as a Fulbright post-
doctoral fellow. I am grateful to Professor Paula Treichler and the Institute of Culture
and Communication, UIUC, for hosting me and providing all facilities. I also thank
the United States Educational Foundation in India and the Fulbright Foundation for
sponsoring my sabbatical. In 2005, I received a South Asia Regional Fellowship
from the Social Science Research Council, New York, to work on the subject. I thank
SSRC and Itty Abraham, program director for South Asia fellowships, for their sup-
port. I am grateful to my former institution, Berhampur University, for granting
leave on both occasions. I am also grateful to my present institution, the English and
Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, for giving me two 1-year sabbatical
terms, in 2009–2010 and 2017–2018, which enabled me to write this book.
Professor D. Venkat Rao read Chap. 7 of this book and offered many insights and
suggestions that I have incorporated. Professor Kar, also read Chaps. 4, 5 and 6, and
his comments helped me revise the chapters. I am indebted to them for the pains they
took when they were themselves overburdened with work.
I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers of Springer for their valuable feedback
on the book. I also thank Shinjini Chatterjee, then executive editor for human sci-
ences at Springer India, who constantly encouraged me to complete the book, and
Priya Vyas of the editorial team, who followed it up subsequently.
The research for this book would not have been possible without the help I got
from many individuals and organizations. H.N. Girish discussed in detail the AIDS
Amma project that he initiated and shared with me his photographs, while
S. Gangadhar translated for me on my field trip to the shrine. I could not have
undertaken the trip to Menasikyathanahalli without the help I got from Professor
A.R. Moosvi. Sinchana, who was then my Ph.D. student at EFLU, translated the
AIDS Amma messages for me. I gratefully acknowledge their support.
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viii Acknowledgments
My thanks are also due to the National AIDS Control Organization, especially
Director General Sanjeeva Kumar and Dr. Rajesh Rana, Rajeev Varma of the World
Health Organization, Nandini Kapoor of UNAIDS, and officials of ActionAid India
and the State AIDS Control Societies of Orissa, West Bengal and Kerala, for provid-
ing me with material essential for my research.
Finally, I must thank Mrs. Mokshada Kar, who is Nani to me, my wife Sumitra
and son Kartik. Without their persistent goading and encouragement, I would not
have been able to complete this book. Their support especially in these last few
months has been invaluable.
Contents
1 AIDS Awareness and Behaviour Change:
An Interdisciplinary Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2 Pedagogy, Power and the Subject of Disease Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1 Pedagogy, Ideology, Subjectivity: Freire and Althusser . . . . . . . . . 21
2.2 Pedagogy and the Disciplining of Embodied
Subjects: Foucault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.3 Representing Disease: The Social Construction of Reality . . . . . . . 33
2.4 Language and the Body in Pain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3 Incipient Pedagogy I: AIDS in the National Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.1 Discursive Construction of AIDS in the Indian Media . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.2 Theory of Foreign Origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3 Ordering Disorder: Profiling the Nation’s “Other” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.4 Imag(in)ing the “AIDS Victim” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4 Incipient Pedagogy (II): AIDS Narratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.1 Disease Versus Illness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.2 Representing Disease and Illness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.3 The Disease Travelogue: Sex, Lies and AIDS
and Positive Lives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.4 AIDS Sutra: Living with the Virus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.5 Narrative and the System of Norms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.6 “Innocent Victims”: A Dove in Desert, Nidaan,
Ek Alag Mausam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
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x Contents
4.7 Disease as Culpability: Phir Milenge and
My Brother… Nikhil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
4.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5 AIDS and the Enigma of Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.1 Structure and Process in Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.2 Law and the Enigma of Biopolitics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.3 Segregating the Diseased: Lucy D’Souza V. State of Goa . . . . . . . . 121
5.4 Suspended Rights: Mr. X V. Hospital Z . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
5.5 Disease as Contagion: Dhirendra Pandua V. State of Orissa . . . . . . 127
5.6 Interpretation and Indeterminacy in Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
5.7 The Enigma of Corporeal Justice: M. Vijaya V. Chairman
and Managing Director, Singareni Collieries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
5.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
6 AIDS Awareness Campaigns: Pedagogy as Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
6.1 Paradigms of Public Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
6.2 Health Education, Expert Knowledge and the Shaping
of Subjectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
6.3 NACO and the Nationalization of AIDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
6.4 NACO and the Nationalization of Pedagogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
6.5 The Pedagogy of Risk: Mehr-un-Nisa
and Let’s Talk About AIDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
6.6 Teaching Lifestyle Management: Saavdhaan
and Handbook on AIDS Home Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
6.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
7 AIDS Amma Shrine: Pedagogy as Tactics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
7.1 Genealogical Descent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
7.2 Ritual Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
7.3 Epistemological Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
7.4 Tactical Pedagogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
7.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
8 Conclusion: Towards a Critical Medical Humanities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
About the Author
Dilip K. Das is Professor of Cultural Studies in the School of Interdisciplinary

Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. He is a recipi-
ent of a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Illinois, Urbana-
Champaign, USA, and a South Asia Regional Fellowship from the Social Science
Research Council, New York. His research area is interdisciplinary body studies,
and he has published essays on the social dimensions of disease.
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