Epidemiological uncertainty and colonial plague governance: The case of Madras City
Ashwin Kumar D & Y. Srinivasa Rao
Abstract
The outbreak of bubonic plague in colonial India during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries prompted extensive and intensive sanitary interventions and surveillance by colonial scientific and administrative agencies. Historiographical studies on plague governance have emphasised that these colonial agencies employed coercive methods such as segregation, inspection, and quarantine, particularly in severely affected regions such as Bombay. Madras, however, presented a different epidemiological pattern. Despite conditions associated with plague transmission and repeated importation, the city experienced comparatively limited incidence, which contemporary medical investigations could not satisfactorily explain through a single epidemiological framework or by applying the Bombay method. This article dwells on how this pattern, and local conditions, shaped or obligated the colonial government to develop a different approach for governing plague in Madras. Adopting a qualitative historical approach, the study drew on diverse sources such as plague commission and investigation reports, sanitary and administrative records, colonial legislation, and contemporary medical journals. The findings show that generalised scientific explanations through rat–flea transmission, climatic conditions, and environmental and biological factors did not fully explain the limited incidence of plague in Madras. In order to govern or control the plague, the colonial government invoked its legal power as the state and employed coercive methods, which faced a mixed response of cooperation and resistance from the people; it also offered an interpretation for the low incidence by attributing it to immunity when no single epidemiological framework could be established. By bringing together epidemiological interpretation and the control and governance methods adopted in Madras city, this study demonstrates the limitations of applying a predominantly Bombay-centred framework to Madras and emphasises the importance of regional variation in understanding the plague and the need for evolving region-specific governance methods.
Keywords
regional variation, disease surveillance, coercion, medical knowledge, public health
Author information & Contribution
Ashwin Kumar D. Corresponding author. PhD Research Scholar, Department of History, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India. Email: ashwinhistorylover@gmail.com
Y. Srinivasa Rao. Associate Professor, Department of History, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India. Email: hisrisri@gmail.com
"All authors contributed equally to the conception, design, preparation, data collection, analysis, and writing of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.”
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was not supported by any funding.
Institutional Review Board Statement
Not Applicable
Data and Materials Availability
The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
AI Declaration
The author declares the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in the preparation of this paper. In particular, the author used ChatGPT and Grammarly for language polishing, grammar checking, sentence refinement, and improving the manuscript's overall readability. The author takes full responsibility for reviewing, verifying, and editing all AI-assisted content and ensuring the accuracy, originality, and integrity of the final manuscript
Notes
Acknowledgement
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Cite this article:
D, A.K. & Rao, Y.S. (2026). Epidemiological uncertainty and colonial plague governance: The case of Madras City. International Review of Social Sciences Research, 6(4), 25-48. https://doi.org/10.53378/irssr.353389
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