Enlivening Gandhi and Sanitary Nationalism: Transmuting Health into Materialization of Swaraj

Abstract

Health defines the nation—since the nineteenth century, the liberal democratic states in the West had been compulsive about the nation’s health, albeit, at the same time, they were much repulsive towards the health of the colonies, except the white enclaves where sanitary improvement was prioritized more than that of native towns. It was only after the germination of germ theory that colonial states took the health of the ‘colonized’ into account on a serious note. Nevertheless, these whirling ideas, debates, approaches and colonial encounters regarding health and hygiene shaped Gandhi’s perception on body, sanitation and nationalism. The Gandhian way of equating Swaraj with the cleanliness of mind, body and soul, i.e., ‘Constructive Programme’, was in contrast to the ‘Obstructive Programme’ like civil disobedience. To Gandhi, a nation could truly attain Swaraj by cleansing the self and the ‘others’. The bodies, previously ‘colonized’, were now ‘nationalized’ through the Constructive Programme and health directives. This article seeks to explore those Gandhian narratives on sanitation and health and the way in which the notion of Swaraj was enmeshed with the emerging health education.