By Kiran Kumbhar

‘Becoming Modern: Healthcare and History in India’ is a podcast about history and historians, hosted by Kiran Kumbhar and produced by the multilingual-multi-generational podcast platform Suno India. It explores the history of medicine and public health in India, and focuses on events and developments which occurred primarily in the 1800s, and which laid the foundations for the later development of healthcare and health policy in India.

The podcast traces the genesis of many of contemporary India’s healthcare structures and institutions, and provides the necessary historical context to why healthcare in the country today is the way it is. This knowledge about India’s medical past is provided directly by historians who have worked on medicine and public health in British colonial India. They are featured regularly in the show and also provide insights into their personal journey of becoming historians, and into how they write history and what social scientific methods they use to analyze the past and enlighten people about historical personalities, events and ideas.

Listen to the series here.