‘They Shall See His Face’: Blindness in British India, 1850–1950

Abstract

This paper explores the social, medical, institutional and enumerative histories of blindness in British India from 1850 to 1950. It begins by tracing the contours and causes of blindness using census records, and then outlines how colonial physicians and observers ascribed both infectious aetiologies and social pathologies to blindness. Blindness was often interpreted as the inevitable consequence of South Asian ignorance, superstition and backwardness. This paper also explores the social worlds of the Blind, with a particular focus on the figure of the blind beggar. This paper further interrogates missionary discourse on ‘Indian’ blindness and outlines how blindness was a metaphor for the perceived civilisational inferiority and religious failings of South Asian peoples. This paper also describes the introduction of institutions for the Blind in addition to the introduction of Braille and Moon technologies.