NATIVE DIRT IMPERIAL ORDURE - THE CHOLERA OF 1832 AND THE MORBID RESOLUTIONS OF MODERNITY

Why is India treated as the standing menace to the public health of th e world? Is it something peculiar to Indian tradition which prevents I ndia from enjoying the fruits of universal modernity? Or perhaps, is i t the emergence of institutions and of other politically organized sub jections in a history of colonialism which endowed India with a brand of colonial modernity? By using the cholera epidemic of 1832 and the e fforts to rebuild and restructure everyday life in Europe and in India , this essay attempts to answer such questions. It is in the aftermath of the epidemic that various ideological positions are clarified, wit h the result that bourgeois culture demonstrates its limit in colonial ism.