In 1894, bubonic plague erupted in Hong Kong, but the British purposely ignored its impact to ensure their profitable opium trade from Indian ports to China was not affected. The British knew that ships from Hong Kong were carrying plague infected rats, but they still deliberately allowed those ships to dock in Indian ports ensuring its spread in India.
An Indian doctor from Bombay, Dr. A.G. Viegas was the first to officially confirm a case of Bubonic Plague in India. But the British fiercely opposed him, trying to cover up the epidemic. They dismissed his correct diagnosis saying Indian doctors were irrational & inferior
When the full brunt of the epidemic started spreading, then British soldiers were instructed specifically to isolate Indians in forcible house searches looking for the infected, where they contemptuously manhandled them like beasts. In February 1897, the British imposed mandatory railway inspections, where Indian women were herded, stripped of their upper garment to the waist down and shamed in full public view like animals by male British doctors. Innumerable mass incidents of sexual harassment, insults & abuse by British created huge resentment.
It was only after the tremendous outrage and outcry in the Indian press that the British started using screens and some women doctors for the dehumanizing act.
In Pune, Hindu women were physically manhandled and forced to undergo demeaning inspections on the streets in full public view. This created intense shame and panic among the unwilling women. To add insult to injury - British soldiers were given the authority to walk the streets at any hour and subject Indians to unannounced forceful house searches and seizure of property. The situation was no different from a full blown military occupation.
Indians had not forgotten the notorious lock hospitals in British cantonments where tens of thousands of Indian women and girls as young as 12, had been forced into prostitution and been infected with innumerable STDs. The doctors in the lock hospitals had manhandled the infected Indian women like sick cattle, throwing them out on the streets to die after they were infected by the British soldiers.
The horrific intrusive “containment” measures by the British during the Plague included violent sexual molestation, abusive manhandling, destruction of property, defiling temples, breaking Hindu idols, & burning of Hindu books. Terrified Indians therefore adamantly started refusing to go or send their family to hospitals - where lack of proper containment measures and hygiene for Indians led to the spread of infection. Indians were so petrified that they refused be inoculated out of panic, distrust & fear.
There were so many atrocities that frustrated Indians started protesting and rioting. These incidents led to cases like the Chapekar brothers in Pune who felt compelled to assassinate officials Rand & Ayerst to show their protest against the brutal assaults and inhumane violent treatment of Indian women. The British started forcibly searching, assaulting and dragging people to hospitals - which had become the de facto epicenter for spreading infections. It was the utter distrust & fear of the racist British military occupation and medical system which led to widespread infection, resulting in more than 16 million Indian deaths due to the Plague.
@risingsaffron11 ⭐️