Defying Disease, Deifying Disease

With the advent of biomedicine in India, vaccination has been studied in tandem with the colonial commitment to exercise control over imperial subjects. The history of smallpox vaccination in India is entangled with the Goddess Śītalā – “controller” of epidemics. Despite the eradication of the epidemic, faith in the goddess reigns among her devotees. This ethnographic study suggests that Śītalā devotees are informed by a plurality of understandings of body, disease, and prophylaxis in the Covidian age; I argue that Śītalā practices and the irreducible faith in the goddess aid in sustaining trust in biomedical interventions like vaccines among her devotees. Based on fieldwork conducted in West Bengal, I further argue that Śītalā’s place as a “lesser” or “lower-caste” deity worshipped mostly by marginalized sections of society makes their active demand for vaccination an act of assertion.