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With reference to changes in Uttar pradesh, India since 1970; contributed articles

AbstractWestern‐trained doctors in India struggled to establish themselves as a medical 'profession' in the 1920s and 1930s and these struggles continued into the post‐colonial period. The direction of travel is, however, no longer clear. Increasing evidence of a crisis in doctors' collective ability to provide a form of self‐regulation since 2000 is highlighted. India's Supreme Court suspended the operations of their country's medical councils in the face of a proliferation of poorly regulated private medical colleges. Practitioners of alternative systems of medicine and unqualified medical practice continue, while new 'short‐course' doctors take over tasks previously restricted to fully fledged MBBS doctors. The diversification of the social origins of medical students, with rising numbers of doctors from a wider range of social backgrounds, threatens their aspirations to high status. There is little diminution of the earnings of elite doctors, yet their conditions of work are increasingly constrained by financial targets. Young doctors face uncertain futures. This article analyses the increasingly diverse occupational positions of doctors in India using a Bourdieusian lens and asks whether an alternative, stable form of institutional arrangements is emerging, as some have claimed, or if fragmentation is a more apt description.

(excerpt from the text)In May 2014, to the surprise of many commentators, India's Bharatiya Janata Party – the BJP – not only won the General Election (as widely expected), but did so with an overall majority by itself, without needing the coalition partners it had attracted before the poll. In the lower House of Parliament – the Lok Sabha – it now has 52% of the seats on 31% of the vote. It is the first time that an avowedly 'Hindu' party has held such a dominant position, and even before the election, voices within and outwith India were raised, expressing alarm at the likely impact on inter-religious relations in India.[this essay was first published on September 2nd, 2014 by Discover Society http://www.discoversociety.org, and is here reproduced with permission]

In 1975 the British General Medical Council ceased to recognize Indian medical degrees as sufficient qualification for practice as a doctor in Britain. For several years previously the G.M.C. had refused to grant automatic recognition to the degrees of the new Indian medical colleges, and this had soured relationships between the G.M.C. and its Indian counterpart, the Medical Council of India. In retaliation for the British move, the M.C.I. ceased to recognize British medical degrees, and higher qualifications from Britain awarded after 1976 would not be accepted from candidates for promotion in medical colleges and other public sector jobs. This controversy was not as novel as recent commentators have supposed. Indian medical degrees had been refused recognition once before—in 1930—and the issue of G.M.C. recongnition had been at the heart of a dispute between the Indian medical colleges and the British medical authorities which had raged from the end of the First World War to the eve of the Second.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 Queen Today in a Red Sārī! -- 2 Just Because I Was Angry -- 3 She's Brought Plenty of Wealth -- 4 A Girl Seems Burdensome to Both Her Parents -- 5 Leaving Her Father's House -- 6 Who Would There Be to Sit with Our Boy? -- 7 No One of Your Own Will Be There -- 8 I've Become Shameless Because of the Children -- 9 The Daughter-in-Law's Era -- 10 Love and Peace in My Mother's House -- 11 Should I Become a Pauper? -- 12 Toasted on One Side -- 13 Why Have You Married Me So Distantly? -- 14 If My Uncle Saw the Situation I'm in Now -- 15 A Woman Should Die Before Her Husband -- 16 Allah Gives Both Boys and Girls -- Afterword -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- About the Book and Authors -- Name Index