Pilgrimage under Colonial Regulation: Disease and State Control in Garhwal

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between epidemic disease, colonial governance, and pilgrimage practices in the Garhwal region during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing on archival records, administrative reports, and district gazetteers, it analyzes how the British colonial state interpreted and managed recurrent outbreaks of cholera and plague within major pilgrimage routes and fairs. The paper argues that colonial authorities increasingly constructed pilgrims as carriers of contagion, a representation that legitimized intrusive sanitary regulations and reinforced broader narratives of civilizational and racial superiority. Measures such as the establishment of dispensaries, deployment of sweepers, and regulation of religious gatherings were framed as benevolent public health interventions but frequently disrupted established ritual practices and local mobility patterns. Simultaneously, the expansion of railway networks intensified pilgrimage circulation, reshaping sacred travel while facilitating epidemic transmission. By examining administrative correspondence and medical discourse, the study demonstrates that disease control in pilgrimage spaces functioned not only as a medical response but also as an ideological instrument that strengthened colonial authority under the language of scientific governance.