The Rockefeller Foundation and Development of Public Health in Kerala, India (1910s-1950s)

This report sheds light on the role of the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) in the development and continuity of "public health" in present-day Kerala state in India, a region often seen as a "First World in a Third World." While the exploration of that concept is a separate book project, this report gives a glimpse of RF's public health intervention in the region in the first half of the twentieth century. The report is composed of two sections. The first section briefly presents the historical and political context of public health development, which, over time, became synonymous with "reproductive governance" in Kerala. For this, I not only illuminate how the Western medical system in the region became the dominant and the default medical system of the state and public. Instead, I also underscore how it served as a strong foundation, upon which RF's public health interventions began to shape in the region. The second section of the report gives an overview of the archival materials available at the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) that will help us unpack this development, its contexts, and interconnections.