In India, Health Humanities is often a part of Humanities departments, where discourse frequently slips into romance rather than rigour. One strand glorifies pre-modern practices by claiming ancestors lived flawlessly and modernity ruined everything, ignoring life expectancy data. Another upholds pseudoscientific traditions as resistance to colonialism. Both overlook the epistemological foundations of evidence-based healthcare.
The rightful place for Health Humanities lies in medical colleges where Humanities scholars and practitioners work together, guided by science, committed to equity and ethical practice, and attentive to what Paulo Freire described as “critical consciousness” leading to a nuanced understanding of lived realities and possible solutions.
At a crossroads
In India, Health Humanities is at the crossroads where inequity, cultural taboos, and poor communication continue to impact healthcare amid rapid advancements in healthcare practices. Fear of medical procedures, lack of transparency, and heavy costs push many patients towards pseudoscientific and faith healing practices. Integrating Health Humanities in medical education is vital to restore human dignity through ethics and equity.
Prof. Sathyaraj Venkatesan of NIT Tiruchi notes a contrast in the function of Health Humanities in English and Cultural Studies departments and medical colleges. While Humanities departments study illness as a cultural narrative, medical schools emphasise observation, clinical empathy, and communication as Humanities components in healthcare education. The way forward is to combine these strands so that cultural analysis informs scientific care, and exposure to clinical realities refines cultural discourses on healthcare.
India’s medical curriculum can draw on global models: Columbia University’s narrative medicine trains in listening beyond symptoms; Stanford pairs literature and bioethics to examine autonomy and justice; King’s College London blends philosophy and history to debate resource allocation and end-of-life care. These efforts show how science directs care and humanistic training restores social and ethical context.
Marginalised groups bear heavier disease burdens yet receive less care. At a recent conference, Dr. Srijithesh P.R. from NIMHANS, Bengaluru, suggested reading healthcare in India using Thomas Piketty’s equity lens showing how inherited inequality sustains deprivation and how treatment costs push families into poverty. At the other end, affluent Indians flying abroad for treatment signals eroding trust in the domestic ‘healthcare industry’. Taboos around reproductive health and mental illness still impede access to quality healthcare.
Recently, the Medical Council introduced electives in Health Humanities. The National Medical Commission included Attitude, Ethics, and Communication (AETCOM) in the curriculum. While some students agree that these courses renewed their sense of purpose, many colleges treat them as a checkbox. Integrating humanist socio-cultural and economic inquiry into the medical curriculum remains a distant dream.
A stumbling block in achieving this vision is the incompatibility among disciplines. Some Humanities scholars view tech-driven healthcare advancements as dehumanising, and some doctors dismiss humanistic inquiry as unscientific and absurd. Such resistance places the Humanities and Medical Sciences as warring factions and impedes meaningful collaborations.
The issue is human choices, not technology. AI, telehealth, and genomics can exclude or empower. Dr. Mario Vaz of St. John’s Medical College, Bengaluru, argues that including History, Bioethics, and Social Medicine can bridge contrasting disciplines. In Humanities in Medical Education, Rajiv Mahajan and Tejinder Singh call for deeper engagement with equity, culture, and scientific temper.
A new framework
Considering the Indian context and diverse viewpoints, we propose a five-module framework: a critical history of healthcare disparities to explore how caste, gender, class, and wealth shape healthcare solutions; illness narratives across cultures to engage with the differences in lived experiences of conditions like Alzheimer’s and depression among elite patients and the underprivileged; communicating science in diverse contexts to prepare doctors to counter mis(dis)information and work across languages; an anthropology of healthcare technology that situates healthcare advancements in their social settings; and an ethics of healthcare technologies that weighs the consequences of tools such as AI and gene editing.
These modules must be rigorous and experiential and reinforced through fieldwork, outcome reviews, and work with advocacy groups, with patient voices at the centre. When implemented effectively, it equips doctors to confront science and stigma and to join global conversations linking medicine, anthropology, ethics, technology and democratised access to healthcare.
Health Humanities must move beyond English departments and become an integral part of medical colleges, where Humanities scholars can work in tandem with medical practitioners. This integration can help India produce clinicians who heal disease and discrimination and repair rifts between science and society, technology and humanity.
J. Jehoson Jiresh is Assistant Professor of English and Cultural Studies, Christ Deemed-to-be University, Bengaluru. Dr. Ranjith Viswanath is an Assistant Professor, Community Medicine, Ramaiah Medical College. K. Abarna SriPreethi is an independent Humanities researcher and Visiting Faculty of English, Bengaluru.
Published – November 29, 2025 12:00 pm IST
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