ABSTRACT
Contraception occupied an awkward place in the governance of health in late colonial India. Maternal and child welfare took on an increased urgency during the period and the political language of the day routinely connected individual health to national progress. Although the late colonial state did not promote contraception as part of its maternal and infant welfare policy, colonial officials regularly voiced anxieties over health-particularly the alarming levels of maternal and infant mortality. There were also occasional dark murmurings about population growth and impending Malthusian catastrophe. Yet despite these regular invocations, there was a distinct lack of official action in terms of building a substantial health infrastructure that could begin to address these anxieties.1
