Beasts of Burden: Animals and Laboratory Research in Colonial India

The article discusses animals and laboratory research in colonial India. The focus of the article is how India managed to procure the vast numbers of animals it needed to conduct animal experimentation in Indian laboratories. The author presents the use of animal experimentation from the perspective of India's social history of colonialism arguing that is necessary to view animal experimentation in Indian laboratories within the context of Indian animals being subjects and resources of Great Britain. Topics include how the use of animals in Indian laboratories was shaped by Victorian moralities and Hindu animal sensibilities, the transformation of the animal body into a scientific object, and the importance of animals as part of colonialism.