PROFESSOR POORAN CHAND JOSHI

Medical Anthropologist Par Excellence

Dr. Prashant Khattri

Assistant Professor

Department of Anthropology

University of Allahabad

Prayagraj-211002

Email- prashant_khattri@allduniv.ac.in

(June 1, 1956-June 20, 2025)

Prof. Pooran Chand Joshi (PCJ) was a passionate academic and administrator and remained actively engaged when he suddenly passed away due to massive heart attack on June 20, 2025. Anthropology was his passion that started in 1972, when he joined Delhi University (DU) to pursue a Bachelor of Science degree. He went on to do, M.Sc., M.Phil. and Ph.D. from the Department of Anthropology, Delhi University. His engagement with anthropology remained grounded throughout his life as he came from rural India and comprehended rural and urban complexities with equal ease. He was born on June 1, 1956, in a village called Kherakot in the Uttarakhand hills. He spent his early childhood in the village but moved to Delhi to do his schooling.  He did his higher secondary from Gandhi Memorial Government Boys School, Delhi.

World recognises him as a distinguished medical anthropologist. His interest towards Medical Anthropology was shaped by his teachers and mentors in the department. His early mentor D.K. Bhattacharya (DKB) advised him to pursue Medical Anthropology for his Master’s fieldwork and dissertation. He went on to do his master’s fieldwork in the village Khanpora, located in the Badgam tehsil in Kashmir valley to write a dissertation on ‘ethno-medicine’. He was fascinated by shamanism that he witnessed in Uttarakhand and therefore became interested in knowing the ‘local’ ways of healing.

It is worth mentioning that Medical Anthropology was not offered as a specialized paper at the master’s level, when PCJ was a student. It was an emerging discipline in the country then. In 1982, when the department was revising its entire curriculum under the chairpersonship of Prof. I.P. Singh, acknowledging Joshi’s immense interest in the field, he was given the responsibility of drafting its curriculum irrespective of the fact that he was still a research fellow and not a tenured faculty. Though he was motivated by eminent archaeologist D.K. Bhattacharya to pursue medical anthropology, he did his M.Phil. and Ph.D. under the supervision of illustrious J.D. Mehra, who was then the only professor of social anthropology in the department.  His M.Phil. thesis was titled Ethnomedicine in Jaunsar Bawar which was further developed as Ph.D. dissertation titled tilted Illness, Health and Culture: Dynamics of Therapy in a Central Himalayan Tribe. He pursued his field work in the village Silgaon (pseudonym) of Jaunsar Bawar region of Uttarakhand in classical tradition of field work in Anthropology. He lived in the village for more than a year and internalized their lived traditions. After completing his Ph.D. from DU in 1985, he was appointed as Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, H.N.B. Garhwal University, Srinagar, Uttar Pradesh.

PCJ is aptly described by his contemporaries as one of the most successful administrator anthropologists. He joined Garhwal University on May 5, 1985, and became one of the youngest heads of the department. He established a museum in the department for which he personally collected specimen from his visit to Shillong. Given his commitment to the discipline, he donated his personal gift of a precious Naga artifact a Dao belonging to the family of his close friend Ao Naga Apok Zamir, son of S.C. Zamir erstwhile Governor of Maharashtra and Odisha, to the department museum. In 1997, he moved to Delhi as Associate Professor and Head, Department of Medical Anthropology, Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences and served the institute till 2003. He then moved to the Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi as a Professor of Social Anthropology and remained associated with the department till his retirement. Laurels followed him wherever he went. He earned immense good will and was seen as one of the most progressive administrators in his capacity as officiating Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University from October 2020 till May 2021.

CONTRIBUTIONS

His most important contribution is in the field of medical anthropology. Academic interests in other sub-fields of anthropology are an obvious extension of his dedication towards medical anthropology. He has extensively written on the issues of tribal health and medicine, an area very close to and very important for the realization of his academic, professional and personal self. His focus had been on the issues of health seeking behaviour, alternative and traditional forms of healing and their contemporary relevance and interaction with the state, democratic polities, and global forces, etiologies of disease causation, epidemiology, drug use and mental health. Doing justice to the bio-social nature of medical anthropology, he also extensively dealt with its biological dimensions, indicators and factors that are influenced by and in turn influences the social realm of human existence. Such studies focused on for example- the assessment of cardiovascular risk factors among Sunni Muslims in Delhi, prescriber and dispenser’s perception about antibiotic use in the case of childhood diarrhoea. Another was in the form of relocating concepts, and disciplinary ideologies to inhabit new areas like inquiring the status of health in general and child health in particular in a disaster context. Such studies not only create new knowledge but also give new life to earlier concepts in disciplinary history.     

A great deal of his writings subscribes to and is directed towards the advocacy for the rights and improvement in the overall condition and quality of life of the most marginalized sections of the society. His relational understanding of the reality is an offshoot of his anthropological training and worldview which is also reflected in his approach towards advocacy and public policy. He contends that to undertake advocacy efforts, an integrated and interdisciplinary approach is needed where anthropologists, biotechnologists, pharmacologists, social activists come together to uphold the intellectual property rights of the tribals on their indigenous knowledge. Within this paradigm of advocacy and within the larger anthropological discourse on post-colonial studies, PCJ strongly believes that agency of the ‘tribes’ is of utmost importance to realize such goals.

Prof. Joshi doing fieldwork in Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh

In this entire process of claiming and re-claiming rights, tribes should be alert and aware. In this context he calls for a political consciousness among the tribes that should be the basic driver behind any such effort towards policy, advocacy or human rights. In a true anthropological sense, he calls for a change from within. This has important bearing on the relational dimension of the tribes with the state and other philanthropic agencies. According to PCJ the entire process of claiming rights and advocacy should not look like a give-and-take exercise where a hierarchy is set from the very beginning and the agencies responsible for the ‘development’ act as benevolent ‘sahebs’ and the tribals as illiterate and un-interested ‘beneficiaries.’ He calls for role reversals and de-centring of the entire processes linked to policy and advocacy.

He insisted that it is the job of the anthropologists to bring this cultural ‘essence’ or ‘taaseer’ to the forefront and show that belief systems are not anti-existential. He wrote:

 Should we act as social reformers and teach them that their beliefs and practices are all hocus-pocus, and they should stop believing in them…….We will also have to know the clinical and social importance of the tribal magico-religious practices. The psychotherapeutic significance of magico-religious practices, that have been so much talked about needs to be contextualized….One of the great strengths of tribal systems of medicine is the involvement of group in therapy (Joshi, 2004; p. 405 in Kalla and Joshi, 2004).

Another dimension to his contribution to anthropology is in the form of his reflexive accounts of the disciplinary history in India and in the Department of Anthropology at DU. These reflexive accounts relate to emergence and consolidation of social anthropology in the DU anthropology department and the emergence of medical anthropology in India. It helps in locating the discipline, its emergence and ideological trajectories within the boundaries of a national tradition of practicing the discipline. It also shows a concern on the part of the author of such a form of writing about the disciplinary history, its achievements, limitations and one’s own location within the entire matrix. For young anthropologists, such texts provide a source of attachment and at the same time give room for critical thinking on the disciplinary projects.

Tracing the advent of Medical Anthropology in India he goes back to one of the first articles on the subject published in 1923 by S.C. Mitra, a Social Anthropologist from Calcutta University. Such historical recollections are important addition to the existing body of knowledge in the Indian context. He then turns towards historically tracing the teaching of medical anthropology in India. In this context he writes that as a separate discipline or specialization in Medical Anthropology started in the mid 1970s for the first time in Poona University. He also recognized that India is a rich ground for the development and practice of Medical Anthropology because of immense diversity of its people and their philosophies.

PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS

PCJ was the President of the Society for Indian Medical Anthropology (SIMA). This organization works in the field of medical anthropology in India. The idea of forming SIMA was germinated in Pune in 1978 when PCJ and Prof. HK Bhat were participating in post plenary session on medical anthropology at the X^th International Conference of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. Initial conversations were recorded on a tape recorder and kept in safe custody for posterity and years later in 1985, the society was registered. He was also the ex-officio Vice-President of the United Indian Anthropology Foundation (UIAF) and was actively engaged with its academic and organizational activities till his last breath. He played a key role in organizing the World Anthropology Congress (WAC-23) at Bhubaneswar, Odisha in 2023.

Among several of his awards are Indira Priyadarshini Vriksha Mitra National Award for the year 1987 awarded to him by an organization called The Friends of Trees in recognition of his environment related work. In the year 2007, he received the Certificate of Honour conferred upon him jointly by the Delhi Psychiatry Society and Psychiatres-Du Monde, France. A plaque of appreciation was awarded to him by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan, Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines in 2008. In in the year 2009, he was awarded Certificate of Appreciation in the 3^rd National PG Convention of the Indian Association of Public Health Dentistry, K.D. Dental College and Hospital, Mathura. He also received a certificate of appreciation for his research on disaster impacts in Asia and Europe by the Faculty of Public Health, University of Indonesia in 2009. Besides these awards and appreciations, PCJ also had the honour of being a visiting faculty to some of the world’s renowned universities like the University of Heidelberg, Germany, Global Forum for Health, Geneva, University of Hyderabad, India etc.

His sudden demise has left a vacuum not only in the World of anthropology but in academics at large, but his teachings would continue to encourage young researchers for eternity.

Reference

1.     Joshi P.C. 2004. Issues in Tribal Health and Medicine. In A.K. Kalla and P.C. Joshi (eds.) Tribal Health and Medicines. New Delhi. Concept.  

Publications:

Books:

1. Explorations in Indian Medical Anthropology (Volume II): Disease, Health and Culture. (H. K. Bhat, P. C. Joshi and B. R. Vijayendra edited). Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi, 2013.

2. Explorations in Indian Medical Anthropology (Volume I): Illness, Health and Culture. (H. K. Bhat, P. C. Joshi and B. R. Vijayendra edited). Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi, 2013.

3. Joshi, P.C. The Gujarat Earthquake Recovery 2001 – Recovery Status Report. 2013. International Recovery Platform, Kobe, Japan.

4. P. C. Joshi. Relevance of Traditional Medicines in Global Era Icon PublicationsPvt.Ltd., New Delhi, 2013

5. Stress among Sunni Muslims of   Delhi with special reference to  Psychosociobiogenetic Correlat (Astha Bansal and P. C. Joshi). LAP Lambert  Academic Publishing, Saarbrucken,Germany, 2012.(https://www.lap-publishing.com/catalog/details//store/gb/book/978-3-659-29474-7/stress-among- sunni-muslims-of-delhi)

6. N.K. Ganguly, R. Lakshminarayan P. C. Joshi et al. Situational Analysis: Antibiotic Use and Resistance in India. Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership. The Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy, Washington DC, New Delhi. (2011).

   (http://www.cddep.org/sites/cddep.org/files/publication_files/India-report-web.pdf?issuusl=ignore)

7. P.C Joshi,  Sonia Kaushal, Prashant Khattri and Supriya Akerkar. Impact of Floods in context of Bahraich. Microdis, Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi. 2009 (In Hindi).

8. Debarati Guha-Sapir, , Lian Parry, Olivier Degomme P. C. Joshi and J. P. Saulina Arnold. Risk factors for Mortality and Injury : Post-Tsunami Epidemiological findings from Tamilnadu . WHO Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disaster, Brussels, 2006.[Translated in Hindi and Tamil].

9. A. K. Kalla and P.C Joshi. Tribal Health and Medicines (ed). Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi, 2004.

10. P.C Joshi and Anil Mahajan. Studies in Medical Anthropology, Reliance Publishers,Delhi, 1990.

 Research Articles

Joshi, PC. 2019. Exploring Prescriptions: Assessing P.O. Bodding’s Contribution.

 In Ranjana Ray (ed.) Tribal Health Care System: A Tribute to P.O. Bodding. The Asiatic Society, Kolkata. Pp. 80-99.

Rawat, S., Rajkumari, S., Joshi, PC., Khan, MA. and Sarawwathy, KN. 2019. Who dies and Who Survives? Investigating the difference between suicide decedents and suicide attempters. Egyptian Journal of Forensic Science. (http://doi.org/s41935-019-0115-9)

Saraswathy, KN, Ansari, SN, Kaur, G, Joshi PC and Chandel, S. 2019. Association of vitamin B12 mediate  hyperhomocysteinemia with depression and anxiety disorder: A cross-sectional study among Bhil indigenous population of India. Clinical Nutrition ESPEN. (http://doi.org/10.1016/j.clnesp.2019.01.009) 

Joshi, P.C. and Srivastava, V.K. 2019. Culture, Mythology, and Religion. In RK Chadda, Vinay Kumar and Siddharth Sarkar (eds.) Social Psychiatry: Principles and Perspectives.  New Delhi. Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers. Pp. 130-1382018 (5)

Joshi, P. C. and Vashist, N. 2018. Illness, Health and Culture: Anthropological Perspective on

Ethnomedicine in India. In Misra, G. (eds). Psychosocial Intervention for Health and Well beings. Springer, New Delhi. Pp. 227-240.

Joshi, P. C. 2018.  Guest Editor for Special Issue Titled Environment and Sustainable Development: Our  Common Future. World Focus. No. 464.

Joshi, P. C. 2018. Sustainable Development and India. World Focus. No. 464: 13-16.

Kaushal, S. and Joshi, P. C. 2018. Ecosystem and Religion in the Himalayas. World Focus. No. 464: 66-70.

Rawat, S., Joshi, P. C., Khan, M.A. and Saraswathy, K.N. 2018. Trends and Determinants of Suicide in Warangal District, Telangana, India: Six years Retrospective Study based on Secondary Data.  Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences. 8: 8. (DOI 10.1186/s41935-018-0041- 2017(9)

Kotwani A, Joshi PC, Jhumb U, Holloway K. 2017. Prescriber and dispenser perception about antibiotic use in acute uncomplicated childhool diarrhea and upper respiratory tract infection in New Delhi: Qualitative study. Indian Journal of Pharmacology. 49:419-431

Zhimo, K.V. and P. C. Joshi. 2017. Women and Land Rights: Struggles and Negotiation with Reference to Sumi Community. Journal of Indian Anthropological Society. 52: 62-76.

Bandooni, S.K., A.M. Hasija, M. L. Devi and P. C. Joshi. 2017. The Participation of Local Communities and NGOs: A Step Towards Sustainable Development in Garhwal Himalaya. World Focus. No 450: 111-117

Minakshi, Rahul Kumar and P. C. Joshi. 2017. Sustainable Development and Environment: Challenges and Responsibilities. World Focus. No. 450: 106-110.

Sharma, K. and P. C. Joshi. 2017. Reinterpreting ‘Sustainable Development’ in Environmental

      Management. World Focus. No. 450: 58-61.

Joshi, P. C. 2017. Emerging Challenges in Sustainable Development and Indian Experiments. World Focus. No. 450: 12-15

Joshi, P. C.  2017. Guest Editor, Special Issue on Environment and Sustainable Development: Emerging Challenges. World Focus. No. 450

Bansal, A. and P. C. Joshi. 2017. Assessment of Cardiovascular Risk Factors among Sunni Muslims of Delhi, India. Eurasian Journal of Anthropology. 7, 2: 37-50. (DOI: 10.12973/eja.2017.0055a)

Joshi, P.C. 2017. Human Rights, Wildlife and Environmental Protection. Social Change. 47,1: 1-10. (DOI:  10.1177/0049085716681900)