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Incipient Pedagogy I: AIDS in the National Media

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Teaching AIDS

Abstract

AIDS pedagogies are not insulated from the larger discursive and practical contexts in which the social reality of HIV/AIDS is embedded. As such, therefore, it is necessary to uncover its links with other domains of AIDS knowledge. This chapter examines early media representations of HIV disease in India, with regard to their shifting constructions of the epidemic. These early accounts had a long-term impact on how the reality of AIDS came to be understood.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The AIDS memorial quilt, which is maintained by the NAMES Project Foundation, was started by gay activist Steve Jones in 1987 and now includes more than 48,000 panels from all over the world (Names Project).

  2. 2.

    In 2005, Sanjay Suri made a commercially released film on Dominic’s story, titled My Brother … Nikhil, directed by Onir. It focuses on the issue of discrimination and the rights of the HIV-positive, especially in the context of law. Chap. 4 discusses the film in detail.

  3. 3.

    It was under this scheme that the National AIDS Control Policy was formulated and the National AIDS Control Organization was established in 1992 as the nodal agency for initiating and coordinating epidemic-control programmes. See Chap. 6 for more details.

  4. 4.

    “The subliminal connection made to notions about a primitive past and many hypotheses that have been fielded about possible transmission from animals (a disease of green monkeys? African swine fever?) cannot help but activate a familiar set of stereotypes about animality, sexual license and blacks” (Sontag 1988, p. 52).

  5. 5.

    The “innocent/guilty” binary was a discursive paradigm through which moral distinctions were inscribed into classification of transmission modes, in the translation of medical ideas into lay perceptions. Referring to a congressional debate held on October 14, 1987, Douglas Crimp writes: “The ritual hand-wringing sentiments about innocent children with AIDS pervade the debate, as they pervade the discussion of AIDS everywhere. This unquestioned sentiment must be seen for what it is: a vicious apportioning of degrees of guilt and innocence to people with AIDS” (Crimp 2002, p. 73). In the story about the Hyderabad microbiologist Puri’s report emphasized his “good, middle-class family” background, and that he “was so strait-laced about sex that he used to blush when the word was mentioned” (Puri 1986, p. 30). Later in the epidemic, there was a report about a schoolteacher from Delhi who had acquired infection through “sexually promiscuous behaviour in Zambia” (Baweja and Katiyar 1992, p. 92).

  6. 6.

    Puri’s categorization of the “typical AIDS victim” is drawn from reports in the Western media. In India, HIV infection among intravenous drug users and men who have sex with men was reported much later.

  7. 7.

    In a report in India Today, Singh and Pillai quote the definition of “carrier” by a joint director of health services in Jabalpur: people “who have the capacity to transmit [HIV] to another person but can remain unaffected themselves” (Singh and Pillai 1987, p. 129). Since a person infected with HIV will eventually go on to develop symptoms of disease, this is factually incorrect; but it serves a symbolic function as the carrier is imagined as a threat to the ordering of spaces.

  8. 8.

    See, for instance, Sarkar and Ganguly 2004; Pandey 2005; TOI 2005; TNN 2005.

  9. 9.

    Acronym for “Person Living with HIV/AIDS”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cultural Studies, English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

    Dilip K. Das

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Das, D.K. (2019). Incipient Pedagogy I: AIDS in the National Media. In: Teaching AIDS. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6120-3_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6120-3_3

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