This book offers a critical historical analysis of the People’s Health Movement in West Bengal, India, situating it within the broader context of health policy and public health developments in the region. It examines the systemic decline of the public healthcare sector alongside the rise of private medical provision, and explores how these shifts contributed to the erosion of the right to health for ordinary citizens in post-independence India. The study foregrounds the movement’s efforts to reform the health system, including its campaigns for essential and rational drug use, and its resistance to unethical medical practices. Framing the movement as a rights-based and equity-oriented response, the book positions it as a significant example of a new social movement. It offers valuable insights into contemporary Indian social history and contributes to wider debates on health justice and policy reform.

Nataraj Malakar is a historian based in India. Having studied at the University of Kalyani, in India, he now teaches in the Postgraduate Department of History at Vivekananda College, Thakurpukur and Berhampore Girls’ College.  His research explores the social history of health and medicine, and the history of the People’s Health Movement.