In 1896, the bustling colonial port city of Bombay was struck by one of the deadliest epidemics in modern Indian history. What began as isolated cases of fever and swollen lymph nodes rapidly evolved into a devastating outbreak of Bubonic Plague. Over the following years, the epidemic transformed not only the city’s public health system but also the relationship between medicine, governance, and the Indian population.
The British colonial administration responded with aggressive disease-control measures that included forced quarantines, military-backed inspections, segregation hospitals, and plague camps. Entire neighborhoods came under surveillance, while thousands of residents were forcibly removed from their homes in the name of epidemic control. Although these interventions were officially justified as public health necessities, many Indians viewed them as invasive, humiliating, and deeply authoritarian. The plague epidemic therefore became more than a medical emergency; it became a political and social crisis that exposed the coercive nature of colonial rule.
By the late nineteenth century, Bombay had emerged as one of the most important commercial ports in the British Empire. The city’s textile mills, dockyards, and railway connections attracted thousands of migrant laborers, leading to rapid urban overcrowding. Poor sanitation, congested housing, inadequate drainage, and overcrowded chawls created ideal conditions for infectious diseases to spread.
The plague is believed to have entered Bombay through maritime trade routes linked to Hong Kong during the Third Plague Pandemic. In September 1896, physician Acacio Gabriel Viegas identified the disease as bubonic plague after observing characteristic symptoms among patients in the Mandvi area. Colonial officials initially hesitated to publicly acknowledge the outbreak because they feared disruptions to trade and international shipping.
However, the epidemic spread rapidly across densely populated neighborhoods. Fear gripped the city as mortality rates increased dramatically. Residents fled Bombay in large numbers, carrying the infection into other regions of India.
As the epidemic intensified, the British government enacted the Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897, granting extraordinary powers to colonial authorities. The legislation allowed officials to inspect homes, isolate infected individuals, detain travelers, evacuate neighborhoods, and destroy contaminated property without requiring public consent.
The implementation of these measures often involved military personnel accompanying plague officers into residential areas. Homes were searched without warning, suspected patients were forcibly removed, and family members were separated during quarantine procedures, which generated widespread resentment among Indian communities.
For colonial administrators, these interventions represented scientific modernity and disease prevention. For many Indians, however, they symbolized the erosion of privacy, dignity, and cultural autonomy.
One of the most controversial aspects of plague control in colonial Bombay was the establishment of segregation camps and quarantine hospitals. These plague camps were designed to isolate suspected cases from the general population in order to prevent transmission.
In reality, the camps quickly developed a terrifying reputation.
Patients admitted to segregation hospitals were often separated from family members for prolonged periods. Living conditions in temporary camps were harsh, overcrowded, and emotionally distressing. Communication with relatives was limited, and mortality rates remained high due to the absence of effective antibiotic treatment during that era.
Rumors soon spread across Bombay that plague hospitals were places from which patients never returned alive. Many families began concealing infected relatives rather than reporting them to authorities. Some secretly disposed of bodies before officials arrived. Others escaped the city entirely to avoid compulsory hospitalization and segregation.
As a result, colonial public health policies unintentionally deepened distrust toward medical authorities and contributed to further population displacement during the epidemic.
The plague epidemic intensified anti-colonial resentment throughout western India. Public anger was directed not only at the disease itself but also at the humiliating methods used by colonial officials during plague inspections.
In Pune, plague commissioner Walter Charles Rand became widely unpopular because of aggressive plague-control operations conducted under his administration. In 1897, Rand was assassinated by the Chapekar brothers, an event that revealed the extent to which public health measures had become entangled with nationalist resistance.
The epidemic demonstrated that medicine could not function effectively in the absence of public trust. Colonial officials viewed resistance as irrational opposition to science, while many Indians perceived plague regulations as instruments of imperial domination.
Despite the trauma associated with plague-control policies, the epidemic also contributed to important scientific developments. Russian bacteriologist Waldemar Haffkine developed one of the earliest plague vaccines in Bombay during the outbreak. His work eventually led to the establishment of the Haffkine Institute, which played a major role in infectious disease research in India.
Researchers also improved scientific understanding of plague transmission, eventually identifying the role of rat fleas in spreading the disease. These discoveries significantly influenced future approaches to epidemiology and urban sanitation.
At the same time, the epidemic reshaped Bombay’s urban planning policies. The establishment of the Bombay City Improvement Trust in 1898 aimed to reduce overcrowding through road widening, improved drainage systems, and suburban expansion. However, historians argue that these reforms often prioritized commercial stability and colonial governance over the welfare of poorer Indian residents.
The Bombay plague epidemic left a profound mark on India’s medical and political history. Between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, plague caused millions of deaths across the Indian subcontinent. Yet the memory of the epidemic is not only associated with disease and mortality; it is also remembered as a period when colonial medicine became deeply intertwined with surveillance, coercion, and state power.¹³
The plague camps of Bombay reflected the unequal dynamics of colonial healthcare, where disease control frequently overrode civil liberties and cultural sensitivities. Public health measures imposed without trust or community participation generated fear rather than cooperation.
More than a century later, many debates surrounding quarantine, surveillance, and emergency public health laws resurfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The history of Bombay’s plague camps therefore remains highly relevant in understanding how governments respond to epidemics and how public trust determines the success or failure of medical interventions.
Ultimately, the plague epidemic of 1896 transformed Bombay into more than a site of disease control. It became a medical battlefield where colonial authority, scientific ambition, and human suffering collided.
Vardı Topal, Hanife, and Zehra Betül Atasoy. 2025. “The Role of the Third Plague Pandemic in Colonial India as the Impetus for the Improvement Trusts and Urban Transformation in Bombay, Mysore, and Calcutta.” Planning Perspectives 40 (3): 805–22. doi:10.1080/02665433.2025.2460160.
Cohn, Samuel K. “Plague in India: Contagion, Quarantine, and the Transmission of Scientific Knowledge.” In Plague Image and Imagination from Medieval to Modern Times, edited by Christos Lynteris, 165–190. Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Modern History. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.
Sarkar, Natasha. “Rethinking Spaces.” In The Last Great Plague of Colonial India. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024. Accessed May 13, 2026.
Caru, Vanessa. “Plague and Urban Policy in Bombay, 1896–1914.” Metropolitics, November 18, 2022.
Indian Papers: Plague Reports.” National Library of Scotland Digital Archive. Accessed May 13, 2026.