The Indian response to the AIDS crisis, especially during its rise as a geopolitical power, was freighted with several concerns besides countering an epidemic. For one, there was trepidation that statistics on HIV infections in India could distill the nation to its (hyper)sexual and (im)moral essence on the global stage, thwarting its political ascent. This led the state to initially rely on several colonial precedents, like the Contagious Diseases Act and the institution of “lock hospitals,” to criminalize and compartmentalize bodies that were “at risk.” In her extensive examination of how this initial response shifted to exonerate those “at risk” bodies from state-sanctioned quarantine from the body politic, Gowri Vijayakumar deftly rehearses a complex negotiation of HIV prevention access, biopolitical rights, and power between citizens susceptible to HIV and the state.
At Risk is an ambitious ethnographic project. Vijayakumar stages testimonies from several interlocutors. They range from AIDS experts at...
