Positioning AIDS Activism in India: Civil Society Responses Between Development Aid, Global Health and the State, 1989 to 2001

This article brings histories of medical activism in conversation with studies of international development to understand Ford Foundation-supported AIDS non-governmental organisations in India. While there were organisations with far-reaching visions for change through the voluntary sector, the article argues that the advocacy, caught between political critique and service delivery, was ultimately awkward and ambiguous. It demonstrates this by focusing on the Foundation’s support for Indian civil society after the Emergency, how it ‘learned’ activism from mainstream global and national responses and how AIDS was subsequently subsumed under a resurgent reproductive health movement after the 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development. Finally, it argues that AIDS activism declined after the early 2000s because the Indian government absorbed the developmental rhetoric and services of the NGOs. Ultimately, Ford’s career in AIDS activism showcases the limitations of sustained political critique by civil society and non-governmental actors.