India, Oct. 17 -- When the British first arrived in India in 1608, they knew that deadly diseases lurked in the tropical subcontinent. What they did not foresee was how swiftly these pathogenic forces would puncture European medical hubris. Sahibs and soldiers, armed with muskets, ledgers and scientific arrogance, found themselves struggling to stay alive. With recurrent public health crises disrupting business, straining infrastructure and draining resources, disease became a central problem of British governance. Over two centuries, the relentless toll shattered the illusion of the invincibility of the white race. Ipshita Nath's In Sickness and in Death draws on a vast body of research to examine how disease reshaped colonial policy, contested imperial ambition, and altered everyday life in the subcontinent, and to show that the politics of disease - determined by fear, force and power structures - are present even today, in the post-pandemic era....