Akshay Bhambri (PhD candidate, University of Delhi; HYI Chinese Studies in India Program Visiting Fellow, 2024-25)
“After the Revolution, After Colonialism: A Comparative Study of the Politics of Medical Knowledge in China and India”
What got you interested in your research topic?
This story is seemingly unrelated to what I’m doing today, but in fact, it planted the seed for my current research. In the summer of 2018, I had the opportunity to visit rural India as part of an immersion program focused on sanitation. As a big city boy born and raised in Delhi, I had never experienced village life before. The time I spent there made me reflect deeply on the Gandhian idea of the “upliftment of the last person”—what policy circles now often refer to as the “last mile.”
When I returned to Delhi, I found myself back in an air-conditioned classroom, re-encountering Foucault. He was speaking to me about power/knowledge relations with immense intellectual depth—but his frameworks felt abstract and distant from the realities I had just witnessed. It wasn’t that Foucault was wrong, but rather that his lens seemed unable to fully capture the messy, everyday contestations between people and their knowledge with Science with a capital ‘S’; between traditional knowledge systems and modern institutions.
That’s when I became interested in the “last mile” of knowledge, not just those systems that are marginalized, but those that persist, adapt, and push back within modernity’s frameworks. This led me to the study of traditional knowledge systems for my doctoral dissertation. Over time, I narrowed my focus to traditional medical knowledge in two of the world’s oldest civilizations: India and China.
Outside of work, where can we find you?
Outside of work, you’ll find me in one of two places (actually, often during work too!). The first is any sports facility nearby tennis courts, badminton courts, table tennis tables, or even swimming pools. The second is along the Charles River, you’ll spot me cycling or just staring at the sunset.
And if I’m not doing either of those, I’m definitely in the kitchen. My passion for cooking is unmatched!
What would you want to do most as a career if you were not in academia?
Oh! That’s not hard to guess based on my previous answer. I’d definitely want to open a restaurant, curating a custom menu, maybe with fusion food from India, China, and Taiwan, served on a bustling street in Manhattan.
Honestly, I still think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to open a restaurant after my PhD or maybe a cozy book café near Harvard.
Another career path, one that’s not an alternative to academia but could complement it — is committing myself to public service through politics. I would definitely like to pursue that, provided we’re able to protect two endangered things for the future: the Earth and democracy.
But since we’re speaking hypothetically, I’d also consider a career in sports, most likely tennis. I can totally imagine myself lifting the trophy at Wimbledon, beating Federer! Haha!
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