From serosocial to sanguinary identities: Caste, transnational race science and the shifting metonymies of blood group B, India c. 1918–1960

Abstract

A serendipitous encounter during the Great War left a brilliant Polish–Jewish scientist and his wife stranded at a Greek outpost with a small contingent of British and French Imperial troops. This chance encounter led to the birth not only of a new branch of science, that is, sero-anthropology, but also a novel theory about the origin of the blood group ‘B’ in India. In the following decades, this theory evolved and metamorphosed within British India through transnational scientific conversations as well as its resonances with South Asian identity politics. As the meanings of the isohaemagglutinin B morphed, the transnational meanings of race were repeatedly tripped up. In due course vernacularized Indian sero-anthropology produced a range of serosocial identities located as much in blood sera as in embedded socialities. After 1960, however, these serosocial identities were gradually overcome by purely sanguinary identities whose truth was located exclusively in the blood devoid of any sociality.