This article deals with the neglected subject of unwanted pregnancies in late colonial Bengal. The converse of the woman who gave birth in an anturghar, with rituals observed before and after the event, was the woman who delivered her child in secret before she abandoned or even killed it, if s he had not succeeded in aborting it in the early stages of her pregnancy. The outsiders who participated in this reversal of the 'normal' birth could be the father of the child, and the dhai, who often combined the skills of midwife and abortionist. (The hostility of the medical profession to indigenous abortion practitioners centred around the ideas of both their charlatanry as well as their apparent effectiveness.) Often a small network of individuals could be involved in the event.
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