It is well known that bioethics evolved in the West as a result of   series of scandals and a public outcry over the misuse of authority and control by the medical profession. By comparison, in India, the medical profession has not faced such public scrutiny or censure. Modern medicine, in particular, has been the product of the state in India. Unlike in the West, where the medical professional emerged largely as part of an entrepreneurial profession, which was only later brought into a nationalised service, in India, modern medicine was “built up” by both the colonial and the independent Indian state as the vehicle of modernity and welfare.