Since the early 1990's, the national AIDS response in India worked with the outlawed and almost won. Those who inhabited this response, called it the ‘HIV movement of India’, now 25 years since it began a proud and reflective group of individuals and institutions. There is real fear that the low overall HIV prevalence rates cannot be sustained if the change makers lose steam. That condom use cannot continue to do the trick without dignity of those most at risk is evident to those privy to the process of change so far. When the same National AIDS programme worked with pregnant women, it struggled for air. The AIDS programme’s history is as much a history of institutions as it is of individuals habiting them. It is as much a history of change as it is a history of stagnation. It is as a much a history of new learning as it is a history of stoic denial of new thinking. While the programme achieved higher and higher condom use among hard...