Formal Writing, Questionnaires and Petitions Colonial Governance and Law in Early British Malabar, 1792–1810
01 Dec 2013-Indian Historical Review (SAGE PublicationsSage India: New Delhi, India)-Vol. 40, Iss: 2, pp 285-305
TL;DR: The authors examines the culture of "formal writing" in the making of colonial law in early British India and examines the use of "questionnaires" and "forms" to construct legal knowledge in the colonial construction of legal knowledge.
Abstract: This article examines the culture of ‘formal writing’ in the making of colonial law in early British India. As part of establishing the Western governmental practices in the colony, the British introduced formal writing practices in the colonial administration. Situating on the debate of ‘continuity and change’, this article argues that ‘formal writing’ marked a significant departure from pre-colonial legal practices in India. This article first focuses on the use of ‘questionnaires’ and ‘formal letters’ in the colonial construction of legal knowledge and identified these as new mechanisms of governance in the oral based pre-colonial domains in the colony. This was the important phase in the colonial governance where the traditional domain and practices of oral communication, correspondence, messages and spoken declarations were provided with a new focus and regularity. Second, this article examines how the natives used the new logic of ‘formal writing’ to write letters and petitions to present themselves...
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TL;DR: Ogborn as discussed by the authors discusses the role of script and print in the making of the English East India Company (EIC) in Indian ink writing and print printing. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Abstract: Miles Ogborn. Indian Ink: Script and Print in the Making of the English East India Company. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2007. xxiii + 318 pp. 22 figs. $40.00. ISBN 0-226-62041-...
37 citations
TL;DR: There has been an explosion of research on South Asian legal history as discussed by the authors, focusing on the legal profession and the experience of dispute resolution in India, and the second wave has concentrated on the themes of gender and religion in British India.
Abstract: Since the late 1990s, there has been an explosion of scholarship on South Asian legal history. This article situates the new literature within the longer tradition of postcolonial South Asian legal studies, focusing on work written by lawyers and historians. The first wave of South Asian legal studies emerged in what historians would call the long 1960s from a group of American lawyers and social scientists working on the legal profession and the experience of dispute resolution in India. The second wave, which has concentrated on the themes of gender and religion in British India, has been shaped by different influences, namely developments in the Indian women's movement and in Indian legal education during the 1980s and 1990s. The survey considers whether the new scholarship is overly focused on elites, the state, the colonial period, and English-language sources. It also identifies regional crosscutting themes that have generated research on South Asia beyond India, particularly constitutionalism, stat...
17 citations
14 Jun 2019
TL;DR: In this article, Gramsci compared political struggle to colonial wars or old wars of conquest, in which the victorious army occupies, or proposes to occupy, permanently all or part of the conquered territory.
Abstract: Political struggle is enormously more complex: in a certain sense, it can be compared to colonial wars or to old wars of conquest—in which the victorious army occupies, or proposes to occupy, permanently all or part of the conquered territory. Then the defeated army is disarmed and dispersed, but the struggle continues on the terrain of politics. —Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks
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Book•
11 May 2021
TL;DR: A collection of his essays in the last fifteen years discusses areas in which the colonial impact has generally been overlooked as discussed by the authors, and the essays form an exploration of the ways in which British discovery, collection, and codification of information about Indian project of control and command.
Abstract: This collection of his writings in the last fifteen years discusses areas in which the colonial impact has generally been overlooked. The essays form an exploration of the ways in which the British discovery, collection, and codification of information about Indian project of control and command. He also asserts that an arena of colonial power that seemed most benign and most susceptible to indigenous influences - mostly law - in fact became responsible for the institutional reactivation of peculiarly British notions about how to regulate a colonial society made up of "others". he shows how the very orientalist imagination that led to brilliant antiquarian collections, archaeological finds, and photographic forays were in fact forms of constructing an India that could be better packaged, inferiorized, and ruled. A final essay on cloth suggests how clothes have been part of the history of both colonialism and anticolonialism.
1,124 citations
505 citations
Book•
02 Sep 1997
TL;DR: A detailed critical analysis of the foundations of modern cartography can be found in this paper, focusing especially on the Great Trigonometrical Survey (GTS) undertaken by the British East India Company.
Abstract: In this history of the British surveys of India, focusing especially on the Great Trigonometrical Survey (GTS) undertaken by the British East India Company, the author relates how imperial Britain employed modern scientific survey techniques not only to create and define the spacial inmage of its Indian empire, but also to legitimate its colonialist activities as triumphs of liberal, rational science bringing "Civilisation" to irrational, mystical and despotic Indians. The reshaping of cartographic technologies in Europe into their modern form played a key role in the use of the GTS as an instrument of British cartographic control over India. In analyzing this reconfiguration, the author undertakes a detailed critical analysis of the foundations of modern cartography.
278 citations
Book•
11 Jun 1998TL;DR: Radhika Singha as mentioned in this paper looks at law-making as a cultural enterprise, one in which the colonial authorities were compelled to draw upon normative codes of rank, status, and gender so as to realign them to a new, more exclusive definition of the state's sovereign right.
Abstract: Radhika Singha looks at law-making as a cultural enterprise, one in which the colonial authorities were compelled to draw upon normative codes of rank, status, and gender so as to realign them to a new, more exclusive definition of the state's sovereign right.
213 citations
TL;DR: A historian, like any other scholar, incurs many debts as mentioned in this paper, and it is a great privilege to work amongst historians in the University of London, who form arguably the largest group of historians that work together.
Abstract: A historian, like any other scholar, incurs many debts. I am no exception. I would like to begin this occasion by acknowledging some of those debts. I have benefited greatly from the generosity of colleagues—from the generosity of colleagues in my particular field of Islamic and South Asian history in North America, Europe and the Subcontinent, but also from the generosity of historians in general. It is a great privilege to work amongst historians in the University of London, who form arguably the largest group of historians in the world, that work together.
210 citations