Behind the Mask The Cultural Definition of the Legal Subject in Colonial Bengal (1715-1911)

Author: Anindita Mukhopadhyay
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198088905
Published In: November 2013
Format: Hardback , 315 pages
Jurisdiction: India ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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Pioneering, cutting-edge research
Interdisciplinary approach

The book explores the complex inter-linkages between colonial legal discourse, class antagonism, and the formation of middle class identity between late eighteenth and early twentieth century in Bengal. It also examines the nature of colonial bureaucracy, bhadralok identitiy formation and criminality in Bengal. The colonial state had deployed its most powerful ideological and operation rationale-the Rule of Law-on the indigenous elite at the turn of the nineteenth century. This work addresses a fundamental discursive discontinuity when the Bengalibhadralok, a variegated, literate and self reflective social group, struggled to forge a new understanding of a thinking legal subject while negotiating with Western intellectual thought. It investigates the ambiguity of thebhadralok response to the courts and the jails. The discourse of superior bhadralok ethics and morals was juxtaposed against the chhotolok-who were devoid of such ethical values. This enabled the bhadralok to claim for themselves the position of the 'aware' legal subject as a class-a 'good' subject obedient to the dictates of the new rule of law, unlike the recalcitrant and ethically ill-equipped chhotolok. It also brings out how the colonial legal and penal institutions streamlined the identities of some sections of the lower castes into 'criminal classes'. The author also tries to highlight the social silence on gender female criminality.

Readership: Scholars and students of law, history, and sociology and those interested in cultural and legal history of Bengal.

Acknowledgements
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1: Official Discourse: The Creation of Categories and Spaces
2: Experiencing the New Order: In Search of an Identity, 1775-1890
3: The Making of the Mask, 1854-90
4: The Representation of Otherness
5: Cultural Affirmation of Non-Criminal Identity; Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
Index