The Government of Social Life in Colonial India

Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-1-316-64978-7
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 21, 309 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 452 g

Reihe: Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society

From the early days of colonial rule in India, the British established a two-tier system of legal administration. Matters deemed secular were subject to British legal norms, while suits relating to the family were adjudicated according to Hindu or Muslim law, known as personal law. This important new study analyses the system of personal law in colonial India through a re-examination of women's rights. Focusing on Hindu law in western India, it challenges existing scholarship, showing how - far from being a system based on traditional values - Hindu law was developed around ideas of liberalism, and that this framework encouraged questions about equality, women's rights, the significance of bodily difference, and more broadly the relationship between state and society. Rich in archival sources, wide-ranging and theoretically informed, this book illuminates how personal law came to function as an organising principle of colonial governance and of nationalist political imaginations.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sturman, Rachel

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte
• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein Rechtsgeschichte, Recht der Antike
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; Part I. Economic Governance: 1. Property between law and political economy; 2. The dilemmas of social economy; Part II. The Politics of Personal Law: 3. Hindu law as a regime of rights; 4. Custom and human value in the debates on Hindu marriage; 5. Law, community, and belonging; Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Sturman, Rachel
Rachel Sturman is Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies at Bowdoin College, Maine. Her writing has appeared in many journals including Comparative Studies in Society and History, The Journal of Asian Studies, Economic and Political Weekly, and Gender and History.