The Government of Social Life in Colonial India ：Liberalism, Religious Law, and Women's Rights ( Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society )

Publication subTitle ：Liberalism, Religious Law, and Women's Rights

Publication series ：Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society

Author： Rachel Sturman;  

Publisher： Cambridge University Press‎

Publication year： 2012

E-ISBN: 9781316965009

P-ISBN(Paperback): 9781107010376

P-ISBN(Hardback):  9781107010376

Subject： K3 Asian History

Keyword： 亚洲史

Language： ENG

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Description

Analyses religious law in colonial India, exploring how it encouraged gender equality and a rethinking of the relationship between state and society. An important new study which analyses the system of personal law in colonial India, showing how it encouraged gender equality and a better relationship between state and society. By focusing on Hindu law, this illuminating book challenges existing scholarship, showing how – far from being based on traditional values – Hindu law was developed around ideas of liberalism. An important new study which analyses the system of personal law in colonial India, showing how it encouraged gender equality and a better relationship between state and society. By focusing on Hindu law, this illuminating book challenges existing scholarship, showing how – far from being based on traditional values – Hindu law was developed around ideas of liberalism. 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. 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.

Chapter

Cover

The Government of Social Life in Colonial India

Series

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

COLONIAL LAW AND INDIAN SOCIETY

PROPERTY AND POLITICAL THEORY

PROPERTY IN COLONIAL LAW AND GOVERNMENTALITY

LAW AND COLONIAL LIBERAL THOUGHT: HENRY SUMNER MAINE AND JAMES FITZJAMES STEPHEN

THE CENTRALITY OF THE FAMILY IN THE POLITICS OF SOCIETY

THE PROBLEM OF ADEQUATION: A QUESTION OF METHOD

REGION, COLONY, AND NATION

PLAN OF THE BOOK

PART I: ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE

1: Property between Law and Political Economy

PART I: LAND AS AN OBJECT OF VALUE AND RIGHT: THE COLONIAL REVENUE SETTLEMENT

The Special Character of Land

Political Economy and the Conundrums of Local Knowledge

PART II: HEREDITARY OFFICES AND THE USES OF THE SOCIAL

Inam: From Sovereignty to Property

Vatan: Hereditary Identity and Colonial Bureaucracy

Defining Vatan: Lessons from Political Economy for Elite Village Officers

Producing Vatan as Social Relations: A View from the Margins

CONCLUSION

2: The Dilemmas of Social Economy

PART I: DEBT, LEGAL OBLIGATION, AND THE CRISIS OF RURAL SOCIETY

The Compulsions of Credit

Credit and Debt in Early Colonial State Practice

Rural Stability and the Deccan Agriculturalist

The Crisis of Agricultural Society in Indian Reformist Analyses and Critiques

The Uneconomical Family as Object of Policy

PART II: FEUDAL PROPERTY IN COLONIAL SOCIETY: REGULATING HEREDITARY OFFICES

Redefining Ownership, Redefining Family

The Mobility of Social Capital

CONCLUSION

PART II: THE POLITICS OF PERSONAL LAW

3: Hindu Law as a Regime of Rights

PART I: FROM THE UNECONOMICAL FAMILY TO THE PRODUCTION OF ABSTRACT SUBJECTS

PART II: THE CONUNDRUMS OF INCOMMENSURABILITY

Widows as Heirs

Wives and Widows as Dependents

Adoption and the Widow’s Will: Toward a Reformist Hindu Law

CONCLUSION

4: Custom and Human Value in the Debates on Hindu Marriage

PART I: MARRIAGE AND THE MORALITY OF EXCHANGE

Colonial Ethnography and Hindu Law

Marriage Custom in Colonial Jurisprudence

PART II: PRODUCING HUMAN VALUE: LIBERAL HINDU REFORMIST DISCOURSES

The Evils of Temple Dedication

Child Marriage and Enforced Widowhood between Law and Social Reform

Custom and Conscience in the Plight of the Child Widow

CONCLUSION

5: Law, Community, and Belonging

PART I: THE SHIFTING POLITICS OF BELONGING: DEFINING COMMUNITY IN THE COLONIAL CONTEXT

PART II: THE USES OF THE STATE IN FORGING THE NATION: THE POLITICS OF HINDU AND MUSLIM PERSONAL LAW

The Moslem Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act: Nationalization via the State

The Hindu Women’s Rights to Property Act: The Problem of Democracy

PART III: BELONGING AS SUBJECTION: REDEFINING PERSONHOOD THROUGH PROPERTY

CONCLUSION

Conclusion

Select Bibliography

Index

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