This book takes a closer look at colonial despotism in early nineteenth-century India and argues that it resulted from Indians' forum shopping, the legal practice which resulted in jurisdictional jockeying between an executive, the East India Company, and a judiciary, the King's Court. Focusing on the collisions that took place in Bombay during the 1820s, the book analyses how Indians of various descriptionspeasants, revenue defaulters, government employees, merchants, chiefs, and princesused the court to challenge the government (and vice versa) and demonstrates the mechanism through which the lawcourt hindered the government's indirect rule, which relied on local Indian rulers in newly conquered territories. The author concludes that existing political anxiety justified the East India Company's attempt to curtail the power of the court and strengthen their own power to intervene in emergencies through the renewal of the company's charter in 1834. An insightful read for those researching Indian history and judicial politics, this book engages with an understudied period of British rule in India, where the royal courts emerged as sites of conflict between the East India Company and a variety of Indian powers.

Presents the conflict between two principles of colonial rule: the logic of law and the logic of emergency Explores the role of the King's Court and its conflict with the East India Company in nineteenth-century India Argues that Indians' everyday use of the King's Court ultimately led to the curtailing of its power

Autorentext
Haruki Inagaki is Associate Professor at Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan, having previously studied at King's College London, UK. His research focuses on the history of British colonial rule in India. He is also interested in the comparative history of British and Japanese empires.

Inhalt

1. Law and Emergency: Two Logics of Colonial Governance.- 2. Reform Public and the King's Court in Bombay City.- 3. Summonses, Writs, and Revenue Defaulters in the Mofussil.- 4. Indirect Rule Threatened by Raiders, Princes, and the King's Court.- 5. Habeas Corpus in Times of Emergency: The Bombay Dispute.- 6. Bengal, Madras, and Imperial Debate on Despotism.- 7. Epilogue and Conclusion.