Information

Cohn Bernard, Chapter three: Law and the Colonial State in India, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge

Overview

Chapter three: law and the Colonial State in India, talks about the emergence of the East India Company and how would the responsibilities of a private company impact its subjects. This led many of the British to ponder upon what is the best approach to the of ruling India along with a concern for the well-being of the Indian people.  The situation in India presented them with a problem they hadn’t faced before, so in order to answer this problem, they approached the situation in a pragmatic way using. Instrumentalities of a rule which covered subjects such as the redefinition of the traditional forms of authority and rule, debating whether to rule India by following a despotic model, viewing India as theocracy, and examining Colebrooke’s discourse on The Nature of Hindu Law. This chapter takes place in India during the late seventeenth century. This reading relates to the topic of imperialism and colonialism because by having an in-depth analysis of the path the British took to colonize a country with strange customs and religious beliefs, it becomes clear that a  careful understanding of these customs and religious customs and by showing  flexibility to adapt to the  ancient laws of the natives and derive a judicial system which would work for both nations, the British effectively managed to maintain their status as colonizers of the Indian nation.  What this chapter tells us about the past is that a certain way of life and rules can become deeply embedded into its inhabitants to such degree that taking away this way of life and implementing new rules to better them can cause the opposite effect, therefore in order to bring change into their lifestyle the colonizing nation must first study and comprehend the rationalization of the nation.

Keywords

East India Company : A large British trading company which over time acquired many of the attributes of a state. Meaning that it could wage war, raise taxes, or pass laws and justice among its employees.

Despotic model:  to govern despotically was to rule “ as a master over a slave”.

Mughal political system: a system in which the emperor held a complete power unchallenged by any other political or social institutions.

Argument

“The constitutional and legal issues presented by the emergence of the East India Company … could not simply be analogized to existing colonial experience. A whole new set of issues, for which there was no precedent, presented themselves. The issues included questions about the nature of sovereignty in India”.(p58)

Evidence

The author uses quotations from historians of the time period to support his claims that India was an unprecedented challenge to a colonial rule. “ The law was based upon his will ( the Mughal), and hence argued Orme (1805), there could not be any absolute laws in its constitution; for these would interfere with that will. Orme believed that in 1752 there were no digests or codes of laws existing in Indostan.” I think that the evidence presented by the author is reliable. The evidence in the reading provided by the author supports his argument.

Historiographical Debate

The author does not explicitly situate himself in a wider scholarly debate in the text.

Contribution to Our Understanding of Colonial Rule

To my opinion, chapter three: Law and the Colonial State in India, has added the biggest contribution to the understanding of the colonial rule. Before reading this chapter my understanding of colonial rule was very limited. I could assume that ruling a Colony would be as simple as to maintain the upper hand when it comes to military power and simply implement rules and laws by way of force. However, after reading this chapter I have come to understand that the art of ruling a colony is a much more delicate and complex subject. Just knowing what the best laws are for the wellbeing of a population means nothing if the population will not follow these laws because they feel antagonized by them. However, by creating laws which were derived from ancient Indian religious texts and that coincided with British law, the British managed to introduce their laws into the lives of the Indian people as means of the first step to later exercise a complete English law system in India.