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6 - Conclusion

The Making and Remaking of a Colonial Judicial State (c.1780–1793)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2022

Robert Travers
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

This concluding chapter considers the reforms of Governor-general Charles, Lord Cornwallis (1786-93) as the culmination of a decades-long process of imperial co-option, whereby British authorities had gradually expropriated and recast a late Mughal, Persianate system of taxation and justice. Cornwallis’s famous minute on civil justice from 1793 proclaimed itself as a great leap forward in its assertion of ‘British’ justice, making all civil disputes over land and taxation cognizable in separate law courts. Yet Cornwallis, like earlier British reformers, while he railed against the supposedly despotic practices of earlier Indian rulers, was also intensely aware of the multitudes of Indian petitioners and agents (wakils) crowding the Company’s ‘adalats and making legal claims on the Company. His minute on civil justice therefore did not simply announce the arrival of a new rule of law, but envisioned it as a crucial engine of colonial pedagogy, which would eventually turn clamorous and unruly Indian litigants into law-abiding subjects.

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Chapter
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Empires of Complaints
Mughal Law and the Making of British India, 1765–1793
, pp. 241 - 270
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Conclusion
  • Robert Travers, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: Empires of Complaints
  • Online publication: 08 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009127882.010
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  • Conclusion
  • Robert Travers, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: Empires of Complaints
  • Online publication: 08 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009127882.010
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Conclusion
  • Robert Travers, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: Empires of Complaints
  • Online publication: 08 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009127882.010
Available formats
×