Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-dtkg6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-06T20:10:29.522Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2022

Robert Travers
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Get access

Summary

In this deeply researched and revealing account, Robert Travers offers a new view of the transition from Mughal to British rule in India. By focusing on processes of petitioning and judicial inquiry, Travers argues that the East India Company consolidated its territorial power in the conquered province of Bengal by co-opting and transforming late Mughal, Persianate practices of administering justice to petitioning subjects. Recasting the origins of the pivotal ‘Permanent Settlement’ of the Bengal revenues in 1793, Travers explores the gradual production of a new system of colonial taxation and civil law through the selective adaptation and reworking of Mughal norms and precedents. Drawing on English and Persian sources, Empires of Complaints reimagines the origins of British India by foregrounding the late Mughal context for colonial state-formation, and the ways that British rulers reinterpreted and reconstituted Persianate forms of statecraft to suit their new empire.

Type
Chapter
Information
Empires of Complaints
Mughal Law and the Making of British India, 1765–1793
, pp. 1 - 30
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Introduction
  • Robert Travers, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: Empires of Complaints
  • Online publication: 08 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009127882.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

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 Dropbox.

  • Introduction
  • Robert Travers, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: Empires of Complaints
  • Online publication: 08 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009127882.004
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.

  • Introduction
  • Robert Travers, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: Empires of Complaints
  • Online publication: 08 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009127882.004
Available formats
×