Judiciary and Police in Early Colonial South Kanara (1799-1862)

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

The present volume deals with two major aspects of British colonial administration, namely, Judiciary and Police, in early colonial South Kanara. The Judicial and Police set up before the colonial take-over, the introduction of the colonial Judicial and Police systems, their impact and the re- actions of the natives are discussed here. This is a significant study which fills certain gaps in the historiography of South Kanara.

The work is based on archival researches, and will enrich our knowledge of subtler aspects of the colonial administration under British rule in India.

DR. N. SHYAM BHAT hails from the Perdala Village of Kasaragod District, Kerala State. He took his B.A. Degree from the University of Mysore and did M.A. in History from Mangalore University (1983) where he secured First Class, First Rank and won the late Dr. P. Gururaja Bhatt Memorial cash prize. Later in 1988 he took his Ph.D. Degree from Mangalore University. His areas of specialisation are Modern Indian History and History of South Kanara.

After serving as Lecturer in Mangalore University for about two years, Dr. Bhat joined the Department of History, Goa University, where he is working since November 1988. At present he is a Reader there.

Dr. Bhat has attended several regional, national and international seminars and has published more than a dozen research papers. He has completed a research project titled "Judiciary and Police in Early Colonial South Kanara 1799 - 1862" funded by the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi (1996). He visited Lisbon from May to August 1996 on a Research Fellowship sanctioned by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon. His book on South Kanara 1799- 1860: A Study in Colonial Administration and Regional Response is published by Mittal Publications, New Delhi in 1998. He has completed another research project on "History of Trade and Commerce in Goa: 1840-1878" funded by Goa University (2000).

COLONIALISM is a many-layered phenomenon. It has its manifest structures as it has its insidious permeations. And it has its subjugating idioms of progress. The British rule in India validated itself as being an agent of order and improvement and of civilisation. And it spun its legitimising ideology as much to convince itself as to console those, it said, it was called upon to rule.

One of the first exercises of the East India Company after it began to cast off its shopkeeper's garb to grab the political power was to restructure the judiciary and the police. Although initially this was done reluctantly, since the early predatory mood of the Compay was inclined to take over revenue collection without having to be burdened with the responsibility of governance, it was soon looked upon as the necessary levers of power and symbols of sovereignty. Administration of justice in particular soon got linked with many ideologies and shifting exigencies to which were associated such names as Warren Hastings, Nathaniel Halhed, Sir William Jones, Lord Cornwallis, Sir Thomas Munro, Lord Macaulay and others. The British rule in India always seemed to betray a tension between its proclaimed hopes of replacing Oriental despotism with rule of law and its compulsions to establish a colonial rule which would not preclude racial domination, political control and economic exploitation. While in the process judicial administration lent itself to several re-structuring, the police remained its mailed fist, which very often did not need any velvet glove. For all the nuances which colonialism was capable of, it needed its postures of power, and nothing fitted its needs better than the scowling legions of policemen.

Dr. Shyam Bhat's present work lays bare the structural features of Judiciary and Police in early colonial South Kanara between 1799 and 1862. He had in his earlier work added substantially to the knowledge of this region and period by exploring the process of colonial take-over and establishment of a revenue regime, and the response they met with in South Kanara among the chiefs and peasants. He has now moved on to another dimension of the colonial working in the region. He has tapped considerable details from the archival sources and made them available to the researchers. No doubt these details emanate from the colonial archives; they do not tell us how these putative instruments of power affected the lives of the people. Since the colonial rule is often its own biographer, the portrait available there is partial. But the historian should know better. The work of Dr. Bhat will surely add to our knowledge of South Kanara as it evolved in the early phase of colonial rule. It will also hopefully provoke researchers to greater curiosity and labour.

**Contents and Sample Pages**