Order and Disorder in Early Colonial Bengal 1800-1860

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This book is a historical study of order and disorder in early colonial Bengal. It focuses on the encounter of social restlessness, crime, and violence, on the one hand, and the colonial state's attempt to control these, on the other. Exploring these themes through unique descriptions of the numerous instruments of control and myriad breaches of law, Order and Disorder in Early Colonial Bengal: 1800-1860 investigates the mechanism of social control with reference to contemporary British administrative policies and the ideological background and colonial perceptions of law and justice. It also concentrates on the various social disorders faced by the colonial state at times when the society was relatively free from insurrectionary disturbances. It gives a detailed account of apparently less significant rural violence, dacoity, and rural riots in particular-which kept the local authorities on their toes-in the light of popular attitudes, prejudices, and perceptions of law and order vis-a- vis the colonial one.

Ranjan Chakrabarti is Professor of History at Jadavpur University and former Vice-Chancellor of Vidyasagar University, West Bengal. He is a former Fulbright Visiting Professor at Brown University and has received the Charles Wallace Fellowship at the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) and Alexander O. Vietor Memorial Fellowship at Brown University. He has a keen interest in environmental history and the history of science and technology. His major publications include Critical Themes in Environmental History (2020); A History of the Modern World: An Outline (2012); Terror, Crime and Punishment (2010); Situating Environmental History (2007); and a co-edited volume, Natural Resources, Sustainability and Humanity (2012).

THEMATICALLY, THIS book focuses on the encounter between local restlessness, crime, and violence, on the one hand, and the colonial state's attempt to control these, on the other. This theme has been explored by means of separate descriptions of various levers of control and various breaches of law.
The work describes separate instruments of social control with reference to contemporary British administrative policies and their ideological background and the colonial perception of law and order. Stress has been laid on the role of tools of control in the ordering of the indigenous society and the nature of their reception among the indigenous people. The work also concentrates on the various typologies of rural disorders prevalent in normal times when society was relatively free from disturbances of the insurrectionary type. This book gives a detailed account of apparently less significant rural violence, which kept the local authorities on their toes most of the time. It presents an anatomic account of rural crimes in the light of popular attitudes, prejudices, mentalities, and popular perceptions of law and order vis-a- vis the colonial one. The work deals with the issue of state response to the disorders of relatively minor and unknown outbreaks of violence, which posed a genuine problem of law and order to the colonial authority. This volume not only presents a detailed account of the separate mechanisms of social control e.g., law, court, police, prison, and various breaches of law or disorders, e.g. dacoity, affray, violence, but also dwells on the question of how they interacted, reinforced, or perhaps weakened each other.
The bulk of this work has been published earlier in research journals, edited volumes, or monographs. The chapter on police is a thoroughly revised version of what was published in Bengal Past and Present decades ago ('Pax Britannica and the Nature of Police Control in Bengal Rural Society c. 1800-1860', Bengal Past and Present, January- December, no. 200-1, 1986).