Behind the Mask

Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-0-19-808967-4
Verlag: OUP India

Buch, Englisch, 315 Seiten, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 215 mm, Gewicht: 314 g

The book explores the complex inter-linkages between colonial legal discourse, class antagonism, and the formation of middle class identity between late eighteenth and early twentieth century in Bengal. It also examines the nature of colonial bureaucracy, bhadralok identitiy formation and criminality in Bengal. The colonial state had deployed its most powerful ideological and operation rationale-the Rule of Law-on the indigenous elite at the turn of the
nineteenth century. This work addresses a fundamental discursive discontinuity when the Bengali bhadralok, a variegated, literate and self reflective social group, struggled to forge a new understanding of a thinking legal subject while negotiating with Western intellectual thought. It investigates the ambiguity
of the bhadralok response to the courts and the jails. The discourse of superior bhadralok ethics and morals was juxtaposed against the chhotolok-who were devoid of such ethical values. This enabled the bhadralok to claim for themselves the position of the 'aware' legal subject as a class-a 'good' subject obedient to the dictates of the new rule of law, unlike the recalcitrant and ethically ill-equipped chhotolok. It also brings out how the colonial
legal and penal institutions streamlined the identities of some sections of the lower castes into 'criminal classes'. The author also tries to highlight the social silence on gender female criminality.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mukhopadhyay, Anindita

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Politische Ethnologie, Recht, Organisation, Identität
• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein Rechtsgeschichte, Recht der Antike
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kolonialgeschichte, Geschichte des Imperialismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Sozialethnologie: Familie, Gender, Soziale Gruppen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1: Official Discourse: The Creation of Categories and Spaces
2: Experiencing the New Order: In Search of an Identity, 1775-1890
3: The Making of the Mask, 1854-90
4: The Representation of Otherness
5: Cultural Affirmation of Non-Criminal Identity; Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Anindita Mukhopadhyay is Reader at Department of History, School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad.