Nandini Bhattacharyya-Panda
Appropriation and invention of tradition: the East India Company and Hindu law in early colonial Bengal - New Delhi Oxford University Press 2008 - xi, 273 p. ill.
Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Oxford.
This book, strongly grounded in primary sources, makes an important contribution to the intellectual history of early modern Bengal. It brings to light the complex interpenetration of diverse interests, opinions and ideologies articulated by various social groups implicated in the process of colonization on the lines of Ranajit Guha's work on property relations in Bengal and Radhika Singha's work on law. There is no comparable work specifically on the subject of Hindu property rights and how these came to be perceived or interpreted in early modern Bengal. The author explores the so-called compendia prepared under British auspices and argues that there was hardly any link between the Smritis and the laws. The latter were determined almost entirely by changing British policy with regard to land revenue and that many of the positive features of Hindu custom like women's rights to property were undermined in the process.
9780195690484 0195690486
2008307850
Law
Customary law
Hindu law
340.095414 / NAN/A
Appropriation and invention of tradition: the East India Company and Hindu law in early colonial Bengal - New Delhi Oxford University Press 2008 - xi, 273 p. ill.
Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Oxford.
This book, strongly grounded in primary sources, makes an important contribution to the intellectual history of early modern Bengal. It brings to light the complex interpenetration of diverse interests, opinions and ideologies articulated by various social groups implicated in the process of colonization on the lines of Ranajit Guha's work on property relations in Bengal and Radhika Singha's work on law. There is no comparable work specifically on the subject of Hindu property rights and how these came to be perceived or interpreted in early modern Bengal. The author explores the so-called compendia prepared under British auspices and argues that there was hardly any link between the Smritis and the laws. The latter were determined almost entirely by changing British policy with regard to land revenue and that many of the positive features of Hindu custom like women's rights to property were undermined in the process.
9780195690484 0195690486
2008307850
Law
Customary law
Hindu law
340.095414 / NAN/A