Ironies of colonial governance [Texte imprimé] : law, custom and justice in colonial India / James Jaffe

Bibliogr. p. 297-307

Introduction -- The Rise and Fall of the Panchayat in the Bombay Presidency -- Bringing Justice to Every Man's Door -- Appeals and the Language of Petitioning -- The Construction of Panchayat Legality -- The Panchayat and Trial by Jury, I : The Civil Trial -- The Panchayat and Trial by Jury, II : Military and Criminal Justice -- The Panchayat Debate in the Bengal Presidency, 1814-1830 -- The Panchayat from Village Republic to Municipality -- The Panchayat and the Building of Civil Society -- The Panchayat Legacy -- Conclusion

"This book concerns several discussions, discussions that took place first among British officers and officials serving in India or residing in London and then among Indian nationalists. The discussions concerned the nature and function of the Indian village council - the panchayat - its place in Indian society, and its role in the British governance of India. Much like the Peter Robb's work on the Bengal Tenancy Act, I have tried to "treat the evolution of events and concepts as the outcome of a dialogue between various, changing, mutually-influenced voices." More specifically, it is about the colonial imagination of indigenous legal customs and government and the attempts to adapt those imagined customs to the practices of colonial governance. It thus adopts a transnational perspective that emphasizes the ideological sources of Western perceptions of indigenous governing practices, the variety of efforts to "revive" and implement these "authentic" institutions, and the unintended consequences that resulted. Therefore, it recounts the complicated and contested history of the construction of colonial knowledge and the political and intellectual influences that shaped it"-- Provided by publisher