The Government of Social Life in Colonial India
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The Government of Social Life in Colonial India by Rachel Sturman
From the early days of colonial rule in India, the British established a two-tier system of legal administration. Matters deemed secular were subject to British legal norms, while suits relating to the family were adjudicated according to Hindu or Muslim law, known as personal law. This important new study analyses the system of personal law in colonial India through a re-examination of women's rights. Focusing on Hindu law in western India, it challenges existing scholarship, showing how - far from being a system based on traditional values - Hindu law was developed around ideas of liberalism, and that this framework encouraged questions about equality, women's rights, the significance of bodily difference, and more broadly the relationship between state and society. Rich in archival sources, wide-ranging and theoretically informed, this book illuminates how personal law came to function as an organising principle of colonial governance and of nationalist political imaginations.
Rachel Sturman is Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies at Bowdoin College, Maine. Her writing has appeared in many journals including Comparative Studies in Society and History, The Journal of Asian Studies, Economic and Political Weekly, and Gender and History.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781316649787 |
| ISBN 10 | 1316649784 |
| Title | The Government of Social Life in Colonial India |
| Author | Rachel Sturman |
| Series | Cambridge Studies In Indian History And Society |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Year published | 2017-04-06 |
| Number of pages | 309 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |