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Theorising the informant: the epistemic space of Bengal and the codification of Hindu law 1772-1800

University of British Columbia

This thesis attempts to interpret the events surrounding the codification and implementation of Hindu law in late eighteenth century Bengal, under the government of the East India Company. The first chapter provides the necessary framework of historical facts for this interpretation; it consists primarily of a narrative of events such as the implementation of structural changes to the judicature, and the collection and translation of "laws" from the Hindu normative treatises, the dharmasastra, in Company sponsored legal digests. The second chapter provides the basic theoretical framework through which these events are interpreted, by first discussing the utilisation of discourse theory by Edward Said in Orientalism, and then by considering subsequent refinements to his approach. I argue for a conception of epistemic space as constituted by objects of knowledge, variously inscribed by divergent discourses. Further, each discourse is seen to be connected with non-discursive factors through the enunciation of individual members of various knowledge communities. Two separate and competing discourses are then described, the first wielded by orientalists and East India Company officials, in a justification of Company rule in India, and the second deployed by Hindu pandits in the compilation of dharmasastra nibandhas. Each discourse is seen to be derived in large part from pre-existing philosophical frameworks peculiar to the members of these two different knowledge communities. The legal, colonial discourse of the orientalists is informed largely by notions of "civil society" and "civil justice," while the "traditional" discourse of the pandits is influenced principally by the philosophical methodologies of mvmdmsa and nyaya, and the concept of dharma. Utilising the concept of "hybridity" as developed by Homi Bhabha, I argue that the pandits of late eighteenth century Bengal refused the demands of colonial discourse, and thereby colonialism itself, by not accepting the "civilise-ational" requirements it imposed upon the legal project.

Thesis/Dissertation

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2009-05-23

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/8093

Asian Studies

University of British Columbia

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