We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 September 2022
This chapter explores how inheritance disputes involving landholders (zamindars) in early colonial Bengal became a site for the production of a Persianate form of Hindu law. By tracing in detail the process of judicial investigation in two complex cases of of zamindari inheritance involving elite Hindu zamindars, the chapter shows how British officials drew on the expert knowledge of khalsa revenue officials (especially qanungos) and of brahman pandits (experts on dharmashastra), and how the Company government tried to justify its judicial decrees on the basis of a reconstituted form of Mughal law. The records of judicial inquiries into zamindari tenures reveal the Persianate context for the Company’s early administration of Hindu law, as nawabi practices for hearing and deciding disputes among tax-paying zamindars were reformulated under the Company state.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
