Event details

This talk begins with the premise that the Indian Penal Code (1862) served as a surrogate constitution under colonial law. Lacking a framework for civil rights, the Law Commissioners sought to bring clarity to the law by supplementing the criminal code with extensive notes and "illustrations." While the IPC aspired to universality in substantive law, the illustrations, in practice, worked in opposition to this goal. Using hypothetical narratives, the illustrations painted a portrait of Indians as habitually criminal and unruly in their appetites and affections. The tension between the IPC’s universalist rhetoric and its persistent recourse to racial difference is exemplified in the laws dealing with marriage. Focusing especially on bigamy, the talk will examine how the threat of colonial contamination both worked to discipline the Indian population and to reinforce marital normativity in England.