Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia
Parsi Legal Culture, 1772–1947

This book explores the legal culture of the Parsis, an ethno-religious community unusually invested in the colonial legal system of British India and Burma.

Mitra Sharafi (Author)

9781107661882, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 September 2016

368 pages, 28 b/w illus. 1 map
22.8 x 15.1 x 2.2 cm, 0.45 kg

'In Sharafi's hands, the particular puzzle of Parsi legalism and its racializing effects asks how colonial legal culture left its enduring imprint on postcolonial understandings of the tragedy, promise, and power of modern law.' Bhavani Raman, Journal of the American Bar Foundation

This book explores the legal culture of the Parsis, or Zoroastrians, an ethnoreligious community unusually invested in the colonial legal system of British India and Burma. Rather than trying to maintain collective autonomy and integrity by avoiding interaction with the state, the Parsis sank deep into the colonial legal system itself. From the late eighteenth century until India's independence in 1947, they became heavy users of colonial law, acting as lawyers, judges, litigants, lobbyists, and legislators. They de-Anglicized the law that governed them and enshrined in law their own distinctive models of the family and community by two routes: frequent intra-group litigation often managed by Parsi legal professionals in the areas of marriage, inheritance, religious trusts, and libel, and the creation of legislation that would become Parsi personal law. Other South Asian communities also turned to law, but none seem to have done so earlier or in more pronounced ways than the Parsis.

Introduction
Part I. Parsi Legal Culture: 1. Using law: colonial Parsis go to court
2. Making law: two patterns
Part II. The Creation of Parsi Personal Law: 3. The limits of English law: the Inheritance Acts
4. Reconfiguring male privilege: the Matrimonial Acts
5. The jury and intra-group control: the Parsi Chief Matrimonial Court
Part III. Beyond Personal Law: 6. Entrusting the faith: religious trusts and the Parsi legal profession
7. Pure Parsi: libel, race, and group membership
Conclusion: law and identity
Appendix: legislation.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Asian history [HBJF]