Book contents
- Colonial Law in India and the Victorian Imagination
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
- Colonial Law in India and the Victorian Imagination
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Criminality
- Part II Temporality
- Part III Adoption and Inheritance
- Afterword
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Afterword
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2021
- Colonial Law in India and the Victorian Imagination
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
- Colonial Law in India and the Victorian Imagination
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Criminality
- Part II Temporality
- Part III Adoption and Inheritance
- Afterword
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The afterword brings the various questions raised through colonial law and literature into the contemporary era. In it, I reflect on the book’s overarching argument and attempt to orient its conclusions toward the present and future. It is difficult, for example, to read the recent ruling by the Supreme Court undoing the prohibition of homosexuality in Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code as a predictable outcome of the structuring logic of colonial law. At the same time, it is equally unexpected as a consequence of contemporary Indian nationalism. Thinking about the unruly history of the “unnatural offence” that Section 377 seeks to prohibit helps reframe the legal narrative outside any teleological recourse to progress and tradition. In this vein, the afterword examines a range of flashpoints in contemporary Indian law in order to arrive at a broader understanding of the intersection of law and narrativity.
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- Colonial Law in India and the Victorian Imagination , pp. 209 - 219Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021