Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T12:47:45.608Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The East India Company’s Conquest of Assam, India, and “Community” Justice: Panchayats/Mels in Translation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2015

Amrita SHODHAN
Amrita SHODHAN*
Affiliation:
Senior Teaching Fellow at the Department of History, SOAS, University of London, London, UK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The East India Company troops fighting the Burmese aggression on the frontier of Bengal in Eastern India “freed” upper and lower Assam territories in 1825. David Scott of the Bengal Service was appointed to oversee the establishment of civil and revenue administration in these frontier territories. He established a hierarchical multiple structure of “native courts”—called panchayats—as the chief medium of civil and criminal justice. This was ostensibly continuing a traditional Assamese form of dispute resolution—the mel; however, the British criminal jury as well as the expert assessor model animated the system. After his death in 1831, the system was brought in line with the rest of the Bengal administration based on the British court system. His experiment, paralleled in many other newly conquered and ceded districts from the Madras territories to Central India, suggests the use of this mode in post-conquest situations by British administrators in South Asia.

Keywords

juryalternative dispute resolutionhistory of empire
Type
Research Article
Information
Asian Journal of Law and Society , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , November 2015 , pp. 357 - 377
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press and KoGuan Law School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Amrita Shodhan is a Senior Teaching Fellow at the Department of History, SOAS, University of London. She is interested in the history of law, community, and governance; nationalism and ethnic/religious identities. I am grateful to Prof. James Jaffe for initiating the discussion on panchayats and to the members of the SOAS International Workshop: Rough and Ready Justice: Panchayats and Community Arbitration (January 2014), as well as members of the SOAS South Asia History Seminar for a stimulating discussion on an earlier version of this paper. Correspondence to Amrita Shodhan, Room 307, Thornhaugh St, Russell Square, London, WC 1H 0XG, UK. E-mail: [email protected].

References

References

Ballhatchet, Kenneth (1957) Social Policy and Social Change in Western India 1817–1830, London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barman, Santo (2005) The Raijmel: A Study of the Mel System in Assam, Guwahati: Spectrum Publications.Google Scholar
Barpujari, Heramba Kanta (1980) Assam in the Days of the Company 1826–1858, Gauhati: Spectrum Publications.Google Scholar
Baxi, Upendra, & Galanter, Marc (1979) “Panchayat Justice: An Indian Experiment in Legal Access,” in M. Cappelletti & B. Garth, eds., Access to Justice: Emerging Issues and Perspectives vol. III, Milan: A Giuffre, 343–386.Google Scholar
Bhakri, Lekhraj (director) (1958) Panchayat. Producer Kuldeep Sehgal. Starring Pandharibai, Raaj Kumar, Shyama, Jabeen Jalil, Kuldeep Kaur, Kanhaiya lal, Nasir Hussain, Manorma. Available also on <www.youtube.com>..>Google Scholar
Bhuyan, Suryya Kumar (1933) Tungkhungia Buranji or A History of Assam 1681–1826: An Old Assamese Chronicle of the Tungkhungia Dynasty of Ahom Sovereigns, London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Indrani (2013a) Forgotten Friends: Monks, Marriages, and Memories of Northeast India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Indrani (2013b) Monastic Governmentality, Colonial Misogyny, and Postcolonial Amnesia in South Asia.” 3 History of the Present: A Journal of Critical History 57–98.Google Scholar
Cohn, Bernard (1987) An Anthropologist Amongst Historians, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Digby, Simon (1973) “The Fate of Dāniyāl, Prince of Bengal, in the Light of an Unpublished Inscription.” 36 Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 588–602.Google Scholar
Gait, Edward A (1906) A History of Assam, Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co.Google Scholar
Goswami, Surendra Kumar (1986) A History of the Revenue Administration in Assam (1228–1826): A Detailed History of the Revenue System of the Ahom Rulers, Delhi: Spectrum Publications.Google Scholar
Hayden, Robert (1984) “A Note on Caste Panchayats and Government Courts in India: Different Kinds of Stages for Different Kinds of Performances.” 22 Journal of Legal Pluralism 43–52.Google Scholar
Hayden, Robert (1999) Disputes and Arguments amongst Nomads: A Caste Council in India, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jaffe, James (2014) “Custom, Identity and the Jury in India 1800–1832.” 57 The Historical Journal 131–155.Google Scholar
Jaffe, James (2015) Ironies of Colonial Governance: Law, Custom and Justice in Colonial India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Malcolm, John (1824) A Memoir of Central India, including Malwa, and Adjoining Provinces: With the History, and Copious Illustrations of the Past and Present Condition of that Country, London: Kingsbury, Parbury & Allen.Google Scholar
McKenzie, John (1993) “Essay and Reflection: On Scotland and the Empire.” 15 International History Review 718–739.Google Scholar
McLaren, Martha (2001) British India and British Scotland 1780–1830: Career Building, Empire Building, and a Scottish School of thought on Indian Governance, Akron: University of Akron.Google Scholar
Mendelsohn, Oliver (2014) Law and Social Transformation in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Meschievitz, Catherine (1986) “Civil Litigation and Judicial Policy in the Madras Presidency, 1800–1843.” PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison.Google Scholar
Misra, Sanghamitra (2005) “Changing Frontiers and Spaces: The Colonial State in Nineteenth-Century Goalpara.” 21 Studies in History 215–246.Google Scholar
Neog, Maheswar (1977) Anandram Dhekiyal Phukan: Plea for Assam and Assamese, Jorhat: Asam Sahitya Sabha. Includes the text of “Observations on the Administration of the Province of Assam” by Baboo Anundram Dakeal Phookun submitted as Appendix J of Report on the Province of Assam by A J Moffat Mills, Calcutta: Calcutta Gazette, 1854.Google Scholar
Powell, Avril (2010) Scottish Orientalists and India: The Muir Brothers, Religion, Education and Empire, Woodbridge: The Boydell Press.Google Scholar
Premchand, Dhanpat (Munshi) (1997) Premchand ki sampurna kahaniya, Part 2, Allahabad: Lokbharti Prakashan.Google Scholar
Sharma, Jayeeta (2002) A European Tea ‘Garden’ and an Indian ‘Frontier’: The Discovery of Assam, Cambridge: University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Sharma, Jayeeta (2011) Empire’s Garden: Assam and the Making of India, Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Watson, Archibald (1832) A Memoir of the Late David Scott, Esq., Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press.Google Scholar
Wimpelmann, Torunn (2013) “Nexuses of Knowledge and Power in Afghanistan: The Rise and Fall of the Informal Justice Assemblage.” 32 Central Asian Survey 406–422.Google Scholar

GLOSSARY

Ahom: ruling Assamese dynasty overthrown by the British with headquarters in north-eastern Assam.Google Scholar
Anna: smallest unit of currency, 16 annas being one Rupee.Google Scholar
Bairagis: armed monks.Google Scholar
Barbarua: overall charge of civil and revenue administration.Google Scholar
Barjapi: ceremonial umbrella.Google Scholar
Barpanchayat: chief court of appeal.Google Scholar
Barphukan: chief customs official.Google Scholar
Buranji: political and genealogical histories in Assamese.Google Scholar
Choudhury: revenue official of the village or district.Google Scholar
Cutcherry: office.Google Scholar
Duaria Barua: customs officer.Google Scholar
Garo: hill state in southern Bengal and eastern Assam.Google Scholar
Jaintia: hill state in southern Bengal.Google Scholar
Kamrup: central Assam district around Guwahati.Google Scholar
Khasi: hill state in southern Bengal and Assam.Google Scholar
Khel: a division or unit of Assamese subjects having to perform specific services to the state.Google Scholar
Kutcherry: see cutcherry.Google Scholar
Mel: court of several important community members.Google Scholar
Melki: member of a community court.Google Scholar
Mofussil: the provinces, country station, or district.Google Scholar
Munsiff: native civil judge of the lowest grade.Google Scholar
Narayani Rupees: unit of Ahom currency in Assam.Google Scholar
Nizamut Adawlat (adalat): criminal court.Google Scholar
Paiks (also spelt Pykes): individuals serving in groups of four the government with their labour or as soldiers.Google Scholar
Panch parmeshwar: five coming together is like God.Google Scholar
Parhie dola: sedan.Google Scholar
Rajkhowas: an officer having jurisdiction over a prescribed area or unit of 3,000 men.Google Scholar
Sebundy: irregular native soldiers/a sort of militia.Google Scholar
Sheristadar: head of a court to receive routine business, register-keeper.Google Scholar
Sudder/Sadar: Chief court of appeal.Google Scholar
Sunud: a deed of grant by the government of office, privilege, or right.Google Scholar