Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T21:59:31.581Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

State, Sovereignty, and the People: A Comparison of the “Rule of Law” in China and India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Jonathan K. Ocko  and
David Gilmartin
Get access

Abstract

This paper uses the concept of the “rule of law” to compare Qing China and British India. Rather than using the rule of law instrumentally, the paper embeds it in the histories of state power and sovereignty in China and India. Three themes, all framed by the rule of law and the rule of man as oppositional yet paradoxically intertwined notions, organize the paper's comparisons: the role of a discourse of law in simultaneously legitimizing and constraining the political authority of the state; the role of law and legal procedures in shaping and defining society; and the role of law in defining an economic and social order based on contract, property, and rights. A fourth section considers the implications of these findings for the historical trajectories of China and India in the twentieth century. Taking law as an instrument of power and an imagined realm that nonetheless also transcended power and operated outside its ambit, the paper seeks to broaden the history of the “rule of law” beyond Euro-America.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , February 2009 , pp. 55 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2009

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.)

References

List of References

Alam, Javeed. 2004. Who Wants Democracy? New Delhi: Orient Longman.Google Scholar
Alford, William P. 1984. “Of Arsenic and Old Lace: Looking Anew at Chinese Justice in Late Imperial China.” California Law Review 72:1180–1249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allee, Mark A. 1994. Law and Society in Late Imperial China: Northern Taiwan in the Nineteenth Century. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun. 1981. Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule: A South Indian Case. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baden-Powell, B. H. 1892. The Land-Systems of British India. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Benton, Lauren. 2002. Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bourgon, Jérôme. 2004. “Rights, Freedoms, and Customs in the Making of Chinese Civil Law, 1900–1936.” In Realms of Freedom in Modern China, ed. Kirby, William C, 84–112. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wejen, Chang 1998. “Confucian Theory of Norms and Human Rights.” In Confucianism and Human Rights, ed. de Bary, William Theodore and Weiming, Tu, 117–41. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Pengsheng, Chiu 2004. “Yi fa weiming—songshi yu muyou fandui mingqing falu zhixude chongji” [Force of law: The rise of litigation masters and private secretaries and their impact on legal norms in the Ming-Qing period]. Xin shixue 15 (4): 93–148.Google Scholar
Yang, Chun 2006. “Wan Qing xiangtu shehuide minshi jiufen tiaojiao ji qi bianqian—yi Huizhou siyue wei qidiande jiedu” [Vicissitudes of mediation of civil disputes in late Qing rural society: An analysis based on Huizhou private contracts]. PhD diss., Renmin daxue.Google Scholar
Cohen, Myron. 2004. “Writs of Passage in Late Imperial China.” In Contract and Property in Early Modern China, ed. Zelin, Madeleine, Ocko, Jonathan K., and Gardella, Robert, 37–93. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Cohn, Bernard S. 1965. “Anthropological Notes on Disputes and Law in India.” American Anthropologist 67 (6): 82–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohn, Bernard S. 1996. “Law and the Colonial State in India.” In Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge, by Cohn, Bernard S., 57–75. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Crossley, Pamela Kyle. 1999. A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Dalton, Dennis. 1993. Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Power in Action. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
De Bary, William Theodore, and Richard Lufrano, comp. 1999. Sources of Chinese Tradition. Vol. 2. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Deng, Jianpeng. 2004. “Jiufen, susong yu caipan—Huangyan, Huizhou ji Shaanxi de minshi song'an yanjiu (1874–1911)” [Disputes, litigation and judgment: A study of civil cases from Huangyan, Huizhou and Shaanxi]. PhD diss., Beijing daxue.Google Scholar
Derrett, JDuncan, M. 1963. “Justice, Equity and Good Conscience.” In Changing Law in Developing Countries. ed. Anderson, J. N. D., 114–53. London: George Allen.Google Scholar
Derrett, JDuncan, M. 1970. A Critique of Modern Hindu Law. Bombay: N. M. Tripathi.Google Scholar
Dirks, Nicholas B. 1986. “From Little King to Landlord: Property, Law and the Gift under the Madras Permanent Settlement.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 28 (2): 307–33.Google Scholar
Eaton, Richard M. 1984. “The Political and Religious Authority of the Shrine of Baba Farid in Pakpattan, Punjab.” In Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, ed. Metcalf, Barbara Daly, 333–56. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellickson, Robert C. 1991. Order without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisch, Jörg. 1983. Cheap Lives and Dear Limbs: The British Transformation of the Bengal Criminal Law, 1769–1817. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner.Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, John. 1996. Awakening China: Politics, Culture, and Class in the Nationalist Revolution. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galanter, Marc. 1989. Law and Society in Modern India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc. 2001. “Contract in Court; Or Almost Everything You May or May Not Want to Know About Contract Litigation.” Wisconsin Law Review 2001:577–627.Google Scholar
Gandhi, M. K. 1987. The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi. Ed. Iyer, Raghavan. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Gandhi, M. K. 1997. Hind Swaraj and Other Writings. Ed. Parel, Antony. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gandhi, M. K. 2000. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. Vol. 96. New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.Google Scholar
Yi, Gang 1889. Qiuyan jiyao [Essentials of the autumn assizes]. Shanghai: Jiangsu shuju.Google Scholar
Gilmartin, David. 2007. “Election Law and the ‘People’ in Colonial and Postcolonial India.” In From the Colonial to the Postcolonial: India and Pakistan in Transition, ed. Chakrabarty, Dipesh, Mazumdar, Rochona, and Sartori, Andrew, 55–82. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Guy, R. Kent. 2000. “Rule of Man and the Rule of Law in China: Punishing Provincial Governors during the Qing.” In The Limits of the Rule of Law in China, ed. Turner, Karen G, Feinerman, James V, and Guy, R. Kent, 88–111. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Harrison, Henrietta. 2000. The Making of the Republican Citizen: Political Ceremonies and Symbols in China, 1911–1929. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Heesterman, J. C. 1985. “The Conundrum of the King's Authority.” In The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society, by Heesterman, J. C., 108–27. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, Stephen. 2003. “Lineages of the Rule of Law.” In Democracy and the Rule of Law, ed. Maravall, Jose Maria and Przeworski, Adam, 19–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shi, Huang. 1821–50. Qiushen zhangcheng [Regulations of the autumn assizes]. n.p.Google Scholar
Hussain, Nasser. 2003. The Jurisprudence of Emergency: Colonialism and the Rule of Law. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Isett, Christopher Mills. 2007. State, Peasant, and Merchant in Qing Manchuria, 1644–1912. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Jenco, Leigh Kathryn. 2006. “Re-Casting Liberalism: ‘Rule by Man’ Versus ‘Rule by Law’ in Early Republican China.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian StudiesApril 6–9San Francisco.Google Scholar
Jing, Junjian. 1994. “Legislation Related to the Civil Economy in the Qing Dynasty.” Trans. Sommer, M. In Civil Law in Qing and Republican China, ed. Bernhardt, Kathryn and Huang, Philip C. C., 42–84. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, William, trans. 1994. The Great Qing Code. New York: Oxford University.Google Scholar
Judge, Joan. 2002. “Citizens or Mothers of Citizens.” In Changing Meanings of Citizenship in Modern China, ed. Goldman, Merle and Perry, Elizabeth J., 23–43. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kahn, Paul W. 1999. The Cultural Study of Law: Reconstructing Legal Scholarship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kolsky, Elizabeth. 2005. “Codification and the Rule of Colonial Difference: Criminal Procedure in British India.” Law and History Review 23 (3): 631–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kozlowski, Gregory C. 1985. Muslim Endowments and Society in British India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kugle, Scott Alan. 2001. “Framed, Blamed and Renamed: The Reshaping of Islamic Law in Colonial South Asia.” Modern Asian Studies 35 (2): 257–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, Philip A. 1990. Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lean, Eugenia. 2007. Public Passions: The Trial of Shi Jianqiao and the Rise of Popular Sympathy in Republican China. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Leve, Lauren G. 2003. “Identity.” Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association MeetingsNovember 19–23Chicago.Google Scholar
Zhiping, Liang 1997. Qingdai xiguan fa: shehui yu guojia [Qing customary law: Society and state]. Beijing: Zhongguo zhengfa daxue chubanshe.Google Scholar
Mani, Lata. 1998. Contentious Traditions: the Debate on Sati in Colonial India. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazumdar, Sucheta. 2001. “Rights in People, Rights in Land: Conceptions of Property in Late Imperial China.” Extreme Orient, Extreme Occident 23:89–107.Google Scholar
Merry, Sally Engle. 1990. Getting Justice and Getting Even: Legal Consciousness among Working-Class Americans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Merry, Sally Engle. 1991. “Law and Colonialism.” Law and Society Review 25 (4): 889–922.Google Scholar
Metcalf, Thomas R. 1994. Ideologies of the Raj. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Moog, Robert. 1997. Whose Interests Are Supreme? Organizational Politics in the Civil Courts in India. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Association for Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Nehru, Jawaharlal. 1992. “A Voyage of Discovery” (Address to the U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., October 13, 1949). In Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, 2nd ser., vol. 13, ed. Gopal, S., 301–4. New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund.Google Scholar
Ocko, Jonathan K., ed. 1989. “The Emerging Framework of Chinese Civil Law.” Special issue, Law and Contemporary Problems 52 (2–3).Google Scholar
Osborne, Anne. 2004. “Property, Taxes and State Protection of Rights.” In Contract and Property in Early Modern China, ed. Zelin, Madeleine, Ocko, Jonathan K., and Gardella, Robert, 120–58. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Paul, John J. 1991. The Legal Profession in Colonial South India. Bombay: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Peerenboom, Randall. 2002. China's Long March toward Rule of Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potter, Pitman B. 2003. From Leninist Discipline to Socialist Legalism: Peng Zhen on Law and Political Authority in the PRC. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Price, Pamela G. 1992. “The ‘Popularity’ of the Imperial Courts of Law: Three Views of the Anglo-Indian Legal Encounter.” In European Expansion and Law: The Encounters of European and Indigenous Law in 19th and 20th Century Africa and Asia, ed. Mommsen, W. J. and de Moor, M., 179–200. Leiden: Berg.Google Scholar
Price, Pamela G. 1996. Kingship and Political Practice in Colonial India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Robb, Peter. 2007. “Hierarchy and Resources: Peasant Stratification in Late Nineteenth-Century Bihar.” In Peasants, Political Economy, and Law: Empire, Identity, and India, by Robb, Peter, 151–80. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber, and Rudolph, Lloyd I. 1983. Gandhi: The Traditional Roots of Charisma. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarkar, Tanika. 1997. “Talking about Scandals: Religion, Law and Love in Late Nineteenth Century Bengal.” Studies in History, n.s., 13 (1): 63–96.Google Scholar
Schmitt, Carl. 1985. Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. Trans. Schwab, George. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sen, Sudipta. 2002. Distant Sovereignty: National Imperialism and the Origins of British India. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Singha, Radhika. 1998. A Despotism of Law: Crime and Justice in Early Colonial India. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Skaria, Ajay. 2002. “Gandhi's Politics: Liberalism and the Question of the Ashram.” South Atlantic Quarterly 101 (4): 955–86.Google Scholar
Smith, Richard Saumarez. 1996. Rule by Records: Land Registration and Village Custom in Early British Panjab. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sommer, Matthew H. 2000. Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Spence, Jonathan D. 2001. Treason by the Book. New York, Viking.Google Scholar
Sturman, Rachel. 2006. “Property, Personhood and Self-Mastery: The Problem of Liberal Subjecthood in the Colonial Bombay High Court.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian StudiesApril 6–9San Francisco.Google Scholar
Li, Su 1996. Fazhi ji qi bentu ziyuan [The rule of law and its indigenous resources]. Beijing: Zhongguo zhengfa daxue chubanshe.Google Scholar
Li, Su 1999. Zhidu shi ruhe xingchengde [How institutions are formed]. Guangzhou: Zhongshan daxue chubanshe.Google Scholar
Tamanaha, Brian Z. 2006. The Perils of Pervasive Legal Instrumentalism. Montesquieu Lecture Series, Tilburg University. Nijmegen: Wolf Legal Publishers.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. P. 1975. Whigs and Hunters: The Origins of the Black Act. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Tupper, C. L. 1881. Punjab Customary Law. 3 vols. Calcutta: Government Printing.Google Scholar
van der Valk, Marc. 1969. An Outline of Modern Chinese Family Law. Taipei: Ch'eng Wen Publishing, repr.Google Scholar
Washbrook, David. 1981. “Law, State, and Agrarian Society in Colonial India.” Modern Asian Studies 15 (3): 649–721.Google Scholar
Wilson, Roland Knyvet. 1894. An Introduction to the Study of Anglo-Muhammadan Law. London: W. Thacker.Google Scholar
WXTK. 1963. Qingchao Wenxian tongkao. Taiwan, repr.Google Scholar
Qiaoqun, Xu. 2008. Trial of Modernity: Judicial Reform in Early Twentieth-Century China. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Yunsheng, Xue. 1970. Duli cunyi [Doubts while reading the penal code]. Taipei: China Materials and Research Aids Service Center.Google Scholar
Zelin, Madeleine. 2004. “A Critique of Property Rights in Early Modern China.” In Contract and Property in Early Modern China, ed. Zelin, Madeleine, Ocko, Jonathan K., and Gardella, Robert, 17–36. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Congrong, Zhang. 2005. “Yi'an, cun'an, jie'an: cong Chun Ah shih an kan qingdai yi'an liaojie jishu” [Doubtful cases, reference cases, closed cases: Using the case of Chun nee Ah to examine Qing techniques for closing doubtful cases]. Paper presented at the International Symposium on Chinese Culture and Rule of Law and the Annual Academic Meeting of the China Legal History SocietyKaifeng, China.Google Scholar
Jinfan, Zhang. 1998. Qingdai minfa zhonglun [General account of civil law in the Qing]. Beijing: Zhongguo zhengfa daxue chubanshe.Google Scholar
Suli, Zhu [Su Li]. 2007. “Political Parties in China's Judiciary.” Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law 17 (2): 533–60.Google Scholar