The Government of Social Life in Colonial India: Liberalism, Religious Law, and Women's Rights [Paperback]

This book analyses religious law in colonial India, exploring how it encouraged gender equality and a rethinking of the relationship between state and society.In colonial India the British established a two-tier system of legal administration. Matters deemed secular were subject to British legal norms, while suits relating to the family were adjudicated according to Hindu or Muslim law, known as personal law. This important new study analyzes the system of personal law in colonial India through a reexamination of women's rights. Focusing on Hindu law, it challenges existing scholarship, showing how  far from being a system based on traditional values  Hindu law was developed around ideas of liberalism, and that this framework encouraged questions about gender equality, and more broadly the relationship between state and society. Wide-ranging and theoretically informed, the book illuminates how personal law came to function as an organizing principle of colonial governance and nationalist aspirations.In colonial India the British established a two-tier system of legal administration. Matters deemed secular were subject to British legal norms, while suits relating to the family were adjudicated according to Hindu or Muslim law, known as personal law. This important new study analyzes the system of personal law in colonial India through a reexamination of women's rights. Focusing on Hindu law, it challenges existing scholarship, showing how  far from being a system based on traditional values  Hindu law was developed around ideas of liberalism, and that this framework encouraged questions about gender equality, and more broadly the relationship between state and society. Wide-ranging and theoretically informed, the book illuminates how personal law came to function as an organizing principle of colonial governance and nationalist aspirations.From the early days of colonial rule in India, the British established a two-tier system of legal administration. Matters deel"