Sedition, Law, and the British Empire in India: The Trial of Tilak (1908)

Mukherjee, Mithi

doi:10.1177/1743872116685034

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…23 And yet in particular moments, these same spaces could become transformed into powerful stages to demand justice and denounce liberal imperialism. 24 Not unlike colonial rule, these institutions remain in a state of semi-permanent crisis and continue to be dogged by serious administrative issues. Whether due to lengthy court delays, the eyewatering scale of under-trial prisoners, or problems relating to corruption and police torture, ongoing reform efforts over the decades have yielded little change.…”

Section: The Fieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Law, Courts, and Constitutions in Twentieth-Century South Asia

Saxena

McClure

2023

Law hist. rev.

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This special issue brings together scholars from multiple disciplines and with varied research and geographic expertise to study the historical role played by the law in governing the political, social, and cultural life of twentieth-century South Asia. These articles have not emerged in a vacuum, but rather build on an exciting turn in South Asian history that is placing new focus on the legal and constitutional work that accompanied the post-colonial moment. This introduction examines some of the important historiographical and methodological interventions made by scholars working in this field, before outlining the specific themes connecting the articles in this issue.

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Section: The Fieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Law, Courts, and Constitutions in Twentieth-Century South Asia

Saxena

McClure

2023

Law hist. rev.

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“…Rohit: Yes, there are a number of interesting strategies in Indian anti-sedition lawyering. 2 Among the earliest, seen in the cases of Tilak (Mukherjee 2017) or Annie Besant (Robb 1976) for instance, was to argue that the words of the accused were not sedition but legitimate criticism of the government, not demands to overthrow it. For instance, in the case of the British communist Philip Spratt (Noorani 2012), who had written a pamphlet calling for a China-like revolution in India, his lawyers argued that Spratt challenged "British imperialism" and not the "government of India."…”

Section: Inderpalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sedition, Securitization, Sexuality: A Conversation between Rohit De and Inderpal Grewal

Grewal¹,

De²

2019

samaj

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He is interested in how law operates through everyday life, particularly what people-both experts and ordinary men and women-think the law is and how they use this knowledge to negotiate their daily lives. Professor De's book A People's Constitution: The Everyday Life of Law in the Indian Republic (2018) explores how the Indian constitution, despite its elite authorship and alien antecedents, came alive in the popular imagination such that ordinary people attributed meaning to its existence, had recourse to it, and argued with it. Mapping the use and appropriation of constitutional language and procedure by diverse groups such as butchers and sex workers, street vendors and petty businessmen, journalists and women social workers, it offers a constitutional history from below. His current research, "Rights from the Left; Decolonization, Diasporas and the Global History of Rebellious Lawyering," offers an alternate history of universal rights and civil liberties that arose out of Asia and Africa during the period of decolonization. The project follows the careers of lawyers who defended unpopular causes across space and time, to offer an alternate history of universal rights and civil liberties that arise out of Asia and Africa and is mediated through Indian, Chinese and Caribbean diasporas.

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The “Right to Wage War” against Empire: Anticolonialism and the Challenge to International Law in the Indian National Army Trial of 1945

Mukherjee¹

2019

Law Soc. Inq.

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This Article treats the Indian National Army Trial of 1945 as a key moment in the elaboration of an anticolonial critique of international law in India. The trial was actually a court-martial of three Indian officers by the British colonial government on charges of high treason for defecting from the British Indian Army, joining up with Indian National Army forces in Singapore, and waging war in alliance with Imperial Japan against the British. In this trial, the defense made the radical claim that anticolonial wars fought in Asia against European powers were legitimate and just and should be recognized as such under international law. The aim of this Article is to draw attention to the understudied role of anticolonial movements in challenging the premises of international law in the aftermath of World War II.

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Sedition, Law, and the British Empire in India: The Trial of Tilak (1908)

Cited by 3 publications

References 2 publications

Law, Courts, and Constitutions in Twentieth-Century South Asia

Law, Courts, and Constitutions in Twentieth-Century South Asia

Sedition, Securitization, Sexuality: A Conversation between Rohit De and Inderpal Grewal

The “Right to Wage War” against Empire: Anticolonialism and the Challenge to International Law in the Indian National Army Trial of 1945

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