‘My words were not cared for’: Customary law, criminality and the ‘woman question’ in late colonial India

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-185
Author(s):  
Kamala Visweswaran
Keyword(s):  
Customary Law ◽  
Woman Question ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Legal Subjectivity ◽  
Moral Conduct ◽  
The Social ◽  
Indian Village ◽  
Social Realm

Drawing upon the court case of one woman sentenced for killing her infant in the early decades of the last century, this article reads Pierre Bourdieu’s insight on how the trial stages conflicts produced in the social realm as a paradox for explaining how British administrators and Indian village officials negotiated non-conflicting codes of sexual and moral conduct on the basis of colonial ideology and locally fixed caste hierarchies to convict women of infanticide. This article argues that a staging of women’s agency is crucial for understanding the colonial conferral of legal subjectivity and for a gendered critique of the Subaltern Studies paradigm of conflict or collaboration as ‘dominance without hegemony.’

Baptising Pandita Ramabai: Faith and religiosity in the nineteenth-century social reform movements of colonial India

2021 ◽  
pp. 001946462110203
Author(s):  
Dikshit Sarma Bhagabati ◽  
Prithvi Sinha ◽  
Sneha Garg
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Pandita Ramabai ◽  
Role Of Religion

This essay aims to understand the role of religion in the social work of Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922). By focusing on a twenty-five-year period commencing with her conversion to Christianity in 1883, we argue that religion constructed a political framework for her work in Sharada Sadan and Mukti Mission. There is a lacuna in the conventional scholarship that underplays the nuances of religion in Ramabai’s reform efforts, which we try to fill by conceptualising faith and religiosity as two distinct signifiers of her private and public religious presentations respectively. Drawing on her published letters, the annual reports of the Ramabai Association in America, and a number of evangelical periodicals published during her lifetime, we analyse how she explored Christianity not just as a personal faith but also as a conduit for funds. The conversion enabled her access to American supporters, concomitantly consolidating their claim over her social work. Her peculiar religious identity—a conflation of Hinduism and Christianity—provoked strong protests from the Hindu orthodoxy while leading to a fall-out with the evangelists at the same time. Ramabai shaped the public portrayal of her religiosity to maximise support from American patrons, the colonial state, and liberal Indians, resisting the orthodoxy’s oppositions with these material exploits. Rather than surrendering to patriarchal cynicism, she capitalised on the socio-political volatilities of colonial India to further the nascent women’s movement.

Feminism, Pragmatism or Both? Czech Radical Nationalism and the Woman Question, 1898–1914

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 537-552
Author(s):  
T. Mills Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Socialist Party ◽  
Woman Question ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
National Society ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Proper Role ◽  
The Social

During a debate on the franchise reform bill in the Austrian Reichsrat on 12 September 1906, the Czech National Socialist Party deputy Václav Choc demanded that suffrage be extended to women as well as men. Otherwise, Choc asserted, the women of Austria would be consigned to the same status as “criminals and children.” Choc was certainly not the only Austrian parliamentarian to voice his support for votes for women during the debates on franchise reform. However, his party, the most radical of all the Czech nationalist political factions, was unique in that it not only included women's suffrage in its official program, as the Social Democrats had done a decade earlier, but also worked hard to change the political status of women in the Monarchy while the Social Democrats generally paid only lip service to this goal. Moreover, Choc and his colleagues in the National Socialist Party helped change the terms of the debate about women's rights by explicitly linking the “woman question” to the “national question” in ways entirely different from the prevailing discourse of liberalism infin-de-siècleAustria. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, liberal reformers, whether German or Czech, tried to mold the participation of women in political life to fit the liberal view of a woman's “proper” role in society. By contrast, the radical nationalists who rose to prominence in Czech political culture only after 1900, attempted to recast the debate over women's rights as central to their two-pronged discourse of social and national emancipation, while at the same time pressing for the complete democratization of Czech political life at all levels, not merely in the imperial parliament. In so doing, and with the active but often necessarily covert collaboration of women associated with the party, these radical nationalists helped extend the parameters of the debate over the place Czech women had in the larger national society.

Constructivist Moral Realism

1998 ◽  
pp. 147-153
Author(s):  
J. K. Swindler
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Moral Realism ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social World ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Social Morality ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Realm

We are social animals in the sense that we spontaneously invent and continuously re-invent the social realm. But, not unlike other artifacts, once real, social relations, practices, institutions, etc., obey prior laws, some of which are moral laws. Hence, with regard to social reality, we ought to be ontological constructivists and moral realists. This is the view sketched here, taking as points of departure Searle's recent work on social ontology and May's on group morality. Moral and social selves are distinguished to acknowledge that social reality is constructed but social morality is not. It is shown how and why moral law requiring respect for the dignity and well being of agents governs a social world comprising roles that are real only because of their occupants' social intentions.

The Languages of Petitioning in Early Colonial India

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 581-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Jaffe
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Western India ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
The Social ◽  
Different Levels

With relatively few exceptions, personal petitions from individuals have received much less attention from historians than those from groups in the public political sphere. In one sense, personal petitions adopted many of the same rhetorical strategies as those delivered by a group. However, they also offer unique insights into the quotidian relationship between the people and their rulers. This article examines surviving personal petitions to various administrators at different levels of government in western India during the decades surrounding the East India Company’s conquests. The analysis of these petitions helps to refine our understanding of the place of the new judicial system in the social world of early-nineteenth-century India, especially by illuminating the discourse of justice that petitioners brought to the presentation of their cases to their new governors. The conclusion of this article seeks to place the rhetoric of personal petitioning within the larger context of mass political petitioning in India during the early nineteenth century.

scholarly journals Reflections on the L’Aquila trial and the social dimensions of disaster risk

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 434-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelo Jonas Imperiale ◽  
Frank Vanclay
Keyword(s):  
Local Community ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Earthquake Swarm ◽  
Disaster Risk ◽  
Community Empowerment ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Civil Protection ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Social

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reflect on what can be learned about disaster risk reduction (DRR) from the L’Aquila trial of scientists. The court case was initiated because of a controversial meeting on 31 March 2009 of the Major Risks Committee (MRC), held under the auspices of the Italian Department of Civil Protection. The purpose of the meeting was to consider (prior to the fatal earthquake of 6 April 2009) disaster risk in the L’Aquila area, which was being affected by an earthquake swarm since October 2008. Design/methodology/approach The authors undertook a document analysis of trial materials, and a review of academic and media commentary about the trial. Findings The legal process revealed that disaster governance was inadequate and not informed by the DRR paradigm or international guidelines. Risk assessment was carried out only in a techno-scientific manner, with little acknowledgement of the social issues influencing risks at the local community level. There was no inclusion of local knowledge or engagement of local people in transformative DRR strategies. Originality/value Most previous commentary is inadequate in terms of not considering the institutional, scientific and social responsibilities for DRR as exposed by the trial. This paper is unique in that it considers the contents of the MRC meeting as well as all trial documents. It provides a comprehensive reflection on the implications of this case for DRR and the resilience of peoples and places at risk. It highlights that a switch from civil protection to community empowerment is needed to achieve sustainable outcomes at the local level.

The moral theology of John Paul II: Protestant reading

2007 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-340
Author(s):  
Stephanie Smith
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Moral Theology ◽  
Human Action ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Analogia Entis ◽  
Social Realm ◽  
Normative Order ◽  
Moral Capacity

AbstractThis work critically examines the moral theology of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. In his writings as Wojtyla, and later as John Paul II, the theme of human dignity served as the starting point for his moral theology. This article first describes his conception of human dignity as influenced by Thomist and by phenomenological sources. The Thomist philosophy of being provided Wojtyla with an optimistic view of the epistemic and moral capacity of human persons. Wojtyla argued that because of the analogia entis, humans gain epistemic access to the normative order of God as well as the moral capacity to live in accordance with the law of God. Built upon the foundation of his Thomist assumptions, Wojtyla's phenomenological research enriched his insight into human dignity by arguing in favour of the formative nature of human action. He argued that human dignity rested also in this dynamism of personhood: the capacity not only to live in accordance with the normative order but to form oneself as virtuous by partaking in virtuous acts or to form one's community in solidarity through acts of participation and self-giving. After presenting his moral theology, this article then engages critically with his assumptions from a Protestant perspective. I argue that, while human dignity provides a powerful and beneficial starting point for ethics, his Thomist ontology of being/substance and the optimistic terms in which he interprets human dignity ultimately undermine his social programme. I propose that an ontology of relation provides a better starting point for interpreting human dignity and for appealing for acts of solidarity in the social realm.

scholarly journals Fresh contact: Youth, migration, and atmospheres in India

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Dyson
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Local Environment ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
Environmental Setting ◽  
The Social ◽  
Youth Agency ◽  
Indian Village ◽  
High Degree

This paper uses long-term research in an Indian village to develop Karl Mannheim’s notion of each generation’s ‘fresh contact’ with their inherited social and environmental setting. I examine how a generation of young people re-apprehend their local environment following a period of migration. I argue that young people aged between 25 and 34 who have lived outside their locality re-appraise their village economically and spiritually when they return home. I point to the social nature of this ‘fresh contact’, its spatial character, and the high degree of reflexivity that young men display in discussing their own agency as a generation – a point that emerged especially clearly in their discussion of the term ‘ mahaul,’ a Hindi word meaning ‘atmosphere’. The paper contributes to geographical and anthropological work on youth agency by highlighting the utility of notions of fresh contact in specific social conjunctures, such as the migration of a particular cohort. At the same time, it suggests the importance of placing alongside Mannheim’s work an explicit focus on the spatial nature of fresh contact, the sociality that constitutes cohorts as generations, and young people’s reflexive capacity to theorise their generational agency.

scholarly journals When the Subaltern Took the Postcolonial Turn

2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-147
Author(s):  
John Roosa
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Series Editor ◽  
South Asian History ◽  
Research Agendas ◽  
Asian History

Abstract This essay evaluates the changing research agendas of Subaltern Studies, an influential series of books on South Asian history that began in 1982. The essay criticizes the original research agenda as articulated by the series editor, Ranajit Guha, and the subsequent agenda proposed by several members of the Subaltern Studies collective. Guha initially proposed that studies of colonial India understand power in terms of unmediated relationships between “the elite” and “the subaltern” and endeavour to answer a counterfactual question on why the “Indian elite” did not come to represent the nation. The subsequent agenda first formulated in the late 1980s, while jettisoning Guha’s strict binaries and crude populism, has not led to any new insights into South Asian history. The turn towards the issues of modernity and postcolonialism has resulted in much commentary on what is already known. Some members of the collective, in the name of uncovering a distinctly “Indian modernity” and moving beyond Western categories, have reified the concept of modernity and restaged tired old debates within Western social theory.

scholarly journals Historical evolution of the judicial system of Ancient Russia in the aspect of customary law

2021 ◽  
pp. 126-131
Author(s):  
Nan Gong ◽  
I. I. Fedorov
Keyword(s):  
Coercive Force ◽  
Legal System ◽  
The State ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Positive Law ◽  
Feudal Society ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Primitive Society ◽  
The Social

The formation of the Russian procedural legal system is closely connected with its unique historical evolution. Russian Russian culture According to the Norman theory of the origin of the Russian nation, the Scandinavian culture is the most important source of early Russian culture. During the chaotic period of the tribe at the stage of primitive society, the Norman Varian was invited to Russia to reconcile the tribes of Russia and manage them, and this brought the Germanic custom to regulate the socio-economic and legal relations of various tribes. Since the formation of the ancient state of Russia, the ruling class has constantly strengthened the drafting of new laws and regulations, but customary law still dominates the legal system of the state. At the same time, ordinary norms in the system of customary law as a quasi-legal norm between morality and law have become an integral organic component of social customs and norms at all stages of Russian social development.During the period of Ancient Russia, the common custom of the Slavic people and the Norman Customary Law had a profound impact on the social life of ancient Russia. From the beginning of the 9th to the 17th century, customary law existed as the main legal source for regulating social relations in the late period of the development of Russian primitive society and in the earlier time of feudal society. His coercive force was based on the conviction that was widespread in the social community during this period, that is, "existing customs denote a reasonable basis". With the formation of the East Slavic state, the rulers began to work on drafting new legal norms, but inheritance is still mainly based on customs based on the clan system. As a result, as a rule of conduct recognized and guaranteed by the state, traditional customs gradually acquired a legal nature, and after that, positive law was formed. "Russkaya Pravda" is the most representative legal collection in the early years of the Russian feudal society, "The Truth of Ross", which was compiled according to the customs of the Eastern Slavs, and is the very fi rst positive law of ancient Russia.Before the appearance of formal law, customary law always played a role and coercive force as legislation, but the self-defense and insane methods of revenge obtained from it also caused social unrest. In order to stop personal self-defense and self-arbitrariness, as well as to strengthen ties between different regions, it is necessary to use the power of common law to unite the Principality into a whole. Although the new law does not exclude the original good customary norms, if there are no necessary penalties for violations, it will be destructive for the law. Therefore, it is necessary to give customary law a legal meaning and a compelling force, without changing the existing content of customary law.I must say that the German customs and the traditional customs of the Slavic people are intertwined in the historical codifi cation of Russian procedural law, forming a unique historical path of development of the procedural legal system of ancient Russia. Although national customs were recognized by the state in the form of positive law with the help of " Russian Truth”, and became the norm of justice and social norm on the basis of the guarantee of national coercive force, but this did not change the essence of customary law, but the form of positive law was given to it. As the modernization of the Russian judicial system moves into modern times, generations of legislators and lawyers are focusing on the study of national legal traditions and history, trying to discover the natural laws governing the development of the Russian legal system, and are constantly trying to make progress in the modern and modern process of judicial reform. The harmony of legislation, the borrowing of laws and national customs to a certain extent ensured a reasonable adjustment of national laws and norms of customary law.

scholarly journals State system of the Yenisei Kyrgyz

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-74
Author(s):  
V. Y. Butanayev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Tribal Community ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
Patriarchal Family ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Military Campaigns ◽  
Source Materials

This article attempts to systematize various source materials for comprehensive coverage of the issues of the functioning of the statehood of the ancient Kyrgyz and restoration of the canvas of historical events of the period covered. The author gives a description of the kagan dynasty and its representatives, examines the levels of the social hierarchy of the nomadic society, the system of interaction of vertical and horizontal structural formations, the canons of customary law in the Kyrgyz kaganate. The study provides links to ancient Türkic written monuments, Chinese chronicles, Tibetan documents, Mongol legends and Arab geographical works, which reflect various hypotheses about the origin of the Kyrgyz ruling dynasty «Azho» («Azhe»), and also analyzes the interpretation of the words «az «,» Az budun «by various scientists in the context of the ethnogenesis of the Kyrgyz people. It covers diplomatic activities, military campaigns and the death of the first Kyrgyz kagan Barsbeg, his family ties and political relations with the rulers of the Turkic kaganate. The highest officials of the Kyrgyz state – begi were subdivided into the following six groups: tsaysians (high administrative rank), tutuki (governors), buyruks (messengers), zhangshi (clerks), chory or churas (military title), tarhans (collectors of taxes and taxes) , each of which performed the corresponding functions in the management of society and solved the current tasks facing the kaganate. An important role in the life of the nomadic society of the ancient Kyrgyz was played by the patriarchal family – «arch kun» and the tribal community – «aal kun». In the Kyrgyz state, one of the manifestations of socio-ethnic exploitation was the institution of Kyshtym, whose origins date back to the HunnoScythian era. Kyrgyz society had the beginnings of judicial legislation, expressed in the functioning of a system of strictly established orders of customary (traditional) law – «töre»

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