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‘The Body Evidencing the Crime’: Rape on Trial in Colonial India, 1860–1947
Author(s) -
Kolsky Elizabeth
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
gender and history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.153
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-0424
pISSN - 0953-5233
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0424.2009.01581.x
Subject(s) - colonialism , jurisprudence , law , white (mutation) , modernization theory , criminology , political science , sociology , history , biochemistry , chemistry , gene
The history of rape on trial in colonial India sheds new light on the colonial civilising mission and the claims made by white men about saving brown women from brown men. Through an analysis of almost a century of case law, this article concludes that the modernisation of law and the development of a new medico‐legal understanding of rape introduced evidentiary standards that placed a heavy burden on Indian women seeking judicial remedy in colonial courts. The fear imported from Britain of false charges combined with colonial views about Indian culture to make native female complainants doubly dubious. The colonial jurisprudence has survived to devastating effect in postcolonial India and Pakistan in ways that are explored and explained by the author.