Crime, Mobility and State-Building in Western India, c. 1850 – 1920

This thesis explores the ways in which the British colonial state in India understood perceived groups of collective criminals in the years c. 1850-1920, with a focus upon the Central Provinces and Bombay Presidency. More specifically, it is concerned with the discursive and investigative practices of the colonial state, and the ways in which they influenced understandings of collective crime. This is done through case studies of community identities who officials believed to be engaged in mostly non-violent crimes around movable property, and who were relatively small in number. These identity formations are the Sunnorias, Bhamtas, Chapparbands and Haranshikaris. This thesis relates the growing attention that state actors gave to these marginal ‘criminal’ communities to wider social, economic, political and structural factors in the second half of the nineteenth century and early-twentieth century; a period broadly categorised in terms of the rationalisation and consolidation of state power.
This thesis presents two core arguments. Firstly, it argues that from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, the discursive practices of the colonial state became increasingly important for their performative value. Colonial knowledge production was therefore about much more than its instrumental value to facilitate rule in the Indian subcontinent. Secondly, it argues that criminal typologies can only be understood when accounting for temporally contingent concerns at the moments when discourses on criminality undergo revision and elaboration. These arguments provide a contrast against the bulk of historiography on criminality in South Asia, which has overemphasised the role of legislation and empire-wide intellectual currents, and neglected considerations of why specific communities emerged in colonial discussions when they did. This thesis proposes that a more nuanced understanding of criminality, and its role in colonial governance, can be achieved through greater attention to more marginal ‘criminal’ groups and the factors that influenced their representation in colonial discourse.