Book review of "Colonial Justice in British India. White Violence and the Rule of Law" by Elizabeth Kolsky, Cambridge University Press

Abstract

[Extract] Elizabeth Kolsky's book is centred on the relationship between law, violence and the development of the colonial state. It provides a legal, social and political analysis of how the British in India all too readily were able to literally get away with murder. She argues that racial violence was a constant and constituent element of British dominance in India, and that regular acts of violence 'simultaneously menaced and maintained British power in India from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries. Physical violence was an intrinsic feature of imperial rule'.