Sovereign Anxiety - Public Order and the Politics of Control in India, 19151955

"This book studies issues of public order in late colonial and early postcolonial India. It identifies various governmental practices, such as curfews, bans and police action, that thrive on extraordinary legislation to maintain public order. The colonial regime often deployed extraordinary legislation to curtail the liberties of individuals and groups by citing potential harm to public order. Through public order, a spectacle of sovereign power and politics of contestation between the citizens and law enforcement emerges. The book will contribute to existing discussions about sovereignty and legitimacy of state power by providing a representative sample of concrete instances such as inter- and intra-community riots, labour riots, labour strikes and nationalist agitation. It will also enable a comparative approach and illustrate processes of the evolution of state formation and citizenship in South Asia"--

List of contents

Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction; 2. Invoking Exception and Defining Enemies: Extraordinary Legislation and the Colonial War on Terror in the Early Twentieth Century India; 3. Controlling 'Mobs' and Maintaining Public Order in the United Provinces, 1930-1940; 4. Bureaucratic Encounters and the Question of Justice in India: A Kafkaesque Tale of Official Discretion, Errors, and Oversights; 5. Lineages of a Post-colonial State: The Disposition of a State-sponsored Vigilantism in UP, 1948; 6. Mukhiyas and Chowkidars: Understanding the 'New' Sense of Public Order in the United Provinces 1947-1955; 7. Conclusion; Bibliography.

About the author

Javed Iqbal Wani is currently Assistant Professor at the School of Law, Governance and Citizenship, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi. He completed his doctoral degree from the Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. His research interests are interdisciplinary and pertain to questions of sovereignty and law, particularly law enforcement, law enactment, public order, political violence, crime prevention, extraordinary legislation etc.

Product details

• Authors: Javed Iqbal Wani, Javed Iqbal (Ambedkar University Delhi) Wani
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 16.11.2023
• EAN: 9781009337939
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0933793-9
• No. of pages: 320
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; 20th Century, POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Affairs & Administration, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / Asian, India, Political science & theory, Public Administration, Early 20th century c 1900 to c 1950, Asian History, Political science and theory, HISTORY / Asia / South / India