SPECIAL ARTICLE
Caste and Power in Villages of Colonial Bengal
Anindita Mukhopadhyay
An exposition of four court cases demonstrates that by
the late 1920s, the educated middle classes wielded the
colonial state apparatus. Moreover, the colonial state
had partially delinked the premodern affiliation of local
muscle to the local hubs of power. Therefore, at the
village level, local malcontents were isolated and booked
for lawbreaking. Villagers/village communities were
located within a caste-based social structure, though
caste hierarchies in Tamluk seemed more fluid. They
also had the option to activate the (ideally) caste-neutral
state apparatus, which sharpened their perceptions
of legal subjectivity, and increased their stake in
the government.
The fieldwork for this article was carried out in 2015–16 as part of
fellowship granted by the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.
The author would like to gratefully acknowledge the extra funds made
available to scholars for data collection, Sagnik Saha for assistance on
the article, and the pertinent and critical insights made by the peer
reviewer.
Anindita Mukhopadhyay (mukhopadhyay.anindita8@gmail.com)
teaches history at the University of Hyderabad.
44
T
he postcolonial Indian state inherited the categories as
well as the technologies of modern governance from the
colonial state, especially its foundational discourse, law
and order, and its analogous institutions, the legal and penal
systems. These ranged from “law,” “law and order,” “rule of
law,” “good governance,” to “justice.” All these categories,
though their rationale and their political grammar sprang
from the Western intellectual tradition, used the rhetoric of
traditional indigenous claims to legitimacy—the ruler as the
benevolent and generous donor of worldly goods, the univer-
sal protector, the just and even-handed patriarchal power
which represented the popular expression of the ideal ruler—
and the colonial state infused these into the phrase mai-baap
government. These claims to legitimacy, singly or together, at
some time or the other, had occupied the centre stage of
colonial governance.
The Middle Class
The Indian educated classes caught on eagerly to all these cat-
egories while shaping themselves into the “ideal” political and
legal subject, disenchanted with colonial rule but not with its
legal and political institutions and administrative structures
(Mukhopadhyay 2013). The sense of continuity even after 1947
was inevitable as far as the control of state institutions was
concerned. Ranajit Guha (2009: 137–38) had pointed out the
link between the educated middle classes, English rule and
colonial law in an acidic analysis:
No wonder that the educated Bengali found in the law a great ally …
Throughout much of the nineteenth century he … brainwashed himself
and others in favour of what he believed to be its impartiality and its
powers to defend the poor … He … set himself up to interpret and practise
it in various roles as barrister, advocate, vakil, mukhtar and attorney …
The association between law and literacy is far from fortuitous. These
are two of the more essential components of the culture, respectively,
of the British ruling class and of their Indian collaborators … Educa-
tion helps in schooling the bureaucracy that runs the colonial appara-
tus which it is the task of the law to define (by jurisprudence), regulate
(by the judiciary), defend (by penalties), and rationalise (with the aid
of the legal profession).
Thus, there were no suggestions of an alternative frame to
the colonial judiciary that the colonial state had erected over
the 18th and 19th centuries.1 Martin J Weiner (2008: 1) has
observed that it was indeed the legal systems the British estab-
lished across their empire that symbolised what the British
would claim were their most important contribution in the
global context.
The middle-class parameters of good citizenship were also
officially and inextricably entwined at the popular level with
FEBRUARY 10, 2018 vol lIiI no 6 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

the Indian traditional notions of dharma, which fed directly
into the language of governance. As Weiner (2004: xi) had
also perceptively pointed out, there were no rigid lines
demarcating “cultural representations” and “public actions:”
In recent years historians have begun to appreciate how intertwined
representations and actions are, how discourse is not just talk but
structural action, a mode of action; how conversely, action always
happens within some discursive frame.
As ideas must be located in a sociopolitical context; con-
versely, social activity must be grounded against an intellec-
tual or sociocultural backdrop. While the dominant discourse
of the bhadralok on the norms of good governance and good
citizenship—visibly influenced by Western institutions, dis-
courses and practices—classically demonstrates the way ideas
nested within sociopolitical webs, the rural world does not re-
veal these connections readily.
This article simply notes the substitution of the British offi-
cialdom by the indigenous upper castes/classes, and focuses
instead on the ground-level perceptions of power and authority
in rural Tamluk (a subdivision in Midnapur district in West Ben-
gal). The local interpretations of the parameters of governance
through the manner in which they experienced authority in
their everyday lives are teased out from the court cases under
scrutiny (Toews 1987; Bauman 1987). As sources, criminal court
records are invaluable, even though these partially recovered
voices of the non-literate come filtered through a highly artificial
legal language, and an officially rendered medium (Ginsburg
1992). Therefore, these provide one of the windows through
which a historian can partially access the rural quotidian far
removed from the historian in time and space. This article uses
four court cases around property-related offences heard in the
sessions courts, just before independence.
The cases are analysed in the following order: (i) criminal
case no 59/12121 of 1938, u/s [under Section] 46(a) Excise Act,
1909 in the court of D C Dhar, sub-deputy magistrate, first class,
Tamluk, Midnapore (henceforth Midnapur), Emperor v Amar
Majhi (1938); (ii) criminal case no 40/TR93 of 1938, in the court
of D C Dhar, Tamluk, Midnapur, u/s 457/380 IPC [Indian Penal
Code], Emperor v Ramchandra Kar (1938); (iii) criminal case no
TR/56 of 1938, 22.2.38, Kumarpur, P S Mahisadal, Khudiram
Dhobi v Emperor (1938);2 and (iv) criminal case no 125 of 1935,
u/s 22(b) CTA [Criminal Tribes Act, 1871], D C Dhar, Tamluk, Mid-
napur, Emperor v Shasi Tanti (1935). Clearly, as the names of the
deputy magistrates suggest, the educated middle classes man-
ning the system as “junior custodians” were already positioned
behind the state apparatus, not against it or under it. Their faces
had become the visible sources of authority to rural communi-
ties in the late 1930s and 1940s. These educated magistrates,
sub-deputy magistrates, judges and lawyers might have been cogs
in the wheel as far as the colonial state understood the delega-
tion of duty and power, but they operated the local sluices of
power. For the rural communities experiencing a government
at this lower level of state authority, colonial rule wore a famil-
iar, upper-caste face of power, authority and control, along with
the modern state apparatus that allowed the colonial state to
dig deep roots in both urban and rural India. As the following
Economic & Political Weekly EPW FEBRUARY 10, 2018 vol lIiI no 6
SPECIAL ARTICLE
paragraphs will speculate: Was the parallel Congress govern-
ment, set up during the Quit India Movement, integral to this
trajectory of rural perception of power and authority?
These cases open windows into the complex caste and com-
munity ties in rural Bengal, where the poor as well as the well-
off remained knitted within caste networks and affects. All the
four cases reveal “apparently” a certain internalisation of the
colonial state’s systematic bracketing of property-related “ille-
gal” activities as criminal. No doubt that partially this inter-
nalisation had to do with the conviction of the indigenous
magistrates, judges, and lawyers, that the parameters of crimi-
nality defined by the colonial state were correct indices for
determining deviant behaviour, which, however, through
their ideological sleight of hand, had actually become theirs.
Historical Background
Moreover, as this article argues, from the 1930s the national
movement had steadily created an ethos of resistance in
Midnapur district in general and the Tamluk and Contai
(Kanthi) divisions in particular. Peasants were mobilised—
the Krishak Praja Party and the Forward Bloc were both active
in these divisions. It was here that powerful peasant move-
ments took place during the Quit India Movement in 1942,
colonial rule was totally dismantled and a parallel Congress
government, supported by the local communities, ran Tamralipta
Jatiya Sarkar (Tamralipta National Government) from 17 Decem-
ber 1942. Surely, it was no accident that the groundswell of
popular identification with the parallel Congress government
lasted till 1944, when it was finally vanquished by a resurgent
colonial state (Bandopadhyay 1944: 418–19).
Did this pre-independence memory of participating in a crucial
phase of the national movement, building up since the 1930s,
engender within village communities in the Tamluk region a
sense of governmentality, that perceived their own political and
administrative stakes within a “state” manned by “Indians?” In
that case, what about local perceptions of “criminality” that
gelled with the labels around criminality generated by the colo-
nial state? Could one say that the discursive strategy developed
by the bhadralok to mark off “political crimes” from “crimes”
against life and property, was not part of an ethical core that
village communities shared? Moreover, the ongoing national
movement, which strategically excluded or included revolu-
tionary nationalism in its deployment of patriotic sacrifice, had
blurred clear lines of criminal and non-criminal behaviour for
the nationally awakened elite, but the revolutionary swadeshi
method of garnering funding for its noble cause through “armed
robbery and murder” had been critiqued by Rabindranath
Tagore, no less.3 Thus, any romanticisation of the violation of
property rights would not be part of the ideological persuasions
deployed by the Congress workers in the hinterland. One finds
that sanctity of property—and elliptically, for “law and order”—
is borne out by these petty court cases. Thus, as villagers with
stakes in their “own” government, could they be persuaded to see
“law and order” as a “national” requirement? Meanwhile, criminal
behaviour could be decried as a deviant and anti-national prac-
tice, completely against the traditional ethos of “good conduct.”
45
SPECIAL ARTICLE
In these bottommost microgrids of power established by the
colonial state but taken over by the indigenous middle classes,
the administrative machinery, police and courts had established
systemic procedures to frame legal inquiries which would then
be “heard” as a case in the court. The filing of the first informa-
tion report (FIR), the magistrate or the deputy magistrate send-
ing it for trial in the sessions courts, and the process of trial
itself, revealed the state in the fullest form of its authority and
power for the local people—colonial or post-independence
labels were irrelevant to this perception. The state could even
act on its own: the police dragnet had identified Amar Majhi as
a person selling illegal liquor or Sashi Tanti as a person to be
restrained under the CTA, 1871, and the colonial state was the
prosecutor in each case. In the two other cases, local villagers
had readily provided information and had even participated in
the tracking down of the local thief using their own information
network that operated through its own logic of caste ties. Thus,
prosecutors were individual villagers.
In the late 1930s in Tamluk, the very diversity of caste occu-
pations of the offenders, including a Brahmin petty thief, and
the villagers’ readiness to bring all the miscreants to the local
thana (police station) shows that a subtle shift of perceptions
about caste hierarchies was under way. Perhaps, the proactive
village communities were clearly demonstrating their readi-
ness to share responsibilities for “local order” and to have a
sense of their own “expectation” of security. While not wish-
ing to romanticise the lower-caste identification with a “natio-
nalistic” state during the climactic phase of the Quit India
Movement in Tamluk and Kontai, there is nevertheless some
indication that the village communities in the Tamluk region
did indeed identify themselves as the gatekeepers of local law
and order, and thereby positioned themselves as stakeholders
within a stable administrative structure. Thus, on occasion,
there is even an activation of the government machinery seeking
“security of property,” a quintessential element of the mirage of
micro empowerment at the level of everyday governance of
the modern state.
Consequently and ironically, it is at this level that the crimi-
nal court records reveal no complications. The ordinary peo-
ple, in their testimonies before the court, demonstrated uncon-
sciously that they followed the logic of the state when they
thought their property, however meagre, was under threat.
Further, the involvement of the local communities to isolate
and gather evidence against local lawbreakers that would hold
in a court of law, might also imply that the Congress govern-
ment—active in the area till 1944—had aroused a politico-
cultural expectation of grass-roots participation in governance,
capable of moving beyond local caste hierarchies. Perhaps,
such a participative sense in the ultimate political, social and
religious “good” became manifest when the “criminal,” however
petty, became quickly isolated in a locality where familiarity
produced a “certain” local knowledge about lawbreakers.
Further, a systematic disarming of the population, systematic
attempts to delink indigenous local power from their role as
patrons of local muscle by defining it as illegal and punishable
by law, had produced, by the 1930s, local village communities
46
who turned to the local faces representing the state for the
redress of their losses, if community mediations failed.
The Issues at Stake
The present set of criminal trials, minus the famous causes or
famous people and clash of colonial and nationalist ideologies,
echo with the beat of ordinary lives. These show ordinary people
who were pulled into the limelight of legal procedures as the
representatives of the prosecution or of the defence, as wit-
nesses made to undergo the strain of having their statements
recorded in writing, and then cross-checked through cross-
examination; they come across as wary, nervous or resigned.
Still, as records of ordinary lives, these convey a sense of the
temporal moment and spatial location in which they lived and
functioned, and because of the very nature of the records as
“testimony,” their speech as they spoke is transmitted to us
without grammatical corrections, editing or sanitisation. The
official framing of their speech, the official questions to elicit
their responses are visibly present. Yet, even if their speech is
stilted, guarded or forced, their voices are heard now and then
over the official formulas. Their sense of right and wrong, and
anxieties is their own.
Above all, the trial depositions in great detail convey their
own impression of their communities and their affects. They
reflect simultaneously the dual quality of being both facts and
mental constructs which are not middle class. The apparently
eclectic identity of the criminals within these communities in
Emperor v Amar Majhi (1938), Emperor v Ramchandra Kar
(1938), Khudiram Dhobi v Emperor (1938), and Emperor v Sashi
Tanti (1935), show that villagers were not inevitably bound by
caste perceptions or socio-religious status. Caste or caste oc-
cupations did not preclude the locals from pointing out a thief
to the local daffadar (constable), where the Brahmin purohit/
purut (priest) came under direct accusation from a Mahishya
villager, which was quickly confirmed by the Mahishya daffadar
after making some inquiries (Emperor v Ramchandra Kar 1938).
There is a need to understand the local “expectations” impli-
citly voiced in the witnesses’ depositions. Étienne Balibar’s
(2008) isolation of three open questions, which turn on the
relationships of “justice and law, justice and subjectivity, justice
and conflict,” are useful to this understanding.4 First, Balibar
separates a “weak” logic of power from a “strong” one: the
weak position would state that as it was impossible to give
strength or power to the principle of justice, which, by its
intrinsic nature, could not command these external props,
justice could be conferred upon force or power, to “make the
strong just.” The weak position, implicit in Pascal, holds out
the conviction that “justice” as a principle is a rhetorical device
in the deployment of power and authority by the “unjust”
strong. Balibar (2008: 9) states,
Nowhere the claim of justice or the exigency of a just order of things
can become realised, because it lacks the force, or it finds before itself
powerful forces as an obstacle which prevents it from winning a vic-
tory, or even which have the capacity to reverse it and to appropri-
ate its language. Conversely, no force or power, however materially
overwhelming, can remain dominant without legitimacy, without jus-
tifying itself, appearing as the incarnation of justice in the eyes of the
FEBRUARY 10, 2018 vol lIiI no 6 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

dominated and perhaps in its own eyes. Therefore not only it has to
claim that it embodies and establishes justice, but it has to define jus-
tice in such terms as to appear as its instrument and embodiment. In
modern terms such a reversal of the just order of justice and force can
be called false consciousness or an ideology covering domination. Let
us note in passing that, from a critical point of view, it is always useful
to have a powerfully rhetorical—therefore short and brutal—expre-
ssion of this essential aspect of the logic of domination.
This seems to be one way of placing Ranajit Guha, and his
framework for the co-option of the Bengali (read Indian mid-
dle classes) into the colonial definition of the legitimacy of the
“Rule of Law” with an apt parody, the “Rule of Awe.” The mid-
dle classes imbued the colonial rhetoric of “justice” and its
principal weapon—the great equaliser—Rule of Law with pre-
cisely this logic. A contemporary, critical reading of the
national movement from the margins has located the appro-
priation of this rhetoric of justice by the upper castes.
There is, however, a stronger logic, though more complicat-
ed, to the Pascalian analysis which Balibar brings out at some
length. First, Balibar (2008: 7–8) points to “justice” as a con-
cept which is impossible to link to power, and to quote him
One: to have justice as such endowed with force or power, or the just
being also the strong (politically, socially, ideologically—Bruno Clement
would add: rhetorically) represents exactly “the impossible,” which
we can also understand as: it is the element of impossibility which
will never be realised as such in the realm of politics, or in relations of
power, but will also keep haunting them, will not become eliminated
from them.
Balibar (2008: 8) then moves to the antinomical position,
which involves a risk but which is in the realms of the possible:
Second, or conversely: to have what Pascal calls “force”—probably not
so much anarchic or brutal force as a Hobbesian sovereign “monopoly
of legitimate violence,” an institutionalised system of political power,
therefore the law and the legal State—be or become “just,” therefore
establish or impose justice among men, within society, this is possible,
or this is the possible. In other terms, this is the political, understood
as a challenge, a practical project, and also a risk. So the formula sug-
gests that the implementation of justice (which may involve its correct
definition, or redefinition) cannot be thought as deriving purely from its
own idea, but can be envisaged, and attempted, through the interme-
diary of its own opposite, of what immediately contradicts it, namely
power in the broadest sense (perhaps we should say in a general man-
ner: empowerment). But this attempt is by its nature, risky.
Balibar (2008: 8) then explores what could be the range of
play of such institutionalised form of “justice” within the law
and the state:
To this description of a “realistic” understanding of Pascal’s phrase,
which is also more dialectical, we can immediately associate two clas-
sical questions, which form its correlatives. The first question con-
cerns the negative side of every endeavour at seeking justice by means
of this strength, or empowerment: whatever the nature of its strength,
its means, forms of organisation, etc, the “just” who seek justice for
himself and for others, or the “victim of injustice who seeks redress,
restoration of justice, and the establishment of a just order, therefore
the destruction of the causes of injustice and the naturalisation of its
doers, all must mobilise force, that is, must wage force against force
(even the force of weakness).” But which kind of force, internal and
external, can become the “impossible force of justice?” Which does
not sooner or later, reproduce the injustice it attacks, or does not create
symmetrically another injustice? Which force of justice remains “just”?
Economic & Political Weekly EPW FEBRUARY 10, 2018 vol lIiI no 6
SPECIAL ARTICLE
The second question, therefore, is the institutionalisation of
justice into “law”—for this is the problem of translating “force”
into a “just” force by the state, or the institutionalisation of
law—even if it implies limitations, risks and contradictions. As
Balibar (2008: 9) frames it:
Law is best defined in terms of a (transcendental) synthesis of force
and justice … the synthesis can become effective only if it begins on
the side of power (or its relations), but also that the life and the history
of power that organises itself in the form of law (a rule of law, a legal
system, a constitution) is governed by a dialectics of relationships—
perhaps conflictual, why not conflictual?—with its internal principle
of legitimacy, that is justice. This may become pushed to the idea that
the internal or hidden weak point of any institution of force is its prin-
ciple of legitimacy, its pretension to realise and embody justice. And
the stronger, the weaker.
This claim to legitimacy through “justice” then becomes the
chink in its armour, through which an accelerated democrati-
sation of the state and its legal institutions can be forced. The
history of the Indian national movement, then the constitutive
elements of the national movement themselves that were chal-
lenged as too narrow, and a further clamour set up for a more
genuine democratisation from further marginalised groups
can be understood in this way. But, there is also the possibility
of a mundane everydayness to the state’s bored performance
of its routine maintenance of law and “justice” that functioned
as its base of legitimacy—its constant visibility over and above
the (limited) power of adjudication present within the village
communities.
The state, by the 1930s, had, through the establishment of its
own record-keeping official memory—a self-referential prac-
tice that had been extant for upwards of 250 years—inscribed
itself into the imagination of the ordinary people. This method
of writing itself into the consciousness of the people, the Con-
gress-led national movement or indeed the post-independence
Indian state followed when they had acquired power. Thus,
the case files, where the particulars of the accused and what
they had stolen had been entered with clerical labour, demon-
strate this routinised practice of the state. The name and posi-
tion of the official discharging their duty as the judge, the
name of the criminal, to which region they belonged and place
of residence, the kind of crimes committed and under which
section/s of the IPC and CrPC (Code of Criminal Procedure), if
the criminal had previous convictions, identity of the prosecu-
tion and defence witnesses, together with records of the state-
ments of the prosecutor, prosecutor and defence witnesses, the
judge and the jury—such was the standardised template for
recording both the extraordinary as well as the ordinary crime
and criminal. This reified procedure of creating and docking
information imprinted an “authentic” government red tapism
on the minds of people, both urban and rural.
There is an important split-level perceptual development at
the lowest grids of power intersecting the villages—for the
same structure could also be projected as weapons of colonial
oppression—depending on the political context. The local
villagers might not appreciate that they were located within
an inner ring of a series of concentric circles that was the colo-
nial/nation state, but the cases reveal a local working of the
47
SPECIAL ARTICLE
legal and penal state apparatus (with justice and order/stabil-
ity as the popular expectation), by the village communities.
Surely this imparts the required democratising spin to a par-
ticipatory sense of legal subjectivity amongst them, especially
if one keeps in mind that the national movement had devel-
oped deep roots in these subdivisions, which also retained the
explosive potential to become critical of the state’s justice-
delivery system and its laws.
The cases discussed in the article acquire depth when read
against the two frames of the weak and the strong logic that
sustain the relationships between law and justice that Balibar
explored. The educated elite—the substitute colonial ruling
classes—had been seduced by the first logic, and would stren-
uously resist the democratisation of the internal principle of
justice and the inherently conflictual dialectics of power that
would force the legal frame to expand in a more inclusive
direction. The non-elite, in their participatory working of the
system, using their own rationale of “expectation” from state
authority, and their relative position of power/powerlessness
within their community, thus represent the marginalised sub-
jects’ quest for justice through institutionalised law. The com-
munity’s failure to adjudicate their grievance through institu-
tionalised law would open up possibilities of alternative
formulations of justice.
In this set of cases, one sees echoes of how ordinary village
people would work the state apparatus for their understanding
of “institutionalised law” and “justice,” which meant some-
thing as small (or as big) as recovering their stolen property, or
challenging a claim to a she-goat. The cases show that ordi-
nary villagers had accepted the legitimate position of the state
and its laws in respect to criminal behaviour (this is where the
hegemony of the state seemed indisputable in ordinary minds),
with the villagers themselves cranking the creaky legal and
penal system of the colonial state to protect their own inter-
ests. It is, thus, not only resistance offered to the state that
makes the dragnet of state force visible; it is also through peo-
ple’s participation at the microgrids of power that renders the
legitimacy of the state ubiquitous. It allows ordinary people to
turn the handles of the institutions of power, and thus feel
empowered by its operation.
Laying Out the Evidence
The petty cases under analysis provide invaluable data to the
historian: the kind of valuables the villagers thought irreplace-
able, village networks generating information, exclusion/
inclusion in village communities on the basis of caste, the local
perceptions of what was “wrong” or “right,” as also the loca-
tion of the agent who had first moved the state to action. The
last could be varied.
Emperor v Amar Majhi (1938): The analysis of the imprison-
ment of the Mahishya cultivator, Amar Majhi—“Accused Amar
Majhi produced under arrest u/s 46(a) excise act, 1909. Acc-
used to give bail of Rs 50/- in default to hajat [imprisonment]
till 11 March 1938. Prosecution to reach court before that
date”—shows the role of the colonial state in framing a case
48
against a bootlegger, the prime prosecution witness being
yet another Mahishya in state employment, the daffadar
Sriharicharan Betal.
The reportage of “illegal” activities of prosecution witness 1
(PW1), “Amar Majhi, aged about 50 years,” narrated in Betal’s
deposition that was “taken on oath as solemn affirmation be-
fore D C Dhar, magistrate, first class of Tamluk, 21 March 1938”
shows polarised social worlds within the same caste.5 Betal is
at once officious and endowed with the agency that the state
has conferred on him to protect its abkari revenues,
My name is Sriharicharan Betal, father’s name late Yudhisthircharan
Betal, by caste Mahishya, home at Mauza Mahisadal, P S Mahisadal, dis-
trict Midnapore, I reside at Mauza Icchapur P S Mahisadal, district
Midnapore. I am the daffadar of P S Mahisadal. On 7 March 1938 at
about 8.30–9.00 pm, I arrested this accused in dock with two bottles
containing ID liquor 45 oz (Ounces). I arrested the accused with the
booty, which he was selling without license.6
The deposition of prosecution witness two, who was “aged
about 40 years,” upper-caste ex-sub-inspector, Sudhir Chandra
Ghose who corroborated the deposition of Betal, provided a
further bit of evidence about a previous conviction over the
same crime.
My name is Sudhir Chandra Ghose, father’s name Ramlal Ghose, by
caste Kayastha, home at Mauza Bairaganta, P S Serajdilcha, district
Dacca, I reside at Mauza Mahisadal P S Mahisadal, district Midnapore.
I am the ex-sub inspector, and on 8 March 1938, PW1, Sriharicharan
Betal caught before us this accused in the dock with two bottles con-
taining 45 oz of ID liquor. The accused had no license. On 24 April 1935
accused was convicted u/s 46 (a) and (f), ex-Act and sentenced to RI
(rigorous imprisonment) for three months by A K Dutt Tamluk, SDM
(subdivisional magistrate).
This was sufficient to nail Majhi yet again. Majhi was com-
mitted to trial in the court on this evidence and was formally
asked if he had indeed been guilty of bootlegging. The presid-
ing judge recorded:
The examination of the Accused under Section 364 of the CrPC Majhi,
aged about 41 years, brought before me D C Dhar. The Accused said
“I am by caste a Mahishya, and by occupation cultivator, my home
is at Kashmirnagar, P S Sutahata, district Midnapore, I reside at
Raghurampur.” Majhi was asked “on the date of 7 March 1938, you
were arrested with ID which is illegal to possess by law—two bottles
weighed 45 ounce, and you were caught in possession of it or not?”
Majhi answered, “Yes, I am so guilty (hyan, ami dosh kore-
chhi).” The magistrate then asked him of his previous convic-
tion of the same crime two years earlier: Were you sentenced
to one and a half months of imprisonment on 28 April 1935 in
the court of Tamluk, and Majhi confirmed it with a simple
“yes” (hyan). Majhi was then given a fresh sentence of three
months of imprisonment, which he accepted, “I have been at
fault” (amar dosh hoyechhey). The accused, by acquiescing to
his punishment, after acknowledging his “illegal” activities,
has also tightened the state’s claims of legitimacy.
Moreover, the official machinery, by absorbing into its low-
est echelons locals like Betal, a Mahishya, who had arrested
“the accused” Amar Majhi, yet another Mahishya, could offset
perceptions of power and authority amongst the lower castes.
Clearly, the daffadar had identified himself with the power of
the colonial state, while Amar Majhi was at its receiving end.
FEBRUARY 10, 2018 vol lIiI no 6 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

Furthermore, the colonial state’s abkari policy which had
criminalised Majhi held no meaning for the villagers: their
definition of “criminal” behaviour did not coincide with the
state, nor do they appear as informants in Majhi’s
apprehension. The state and the village communities were in
opposite camps, where offence against the resources of the
state—invisible, abstract and legally enforceable—were de-
fined by law-enforcing officers of the state as “criminal.”
Emperor v Ramchandra Kar (1938): The next case shows that
petty criminals, whether they are Brahmins or Brahmin
priests, are tracked down by the local population in tandem
with officials of the state. The same locals are then called as
witnesses against “the accused.” The local petty thief, whom
everyone knew to be one, could be quickly cornered. A Brahmin
pūjāri (priest), who by the dint of his position, had access to
houses for smoking and chatting with locals provides an
example of such upper-caste accountability. The proverb pūrūt
s̟ ējēy th̟ ākur chūri (stealing deities disguised as a priest), is a
cultural and linguistic acknowledgement of the perfidy of
Brahmin priests who made off with their patrons’ valuables
kept safe in the sanctum sanctorum of the deity which only
they could access, apart from the family.
The attitudinal change of a village community regarding the
criminality of Brahmins is in their willingness to turn them over
to the law. The accused was Ramchandra Kar, son of Jnanada
Chandra Kar, police station Mahisadal, and had been sent up
once before in case no 3891/379/411 in 1935.7 That, even after a
conviction and subsequent imprisonment, he continued to visit
households for performing rituals and to have a smoke could be
because he was a Brahmin priest and this privilege allowed him
to commit a second round of theft from Krishto Maity’s house.8
Maity, a Mahishya, who lived in Basudevpur, Mauza Kalisab,
“told” the daffadar Jagamitranath Maity (referred familiarly as
“Jogender Maity” in the deposition), yet another local face of
power from the Mahishya caste, that his warm shawl worth `14
had “been stolen” from “the verandah of his house” on the pre-
vious day, the 19th of Magh (January–February), where “the
accused” (always “the accused” in the records) had smoked
tobacco with his host around 3–4 pm. After the priest’s depar-
ture, Maity looked for his warm shawl as he was unwell, and
found that it had disappeared. Maity immediately suspected
Kar, and the fact that Kar was nowhere to be found made his
suspicions a certainty.9
It is clear that the caste network was ordering the flow of
information and accusation. Jagamitranath Maity was listening
as a more empowered member of the Mahishya community,
not as the local daffadar. From this point on, there is a complex
weave of people and places, as the Brahmin, because of his
caste occupation as a priest, had patrons scattered across vari-
ous mauzas (an administrative unit of land) of Midnapur, and
some of whom affirmed his habit of thieving. The daffadar Maity,
in his turn, approached the local shopkeeper Nagendranath
Das, who had a shop in Mauza Kolsar, and who also resided in
the same locality. The daffadar obviously felt reasonably certain
that “Nagen Das,” located in the information hub of his shop,
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would be able to collect information about the missing shawl.
This hunch paid off.
From the deposition of the shopkeeper, Das,10 it is known
that Das had confronted Kar with the accusation of theft of
the shawl, upon which “the accused” admitted the crime.
However, he had disposed of it by giving it to a woman
named Kanthi, whom he knew, for 10 pice. Das’s deposition
was succinct:
I live in Kolsar. I got certain information about the theft of a chador
(warm shawl) of Kristo Maity. Kristo suspected the accused in dock.
On being questioned, the accused admitted having stolen the chador,
but he took it to the house of a woman called Kanthi of Kanjarberia,
which is about half mile from Basudevpur ... he had left the chador
with her for 10 pice. (see note 8)
Das took Kar with him, retrieved the shawl from Kanthi
after paying her 10 pice, brought back both the shawl and thief
to his shop, and informed Krishto Maity. Maity came along
and identified his shawl. Das testified thus:
I took over 10 pice to the house of this woman to get back this chador
(exhibit 1, henceforth ex.1), and gave her 10 pice. I took the accused
with ex.1 to my shop, Kristo Maity came through and identified the
chador as belonging to him.
As Krishto Maity was ill and could not personally visit the
thana to file the FIR, the daffadar himself went and lodged an
FIR, which he even signed (see note 8). In Maity’s deposition, a
corroboration of both Das’s and the daffadar’s narratives is
found (see note 9).
These dramatic discoveries involving a shawl led Das to
connect yet another local villager’s (Rajani Mishra, a Brah-
min) complaint of theft which had happened at the dead of
night on the 2nd of Magh,11 when his thakurghar (sanctum
sanctorum) was broken into and his little shiva linga (the
sacred Shiva phallus symbol), salgram shila (a stone respre-
senting Vishnu), a brass thali (plate), and a copper kosha
(utensil used in rituals) for the bathing of household deities,
were all stolen. Rajani Mishra had already lodged an FIR. Das
charged “the accused” of the previous theft too, and Kar
owned up to that as well. However, like the shawl, he had sold
all the stolen items to different people in the surrounding lo-
calities. There are two names from Das’s deposition—Ram
Das and Bhuvan Das, both from Basudevpur—who had re-
ceived the stolen property, and from whom now the accused
went and retrieved the articles and produced them before
Nagendranath Das. Why was this recovery so quick? Was it the
caste network of “Nagen Das” functioning here? The deposi-
tion hints at this perhaps:
Five–seven days previous to them, Rajani Misra of Uttar Rastari
had said, salgram sila, brass thali, copper kosha (required for wash-
ing thakur) was stolen from his thakurghar. On being questioned
the accused admitted having stolen these things also. But brought
out this Shiva (exhibit ii), from his jholi (a kind of cloth bag) in the
house of Bhuban Das of Basudevpur. Accused brought out a brass thali
(exhibit iii), “jhaapy” (exhibit iv), and a kosha (exhibit V), from the
house of Ram Das in the same village, with whom they had sold these
things for Rs ¼ (4 annas). I got these released on payment of this
amount. Accused said he had stolen the salgram from the house of
Rajani Mishra.
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SPECIAL ARTICLE
The highly proactive Nagendranath Das asked Rajani
Mishra to come to his shop to identify the stolen items. From
the deposition of Rajani Mishra, who was the penultimate
prosecution witness or PW4, this part of Nagendranath Das’s
narrative was corroborated.
I live at Uttar Rastari, P S Mahisadal, on the 2nd of Magh on a Sunday,
there was a theft of Salgram with three gold tops, Shiva-linga, kosha,
jhaapi, brass thali—worth about Rs 8 from my thakurghar at Uttar
Rastari. The paddock of the door was broken. Next morning I came to
know of it. I related the incidence to PW3.
On 22nd Magh, on receipt of certain information, I went to the shop
of “Nagen Das” and I found my things. Ex[hibit]s ii–vi, which had been
stolen.12
It was only after Das had used the informal centre of his
shop to bring together the thief, the stolen goods, the two com-
plainants, and the daffadar, that the case could be processed
through the police station and the courts at all. The daffadar
himself knew that the shopkeeper could do better than himself
when it came to tracing the stolen goods.
When the case came to the court of D C Dhar, sub-deputy
magistrate first class of Tamluk, district Midnapur, he noted
while admitting it into the court:
I certify that I have carefully examined the registers of persons con-
victed (village notebook) and have in all other respects made full
enquiry whether the accused person/absconders against whom the
charge has been proved have been given false names and addresses
and have been previously convicted and I find that the names and
addresses given are true.
(a) I also certify that the accused has resided in this jurisdiction for a
period more than 10 years.
(b) The antecedents of the accused are as follows.
He has got no reference.
He is a goodly swindler.
The sub-inspector, police station Mahisadal, the last witness
or PW5, Radhika Mohan Bannerjee,13 in his deposition dec-
lared that he had conducted the investigation and “submitted
charge sheets in both the cases” and the case against Kar was
foolproof. This combined effort of the village Sherlock Holmes
and the ponderous official machinery produced the following
“Record of Examination of the Accused” signed by the magis-
trate himself:14
The examination of the accused Ramachandra Kar, age about 26 years,
taken before me D C Dhar, magistrate first class of Tamluk, district Mid-
napore, on 1 March, 1938 in the Bengali language …
My name is Ramchander Kar. My father’s name is Jnanada Chandra
Kar. I am by caste Brahmin, and by occupation priest. My home is
at Mauza Baharampur, P S Mahisadal, district Midnapur, I reside at
Baharampur.
To the magistrate’s questions as to his guilt in stealing Maity’s
shawl and Mishra’s household deities, Kar meekly affirmed his
crimes, signed the magistrate’s record, and received the sentence:
I find the accused guilty and convict him u/s 379, 457, 380 IPC. I
sentence him to RI [rigorous imprisonment] for four months under each of
Sections 457 and 380 IPC, and also RI for two months u/s 379 IPC. All the
sentences to run concurrently.
Here, as indicated at the beginning of the article, the village
community networks as well as the state apparatus worked in
tandem. The microgrids of power and authority are revealed
at their clearest operational mode, for there are no big movers
50
and shakers. The Mahishya villager who suffered the theft of a
warm shawl in winter, a Brahmin villager whose gold inlaid
household deities were stolen considered these losses big enough
to want them back. Local networks were worked for the tracking of
the criminal, and the state apparatus for justice for nailing him.
Khudiram Dhobi v Emperor (1938): The ordinary in the third
case comes with a touch of tragedy for Khudiram Dhobi, son of
the late Gobinda Dhobi, Kamarpur, police station Mahisadal,
district Midnapur. There is a strong sense of entitlement to a
she-goat that Dhobi considered legitimately his property: “I
have forcibly got the goat from said cowshed. I had lent it for
adoption. As he did not return (it), I got it myself.”15 However,
the “he” in Khudiram Dhobi’s evidence, the PW1 Pramathanath
Staih, said in his deposition,
On the 9th of Falgun last, at about 9 PM when I drove to the field west of
Kumarpur, I saw the accused in dock with the same she-goat (produced
before the court worth Rs 2/- or Rs 2 8 annas). This was witnessed by
Dukhi Patra, Gangadhar Staih and others. Dukhi said the accused was car-
rying the goat wrapped in a chador. We all challenged the accused ... we
all took the accused with us and the goat to the house of Mahendra Balra
and then to the house of Bipin Thakur. Then the SI [sub-inspector] and the
daffadar came. We took the accused to the thana.
The villagers had identified two local community members
who might have been successful in arbitrating the question of
the rights of the two claimants to the she-goat. However, they
realised that arbitration would not be effective, for Khudiram
was claiming the right to the goat, and that he had not stolen
it. It is at this point that the thana, the daffadar, the sub-
inspector and the courts entered the dispute. In the third case,
sharp disputes about ownership are seen, where local informal
arbitration systems have failed to resolve the problem of the
ownership of a she-goat, a capital that would automatically
grow, subject to biological laws.
The court decided in favour of Pramathanath Staih, and
bound Khudiram Dhobi to good behaviour. The presiding
officer delivers the order,
The accused Khudiram Dhobi is convicted u/s 380 IPC. He is required
to execute a bond of Rs 100/- as surety and to be of good behaviour for
the year u/s 562 CrPC.
In all three cases, there is a semblance of empowerment at
the level of the microgrids of power created by the modern
state that could guarantee the legitimacy of a mere rhetoric
of justice deployed by the state, whether colonial or post-
independent India. The players were all small fry and there
were no vested interests to protect. Therefore, the state ma-
chinery also could assert its everyday “justice” delivery system
to be effective and empowering, and ordinary people partici-
pated in this myth. They are all unarmed and non-dangerous,
the petty lawbreakers as well as their accusers.
Emperor v Sashi Tanti (1935): This article underlines the fact
that though it is obvious that educated classes were interpre-
ting and reproducing the categories of the colonial state
through their discursive strategies and their practical hands-
on approach as colonial officers, the lower castes/classes were
also deploying the same categories to steer clear of trouble.
FEBRUARY 10, 2018 vol lIiI no 6 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

Therefore, “criminals” were not just a category for the higher
castes, it held true for the lower castes themselves, even
though this is ignored by the bhadralok. This is observable in
Emperor v Sashi Tanti (1935), with Tanti labelled under the CTA
of 1871 as a “criminal.” Three witnesses, two of them high-caste
Brahmins, Ramgopal Chatterjee, the sub-inspector at Mahi-
sadal police station, and Radhika Ranjan Bannerjee, were
knowledgeable as to his status: a registered member under the
act, and therefore he had to be a confirmed “criminal.” His
crime was compounded as he had not reported in the thana on
the night a pair of bullocks belonging to one bepari (business-
man) had been stolen, and doubtless he was the most obvious
thief. Shaikh Sashi Tanti was already in jail, serving out a
sentence of imprisonment after being convicted in case no 329
u/s 429/380 IPC on 23 December 1937, and he was therefore to
be issued “a requisition to secure his attendance in this court on
27 January 1938.” During the framing of the charge, D C Dhar’s
bias against registered members under the CTA was obvious:
That you, being a registered member of the CTA, remained absent
from your residence at Keshabpur, P S Mahisadal, on 10 October 1937
at night without taking permission from the local police, and that you,
on 21 Feburary 1935 had been convicted and sentenced with RI for
two and a half months u/s 22(2)(b) CTA by Mr G A Norsata SDO [sub-
divisional officer], Tamluk and thereby committed an offence punish-
able u/s 22(2) (b) CTA and within my cognisance.
The inevitable conviction followed. Tanti appealed against
the order of Babu D C Dhar (appeal no 41 of 1938), but the ap-
peal was dismissed.
But the evidence of a Mahis̩ hya cultivator (a fairly low
caste), Madhav Maity, of the village Kandalha revealed another
dimension to Tanti’s identity, who lived in a different village
Keshabpur. This implied that Tanti was known to the other
Mahis̩hya cultivators, and perhaps to the community generally
as well, by his bad reputation. Tanti was a dagi (branded), and
as such, was feared by Mahesh Maity. Thus, though he witnessed
Tanti committing a crime, he did not question Tanti at that
point: “I did not dare. I am not watched by the police as a ‘dagi.’”
Therefore, among the lower castes themselves, there proba-
bly existed, created by the police by marking certain people in
the communities as dagis, a separate category altogether. This
category the lower castes shunned, as objects of fear, as they
treaded the borderline between suspicion and similar reputa-
tion themselves. This process of communities reacting to the
pressure of criminalisation from their ranks forms an impor-
tant consequence of the technologies of government that colo-
nial rule put into place.
Conclusions
The question that is intriguing for the historian is the degree of
interaction between the indigenous officials from some lower
castes, and the village communities themselves, for the identi-
fication of criminality and criminals. The four trial cases in
this article show that at the lower depths, where the village
communities manifested their daily rhythm of lived life, the
categories of the indices of petty criminality generated by the
colonial state had penetrated into their mental parameters.
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We have seen that “local knowledge” isolated the “criminal.”
In that case, what face of the colonial government did the lower-
caste village communities perceive at this level? How real was
the white European official to them? Yet, the technologies of
governance, which had systematically deprived ordinary peo-
ple from the right to carry weapons and had also made illegal
the premodern nexus between the local landlord and his
“men” from the low-caste communities, had surely changed
the way in which these village communities perceived power,
authority and justice. The “white” official might not be pre-
sent, but the state structures and the institutions that the colo-
nial rule had put in place, especially the source of authority,
which made each and every case valid in the remotest village,
was that of the “Emperor.” The colonial state had turned into a
ubiquitous presence with its modern state apparatus and mod-
ern technologies of governance.
One wonders, however, if the village communities cranking
the state apparatus were aware of the shift in the logic of govern-
ance. The local villagers seemed to straddle the world of caste
and community networks to bring pressure on the “thieves,”
while the police and the law were used to nail them. Moreover,
the national movement through the 1930s and 1940s had
transformed the colonial state into “our” government. Political
elections and political parties in these fairly representative
Bengal villages deployed nationalist and anti-colonial rhetoric,
typically reflected in the nomenclature “Tamralipti Jatiya
Sarkar.” When elections took place in postcolonial India, the
anti-colonial sloganeering gave way to ballot battles. Inevitably,
what the colonial state had partially phased out, that is the “il-
legality” of the local power making use of the local muscle,
made a reappearance, riding piggyback on the electoral process
and the vote and the apparatus of the modern nation state.
The late 1930s reveal the possibilities of the manner in which
ordinary people expected “justice,” the delivery of it by the
state, and their own location and empowerment within the
grids of power. At the same time, the state, working through
indigenous upper-class/caste officialdom, conveys a sense of
routinised legitimacy for the “community,” a routine that the
Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar had appropriated for itself. One can
sense that it can function on an even keel when the village com-
munities have been separated from arms, local malcontents
have been isolated, and caste identities are not consolidating
lines of solidarity across regional and linguistic divides, while
the aspirants to legal redress are individuated villagers. How-
ever, implicit in these limited parameters of effective function-
ing are also visible the fault lines that will hamstring the state
even at the level of the village. Thus, strong vested local inter-
ests will identify regional or even national political parties, and
latch onto its protective shell, while reconfiguring the nexus
between local malcontents and local muscle, which will render
the colonial control structure, operating on the assumption of
disarmed populations at the level of the village, ineffectual.
Against this future inevitability, visible in contemporary de-
velopments, these petty cases of 1938 seem to affirm a state
that was largely fictive. Its weak logic of rhetorically repre-
senting “justice” seemed the source of its legitimacy at the
51
SPECIAL ARTICLE
base of the “social” which functioned on the logic of a
disarmed population that functioned through colonial cate-
gories. The moment these categories of docketing and con-
trolling large sections of the population were replaced by
the electoral process bringing back the premodern nexus
of local power hubs with their private armies, the colonial
Notes
1 Gandhi might be partially exempt from this
charge.
2 No information on who was conducting court
proceedings in the Khudiram Dhobi case is avail-
able as many pages are missing from the records.
3 Rabindranath Tagore, Rabindra Rachanabali,
Vol 7, Sulabha Sanskaran on 125 Rabindrajan-
majayanti, 1395 (1402) Visvabharati, Kolkata,
“Char Adhyay:” “I have fallen beyond the last
limit. Our band has robbed a helpless widow of
all her possessions … the old woman was not
10
allowed to live. The money has reached the
place which we call the necessity of the nation
through this very hand. I actually broke my fast
with that money.” This shows that “political
crimes” were seen as personal sacrifices (pos-
sibly of dearly held moral norms) by the nation-
alists, and therefore signified a huge national-
ist effort, which Atindra, the protagonist, in this
quote had identified as loot and robbery (p 417). 11
4 Here Balibar (2008) uses Pascal’s notion of
power (Pensees 1528 AD) to construct the
“weak” and “strong” positions of justice. 12
5 Deposition of Prosecution Witness 1: for stand-
ardisation, wherever there are two parts of a
name, Hari Charan and Yudhistir Charan in
this instance, have been clubbed together as
Haricharan and Yudhistircharan.
6 Emperor v Amar Majhi (1938).
7 The previous conviction was also mentioned
on the file cover along with the details of Em-
peror v Ramchandra Kar (1938).
8 Emperor v Ramchandra Kar (1938): “Deposition
of PW1, Jagamitranath Maity, s/o late Chaitanya
Charan Maity, caste Mahisya, Home Mauza
Kalisab (also spelt Kolsar), P S Mahisadal, dis-
trict Midnapur, Residence Kolsar. On 20th
Magh Thursday Krishto Maity told him of the
theft. In the Record of the examination of the
Accused, D C Dhar, the magistrate substituted
Anno Domini 2 February 1938 instead of the
Bangiya Satapdi. The Deposition of PW1, aged
about 38 years, In the court of D C Dhar, magis-
trate, first class of Tamluk, district Midnapur,
Jagmitranath Maity, father’s name, Late Chait-
anya Charan Maity. By caste Mahisya. Home 13
mauza Kalisab, P S Mahisadal, district Mid-
napur, reside at present in Mauza Kalisab …
where I am a daffadar of No 4—P S Mahisadal,
I live at Kolsar … Basudevpur is side by side
with Kolsar. On a Thursday of 20th Magh in the
morning, Krishno Maity told me that his
chador (warm shawl) had been stolen from the
verandah of his home at Basudevpur, on the
previous day. On Friday next in I had—of ‘Na-
gen’ Das of Kolsar, we found this accused in the
dock under arrest with this chador—Exhibit1.
Nagen had said the accused had bought it from
… he had Kristo Maity came and identified his
chador. Kristo could not go to the thana as he
was ill. I went to P S Mahisadal and lodged this
FIR and on which I signed.”
9 Deposition of PW2: “Krishto Maity, age 52
years, in the court of D C Dhar. I live at Basude-
vpur. On the 15th of Magh last, on a Wednesday 14
during day-time, my chador (shawl) was stolen
from the open verandah of my house (worth
Rs 14) of Basudevpur. On the same day on 3–4
pm this accused in dock came to my house and
smoked tobacco and went away. Immediately
52
governance mechanisms became overloaded and, therefore,
dysfunctional. The court cases here indicate the rigid param-
eters within which the colonial state was successful. The
small expectations of the communities ensured that the legit-
imacy of the colonial state was not challenged at the level of
the mundane everyday.
after I wanted my chador … and found my
chador missing. I suspected the accused and I
searched for him but he was not found. I related
the incident to daffadar Jogender the next
morning. In search of certain information on Fri-
day, I went to the house of ‘Nagen’ Das of Kalsor
and saw the accused in dock under arrest with
my chador (Exhibit 1). ‘Nagen’ Das had said he
had received it from a beggar woman called
‘Kanthi’ with whom the accused had had rela-
tions. Kanthi is an invalid owing to her beggary. I
could not go to the thana because of my illness.”
Deposition of PW3: “Nagendranath Das, son of
late Madhusudan Das, by caste Baishnav, age
about 44 years, in the court of D C Dhar, magis-
trate first class of Tamluk, district Midnapur,
home at Mauza Kolsar, resident and village,
police station Mahisadal district Midnapur, Re-
side at present in Mauza Kolsar, P S do, district
do, where he is a shopkeeper.”
The record of the examination of the accused
by the magistrate shows D C Dhar substituting
Anno Domini 23 January 1938 for 2nd Magh.
The deposition of PW4: “Age about 30 years, In
the court of D C Dhar, magistrate first class of
Tamluk, district Midnapur, Rajni Kanta Moitra,
S/o [son of] late Nilkantha Mishra, by caste
Brahmin, home at mauza Uttar Rastari, Resi-
dent and village, P S Mahisadal district Mid-
napore, reside at present in Mauza … where he
is a Brahmin: “I live at Uttar Rastari, P S Ma-
hisadal, on the 2nd of Magh on a Sunday, there
was a theft of Salgram with three gold tops,
Shiva-linga, Kosha, jhaapi, brass thali—worth
about Rs 8 from my thakurghar at Uttar Ras-
tari. The paddock of the door was broken. Next
morning I came to know of it. I related the inci-
dence to PW3. … On 22nd Magh, on receipt of
certain information, I went to the shop of ‘Nagen’
Das and I found my things. Ex[hibit]s ii–vi,
which had been stolen along and I also brought
the salgram, exhibit VI. Rajani Mishra was
called and he identified Exhibits II–VI as belong-
ing to him and which had been stolen. The SI
came to the village to investigate the case of
the theft of the chador, when I produced all
those things, and prepared a list of these things.”
Deposition of PW5: “Age about 50 years, in the
court of D C Dhar, magistrate first class of Tam-
luk, district Midnapur, S/o late Monimohan
Bannerjee, by caste Brahmin, home at mauza
Panchga, resident and village, P S Thugibari,
district Dacca (Dhaka), reside at present in
Mauza Mahisadal, police station Thugibari … I
am the second sub inspector P S Mahisadal. I
recorded the FIRs 1 and 2, Exhibit 1 was pro-
duced by the daffadar—PW1 of the time of
lodging of exhibit 1, the accused in dock was
also produced. I came to investigate the case,
when ex[hibit]s II–VI were produced before me
by Nagendranath Das I—in the presence of
witnesses, 6.2.38, Rajani Misra came to the P S
and lodged the FIR Exhibit 2. After inve-
stigation I submitted charge sheets in both the
cases. On 9.38 I saw the open paddock of the
thakur ghar of Rajani Kanta Mishra.”
“Q[uestion]: On the night of 2 February 1938,
did you or did you not steal from the verandah
of Kristo Maity his shawl? Ans: Yes respected
sir. Q: On the night of 23 January 1938 did you
or did you not steal from the Thakurghar of
Rajani Mishra all these things? Ans: Yes, I took
FEBRUARY 10, 2018
them. Q: How did you get into the thakurghar?
Ans: I broke the lock and entered (signed Ram-
chandra Kar).”
15 Khudiram Dhobi v Emperor (1938): “Accused
Khudiram Dhobi, s/o Late Gobinda Dhobi,
Kamarpur, P S Mahisadal, district Midnapur.
The offence complained of, and date of its alle-
ged commission: Theft of a she-goat worth Rs 2/
from the cow shed of PW1 Pramathanath Staih
on 2 February 1938, u/s 380 IPC and section
342 CrPC. The accused pleads guilty, stating ‘I
have forcibly got the goat from said cow-shed. I
had lent it for adoption. As he did not return
(it) I got it myself.’ ”
References
Balibar, Étienne (2008): Justice and Equality: A Po-
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