Law and justice in colonial Madras, Pondicherry and Tranquebar, 16421857

This book probes into the administration of law and justice in the Portuguese and Dutch settlements on the Tamil coast. It attempts into the estab­lishment and functioning of the Mayor’s Court in the English settlement at Madras in 1688, its reformulation in 1726, the panchayat courts of rural areas, the kachcheri court in the city of Madras (1734-1835), the Recorders’ Court, the Supreme Court and the Military Court in Madras (1797-1857). It also situates the Court of Wards set up by the British for controlling the activities of Zamindars in Tamil country (1804-1857). The author highlights how the European judges came into contact and conflict with Tamil legal principles which upheld customary laws and caste. The study reveals how colonial courts remained unsympathetic to Eurasians like taupases, mesticos, the Indo-Britons communities of rootless and racially mixed on the Tamil coast which came to face legal dilemmas about their identity since they had not been subjected to any existing laws different from those governing native Tamils and Europeans. The volume widens the canvas of the native Choultry Court that functioned in the French colony of Pondicherry (1687-1793) besides the Black Court and the judicial system under the Danes in colonial Tranquebar (1744-1845). The study depicts how the colonial powers under their rubric developed the quest to enact a universal body of law chiefly promoting their own selfish and vested interests and the judiciary failed to act according to justice, equity and good conscience.