The East India Company’s Conquest of Assam, India, and “Community” Justice: Panchayats/Mels in Translation

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-377
Author(s):  
Amrita SHODHAN

AbstractThe East India Company troops fighting the Burmese aggression on the frontier of Bengal in Eastern India “freed” upper and lower Assam territories in 1825. David Scott of the Bengal Service was appointed to oversee the establishment of civil and revenue administration in these frontier territories. He established a hierarchical multiple structure of “native courts”—called panchayats—as the chief medium of civil and criminal justice. This was ostensibly continuing a traditional Assamese form of dispute resolution—the mel; however, the British criminal jury as well as the expert assessor model animated the system. After his death in 1831, the system was brought in line with the rest of the Bengal administration based on the British court system. His experiment, paralleled in many other newly conquered and ceded districts from the Madras territories to Central India, suggests the use of this mode in post-conquest situations by British administrators in South Asia.

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-244
Author(s):  
Andrea Major

AbstractThis article explores the nature and limitations of humanitarian political economy by discussing metropolitan British responses to a major famine that took place in the Agra region of north-central India in 1837–38. This disaster played a significant role in catalyzing wider debates about the impact of East India Company governance and the place of the subcontinent within the post-emancipation British Empire. By comparing the responses of organization such as the Aborigines Protection Society and British India Society to that of proponents of the newly emergent indenture system, the paper seeks to contextualize responses to the famine in terms both of longer histories of famine in South Asia and of the specific imperial circumstances of the late 1830s. In doing so, it explores how ideas of agricultural distress in India fed into competing strategies to utilize Indian labor in the service of colonial commodity production both within India and around the empire.


2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 872-910 ◽  
Author(s):  
HAYDEN BELLENOIT

AbstractThis paper argues that our understanding of the transition to colonialism in South Asia can be enriched by examining the formation of revenue collection systems in north India between 1750 and 1850. It examines agrarian revenue systems not through the prism of legalism or landholding patterns, but by looking at the paper and record-based mechanisms by which wealth was actually extracted from India's hinterlands. It also examines the Kayastha pensmen who became an exponentially significant component of an Indo-Muslim revenue administration. They assisted the extension of Mughal revenue collection capabilities as qanungos (registrars) and patwaris (accountants). The intensity of revenue assessment, extraction and collection had increased by the mid 1700s, through the extension of cultivation and assessment by regional Indian kingdoms. The East India Company, in its agrarian revenue settlements in north India, utilized this extant revenue culture to push through savage revenue demands. These Kayastha pensmen thus furnished the ‘young’ Company with the crucial skills, physical records, and legitimacy to garner the agrarian wealth which would fund Britain's Indian empire. These more regular patterns of paper-oriented administration engendered a process of ‘bureaucratization’ and the emergence of the modern colonial state.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
DU FEI

Abstract This article examines the entanglement of administration, education, and law in North India under early British rule. While there exists extensive discussion on each of these three themes, historians have not paid enough attention to the processes in which, by the mid-nineteenth century, the official minds of the East India Company gradually came to imagine its revenue administration in North India at the institutional intersection of state bureaucracy, village schools, and the law courts. I will argue in this article that through this intersection of knowledge/law-making, the Company wished to foster an ‘enlightened’ but simultaneously obedient subjecthood among the Indian rural population. The contested relationship between the state, the local Indian officials, and the villagers in general, however, thwarted this patronizing ambition.


Author(s):  
Abdul-Nasser H.R. Hikmany ◽  
Umar A. Oseni

Purpose This paper aims to examine the prospects of a dispute resolution framework for the Islamic banking industry in Tanzania under the existing legal framework. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on comparative study by drawing significant lessons from other jurisdictions, and argues that to avoid some of the initial drawbacks in the dispute resolution framework for Islamic banking transactions in more advanced jurisdictions like Malaysia and United Kingdom, it is important for Tanzania to get it right from the onset to effectively manage Islamic banking disputes. Findings The study finds that apart from the court system which provides the main avenue for Islamic finance litigation, other processes such as arbitration and mediation which are deemed to be more sustainable could also be developed for effective dispute management. Research limitations/implications The study focuses on Tanzania banking system with comparison to other jurisdictions. Practical implications An increase of Sharī’ah-compliant products in Tanzania has led to the establishment of a number of Islamic banks. This study demonstrates the need for Tanzania to make use and/or make adjustment of its laws for effective dispute settlement of banking-related disputes. Originality/value This study appears to be the first paper to draw significant experiences from other jurisdictions to resolve Islamic banking disputes in Tanzania. It is expected to provide a good policy framework for the stakeholders in the Islamic banking industry in Tanzania.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-258
Author(s):  
Hassan Vahedi ◽  
Abdolvahid Zahedi ◽  
Firooz Mahmoudi Janaki

The Dispute Resolution Council was established as a public institution in the last few decades to reduce the number of cases sent to the judiciary in Iran and strengthen public participation and increase the role of the people in criminal justice policy. Although the activities of this institution in recent years have led to a decrease in the number of cases sent to judicial institutions, but its public aspect was not fulfilled as intended. In addition, the law of this council has many contradictions with the constitution with limitations and problems in the legal and structural field that have affected its functions. However, the role of the people is significant in similar institutions in the legal system of the Common Law and France, while strengthening the participatory aspect. This issue has been an effective measure in strengthening participatory criminal policy in these countries. The purpose of this research was to investigate the criminal policy of the Dispute Resolution Council and similar institutions in France.Keywords: Dispute Resolution Council, French Law, Iranian Criminal Justice Policy Evaluasi Peran dan Kedudukan Dewan Penyelesaian Sengketa Dalam Kebijakan Pidana Iran Dibandingkan dengan Institusi Serupa di Peradilan Prancis AbstrakDewan Penyelesaian Sengketa didirikan sebagai lembaga publik dalam beberapa dekade terakhir untuk mengurangi jumlah kasus yang dikirim ke peradilan di Iran dan memperkuat partisipasi publik dan meningkatkan peran masyarakat dalam kebijakan peradilan pidana. Meskipun kegiatan lembaga ini dalam beberapa tahun terakhir telah menyebabkan penurunan jumlah kasus yang dikirim ke lembaga peradilan, tetapi aspek publiknya tidak terpenuhi sebagaimana dimaksud. Selain itu, undang-undang dewan ini memiliki banyak kontradiksi dengan konstitusi dengan keterbatasan dan masalah di bidang hukum dan struktural yang mempengaruhi fungsinya. Namun, peran masyarakat cukup signifikan dalam lembaga sejenis dalam sistem hukum Common Law dan Perancis, sekaligus memperkuat aspek partisipatif. Isu ini telah menjadi langkah yang efektif dalam memperkuat kebijakan kriminal partisipatif di negara-negara tersebut. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui kebijakan kriminal dari Dispute Resolution Council dan lembaga sejenis di Perancis.Kata Kunci: Dewan Penyelesaian Sengketa, Hukum Prancis, Kebijakan Peradilan Pidana Iran Оценка роли и позиции советов по решению спорных вопросов В уголовной политике ирана по сравнению с аналогичными учреждениями во французской судебной системе  АннотацияСовет по решению спорных вопросов был создан как государственное учреждение в последние десятилетия для сокращения количества дел, передаваемых в судебные органы в Иране, и расширения участия общественности и повышения роли общественности в политике уголовного правосудия. Хотя деятельность этого учреждения в последние годы привела к уменьшению количества дел, направляемых в судебные органы, общественный аспект не выполняется должным образом. Кроме того, закон этого совета имеет много противоречий с конституцией с ограничениями и проблемами в правовой и структурной областях, которые влияют на его функционирование. Тем не менее, роль сообщества весьма значительна в аналогичных учреждениях в системе общего права и правовой системы Франции, а также в усилении аспекта участия. Этот вопрос стал эффективным шагом в укреплении совместной уголовной политики в этих странах. Целью данного исследования является определение уголовной политики Совета по разрешению спорных вопросов и аналогичных учреждений во Франции.Ключевые Слова: Совет по решению спорных вопросов, Французское право, политика в области уголовного правосудия в Иране 


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orna Rabinovich-Einy

Abstract This article chronicles the evolution of the field of online dispute resolution from its inception in the mid-1990s to its current application in and outside the court system. While originally ODR played a modest role in the limited domain of e-commerce, over the years its application has expanded significantly, as have its form and function: from processes that have sought to replicate online equivalents to ones that reimagine the design of procedures to better fit party needs and to address the justice system’s longstanding problems. The article predicts that the future of ODR lies in increased automation, which includes artificial intelligence and various forms of structured negotiation, and, consequently, a reduced role for human third parties. This will require a rethinking of the ways in which access to justice, procedural justice and substantive justice can be realized. The key for realizing the values and goals of the justice system lies in the careful design and ongoing evaluation of online systems, activities that have themselves been transformed by technology and the availability of big data.


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