The arbiter state : governance of the minority at the micro-level

This thesis examines the governance of the minority at the micro-level in late colonial India. While the colonial production of micro-level state authority was inescapably conditioned by numerous political struggles between colonial subjects, the centrality of the minority in this story of state formation and citizen making is missing from most conventional descriptions of colonial governmental rationality. This study argues that the specifically colonial formulation of the minority as a figure to be both protected and inserted on to the path to modern citizenship shaped the regulation of customary modes of charity and inheritance as well as the regulation of local government power itself. Indeed, the dual commitment to protecting and modernizing of the minority constituted the micro-level state as arbiter: absolute in its judgment in cases of conflict between subjects, even though this authority was predicated on the principles of non-interference and deliberation.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Banerji, Shiben

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Balakrishnan Rajagopal.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37463

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37463