Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T11:10:34.120Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gender, Family, and the Policing of the ‘Criminal Tribes’ in Nineteenth-Century North India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2020

JESSICA HINCHY Open the ORCID record for JESSICA HINCHY [Opens in a new window]
JESSICA HINCHY*
Affiliation:
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Email: jhinchy@ntu.edu.sg
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the South Asian setting, the fields of gender history and family history are still predominantly concerned with relatively elite social groups. Few studies have examined issues of gender and the family in the history of Dalit, low-caste, and socially marginalized communities, especially those that were labelled ‘criminal tribes’ from the mid-nineteenth century on. This article explores the ways in which gender patterned criminalized communities’ experiences of everyday colonial governance under Part I of the 1871 Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) in the first two decades that it was enforced in northern India. In this early period, the colonial government did not closely regulate marriage practices, domestic arrangements, or the gendered organization of labour within communities categorized as ‘criminal tribes’. Nevertheless, notions of sexuality and gender underlay colonial knowledge of the ‘criminal tribes’, which emerged in dialogue with middle-class Indian gender and caste politics. Moreover, the family unit was the central target of the CTA surveillance and policing regime, which aimed to produce ‘industrious’ families. Officially endorsed forms of labour had complex implications for criminalized communities in the context of North Indian gender norms and strategies of social mobility. Gender power dynamics also shaped criminalized peoples’ interpersonal, embodied interactions with British and Indian colonial officials on an everyday basis. Meanwhile, different forms of leverage and evasion were open to men and women to cope with their criminalization and so the colonial state was experienced in highly gendered ways.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 5 , September 2020 , pp. 1669 - 1711
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Mani, Lata, Contentious traditions: the debate on sati in colonial India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Major, Andrea, Sovereignty and social reform in India: British colonialism and the campaign against sati (London: Routledge, 2011)Google Scholar; Kasturi, Malavika, ‘Law and crime in India: British policy and the Female Infanticide Act of 1870’, Indian Journal of Gender Studies 1, no. 2, pp. 169–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sen, Satadru, ‘The savage family: colonialism and female infanticide in nineteenth century India’, Journal of Women's History 14, no. 3, 2002, pp. 53–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anagol, Padma, ‘The emergence of the female criminal in India: infanticide and survival under the Raj’, History Workshop Journal 53, no. 1, 2002, pp. 73–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Oldenburg, Veena Talwar, Dowry murder: the imperial origins of a cultural crime (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Anagol-McGinn, Padma, ‘The Age of Consent Act (1891) reconsidered: women's perspectives and participation in the child-marriage controversy in India’, South Asia Research 12, no. 2, 1992, pp. 100–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sarkar, Tanika, ‘Rhetoric against the age of consent: resisting colonial reason and the death of a child-wife’, Economic and Political Weekly 28, no. 36, 1993, pp. 1869–78Google Scholar; Pande, Ishita, ‘Coming of age: law, sex and childhood in late colonial India’, Gender and History 24, no. 1, 2012, pp. 205–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Part II targeted ‘eunuchs’, primarily Hijras (see below). Act No. XXVII of 1871, in British Library (BL)/India Office Records (IOR)/V/8/42.

3 The NWP was later known as the United Provinces and also incorporated present-day Uttarakhand.

4 ‘Rules under section 18 of the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871’, in National Archives of India (NAI)/HD/JB/01/1874/119-21.

5 On the ‘everyday colonial state’: Saha, Jonathan, Law, disorder and the colonial state: corruption in Burma c.1900 (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Comaroff, John L., ‘Colonialism, culture, and the law: a foreword’, Law and Social Inquiry 26, no. 2, 2001, pp. 305–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am also drawing on anthropology of the state literature: Fuller, C. J. and Harriss, John, ‘For an anthropology of the modern Indian state’, in The everyday state and society in modern India, (eds) Fuller, C. J. and Bénéï, Véronique (London: Hurst and Company, 2001), pp. 1–30Google Scholar; Gupta, Akhil, ‘Blurred boundaries: the discourse of corruption, the culture of politics, and the imagined state’, American Ethnologist 22, no. 2, 1995, pp. 375–402CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Aretxaga, Begona, ‘Maddening states’, Annual Review of Anthropology 32, 2003, pp. 393–410CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 For example, Walsh, Judith E., Domesticity in colonial India: what women learned when men gave them advice (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004)Google Scholar; Gupta, Charu, Sexuality, obscenity, community: women, Muslims, and the Hindu public in colonial India (New York: Palgrave, 2002)Google Scholar; Sreenivas, Mytheli, Wives, widows, and concubines: the conjugal family ideal in colonial India (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Banerjee, Swapna M., Men, women and domestics: articulating middle-class identity in colonial Bengal (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004)Google Scholar; Malhotra, Anshu, Gender, caste and religious identities: restructuring class in colonial Punjab (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Sarkar, Tanika, Hindu wife, Hindu nation: community, religion and cultural nationalism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Lal, Ruby, Coming of age in nineteenth-century India: the girl-child and the art of playfulness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

7 Soneji, Davesh, Unfinished gestures: Devadasis, memory, and modernity in South India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Parker, Kunal M., ‘“A corporation of superior prostitutes”: Anglo-Indian legal conceptions of temple dancing girls, 1800–1914’, Modern Asian Studies 32, no. 3, 1998, pp. 599–633CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Oldenburg, Veena Talwar, ‘Lifestyle as resistance: the case of the courtesans of Lucknow’, in Contesting power: resistance and everyday social relations in South Asia, (eds) Haynes, Douglas and Prakash, Gyan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 23–61Google Scholar; Tambe, Ashwini, Codes of misconduct: regulating prostitution in late colonial Bombay (New Delhi: Zubaan, 2009)Google Scholar; Levine, Philippa, Prostitution, race, and politics: policing venereal disease in the British empire (New York: Routledge, 2003)Google Scholar. On slave women of varying social status: Chatterjee, Indrani, Gender, slavery and law in colonial India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Sreenivasan, Ramya, ‘Drudges, dancing girls, concubines: female slaves in Rajput polity, 1500–1850’, in Slavery and South Asian history, (eds) Chatterjee, Indrani and Eaton, Richard M. (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2006), pp. 136–61Google Scholar.

8 Gupta, Charu, The gender of caste: representing Dalits in print (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016)Google Scholar; Gupta, Charu, ‘Feminine, criminal or manly?: imagining Dalit masculinities in colonial North India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 47, no. 3, 2010, pp. 309–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There is also some historical discussion in Rao, Anupama (ed.), Gender and caste (London: Zed Books, 2005 [2003])Google Scholar.

9 Nigam, Sanjay, ‘Disciplining and policing the “criminals by birth”, part 1: the making of a colonial stereotype—the criminal tribes and castes of North India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 27, no. 2, 1990, pp. 131–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nigam, Sanjay, ‘Disciplining and policing the “criminals by birth”, part 2: the development of a disciplinary system, 1871–1900’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 27, no. 3, 1990, pp. 257–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Major, Andrew J., ‘State and criminal tribes in colonial Punjab: surveillance, control and the reclamation of the “dangerous classes”’, Modern Asian Studies 33, no. 3, 1999, pp. 657–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gordon, Stewart N., ‘Bhils and the idea of a criminal tribe in nineteenth-century India’, in Crime and criminality in British India, (ed.) Yang, Anand A. (Tuscon, Arizona: The University of Arizona Press, 1985), pp. 128–39Google Scholar; Anand A. Yang, ‘Dangerous castes and tribes: the Criminal Tribes Act and the Magahiya Doms of Northeast India’, in Crime and criminality, (ed.) Yang, pp. 108–27; Freitag, Sandria B., ‘Crime in the social order of colonial North India’, Modern Asian Studies 25, no. 2, 1991, pp. 227–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schwarz, Henry, Constructing the criminal tribe in India: acting like a thief (Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brown, Mark, ‘Crime, liberalism and empire: governing the Mina tribe of northern India’, Social and Legal Studies 13, no. 2, 2004, pp. 191–218CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brown, Mark, Penal power and colonial rule (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Bajrange, Dakxinkumar, Gandee, Sarah and Gould, William, ‘Settling the citizen, settling the nomad: “habitual offenders”, rebellion, and civic consciousness in western India, 1938–1952’, Modern Asian Studies 54, no. 2, 2020, pp. 337–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Piliavsky, Anastasia, ‘The Moghia menace, or the watch over watchmen in British India’, Modern Asian Studies 47, no. 3, 2013, pp. 751–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Tolen, Rachel J., ‘Colonizing and transforming the criminal tribesman: the Salvation Army in British India’, American Ethnologist 18, no. 1, 1991, pp. 106–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Radhakrishna, Meena, Dishonoured by history: ‘criminal tribes’ and British colonial policy (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2001), pp. 13, 60–3, 81–2Google Scholar; Pandian, Anand, Crooked stalks: cultivating virtue in South India (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2009), pp. 37–48, 55–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Anderson, Clare, ‘Writing indigenous women's lives in the Bay of Bengal: cultures of empire in the Andaman Islands, 1789–1906’, Journal of Social History 45, no. 2, 2011, pp. 480–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anderson, Clare, ‘Gender, subalternity and silence: recovering women's experiences from histories of transportation’, in Behind the veil: resistance, women and the everyday in colonial South Asia, (ed.) Ghosh, Anindita (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 145–66Google Scholar; Anderson, Clare, Subaltern lives: biographies of colonialism in the Indian Ocean world, 1790–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anderson, Clare, Legible bodies: race, criminality and colonialism in South Asia (Oxford: Berg, 2004)Google Scholar; Sen, Satadru, ‘Rationing sex: female convicts in the Andamans’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 21, no. 2, 1998, pp. 29–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sen, Satadru, ‘The female jails of colonial India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 39, no. 4, 2002, pp. 417–38CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Vaidik, Aparna, ‘Settling the convict: matrimony and domesticity in the Andamans’, Studies in History 22, no. 2, 2006, pp. 221–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 I have adapted Joan Scott's definition. Scott, Joan Wallach, Gender and the politics of history (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 42–6Google Scholar.

15 For Urdu and Hindu newspapers, I have used Government of India, Selections from the Vernacular Newspapers Published in the Punjab, North-Western Provinces, Oudh and the Central Provinces (1868–1875) (henceforth, Selections), from BL/IOR/L/R/5/45-102.

16 Nembhard to Assistant Resident, Hyderabad, 2 May 1870, in NAI/HD/JB/10/09/1870/9.

17 Major, ‘State and criminal tribes’, pp. 661–3.

18 Gordon, ‘Bhils’, p. 139.

19 Piliavsky, Anastasia, ‘The “criminal tribe” in India before the British’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 57, no. 2, 2015, pp. 323–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Major, ‘State and criminal tribes’, pp. 666–9.

21 G. Palmer, ‘Note on the tribe of Delhiwal Bowreeahs’, 28 March 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/07/1872/97.

22 Act No. XXVII, in BL/IOR/V/8/42.

23 For example, F. C. Daukes to Secretary, NWP, 17 April 1878, in NAI/HD/JB/04/1878/64-66.

24 Bajrange, Gandee and Gould, ‘Settling the citizen’.

25 Sutherland, ‘List of a gang of Sunorias’, 24 July 1867, in NAI/HD/Police/09/1867/16; Sutherland to Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Central Provinces (CP), 24 July 1867, in NAI/HD/Police/09/1867/16.

26 C. C. Hicks, ‘Past and present history of Sunoriahs’, 22 May 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/03/1873/153-4.

27 Extract from P. Harris to G. A. Bushby, 31 January 1851, in NAI/HD/Police/09/1867/16; Crooke, William, Castes and tribes of the North Western Provinces and Oudh, four vols (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Print, 1896), Vol. 4, p. 271Google Scholar.

28 Ibrahim Beg, petition to District Superintendent of Police (DSIP), Sagar, 12 October 1865, in NAI/HD/Police/09/1867/16.

29 Piliavsky, ‘Moghia menace’, pp. 754–61.

30 Harris to Bushby, 31 January 1851, in NAI/HD/Police/09/1867/16; Sutherland to IGP, CP, 24 July 1867, in NAI/HD/Police/09/1867/16; Crooke, Castes and tribes, Vol. 4, pp. 271–2; Beg, petition, 12 October 1865, in NAI/HD/Police/09/1867/16.

31 Sutherland to IGP, CP, 24 July 1867, in NAI/HD/Police/09/1867/16.

32 Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, ‘List of Scheduled Castes’, published online 26 October 2017, available at http://socialjustice.nic.in/UserView/index?mid=76750 [accessed 9 December 2019].

33 On ‘occupational stereotypes’: Rawat, Ramnarayan S., Reconsidering Untouchability: Chamars and Dalit history in North India (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), pp. 5–12Google Scholar.

34 DSIP, Muzaffarnagar, to IGP, NWP, 19 January 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/07/1872/97; Palmer, ‘Note’, 28 March 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/07/1872/97; M. H. Court, Memorandum, 22 February 1865, in NAI/HD/JB/07/1872/97; Watson, J. Forbes and Kaye, John William (eds), The people of India: a series of photographic illustrations … of the races and tribes of Hindustan, Vol. 4 (London: India Museum, 1869), pp. 89–91Google Scholar; Wilson, J., Final report on the revision of the settlement of Sirsa district 1879–83 (Calcutta: Calcutta Central Press Company, 1884), pp. 20, 110–1, 184Google Scholar; Crooke, Castes and tribes, Vol. 1, p. 234.

35 Sherring, M. A., Hindu tribes and castes, as represented in Benares (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co., 1872), pp. 385–6Google Scholar.

36 Wilson, Final report, pp. 110–1, 184.

37 R. T. Hobart, annual report on Part I of the CTA (henceforth ‘annual report’), 1 July 1875, in BL/IOR/P/839/A/Jul/2; Crooke, Castes and tribes, Vol. 1, p. 236.

38 Sen, Samita, Women and labour in late colonial India: the Bengal jute industry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 54–89Google Scholar.

39 R. T. Hobart to R. M. Edwards, 25 September 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/08/1873/61; Crooke, Castes and tribes, Vol. 1, pp. 40–1.

40 Crooke, Castes and tribes, Vol. 1, p. 47.

41 Hobart to Edwards, 25 September 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/08/1873/61; L. H. G. Thomas, ‘List of villages’, 20 September 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/08/1873/61.

42 Pandian, Anand S., ‘Predatory care: the imperial hunt in Mughal and British India’, Journal of Historical Sociology 14, no. 1, 2001, pp. 83–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Rashkow, Ezra D., ‘Making subaltern shikaris: histories of the hunted in colonial central India’, South Asian History and Culture 5, no. 3, 2014, p. 296CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 Crooke, Castes and tribes, Vol. 2, p. 478; Sherring, Hindu tribes, p. 385.

45 Parker to IGP, NWP, 15 June 1877, in NAI/HD/JB/04/1878/64-66.

46 On agrarianization: Gilmartin, David, ‘Migration and modernity: the state, the Punjabi village, and the settling of the canal colonies’, in People on the move: Punjabi colonial, and post-colonial migration, (eds) Talbot, Ian and Thandi, Shinder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 3–20Google Scholar.

47 Skaria, Ajay, Hybrid histories: forests, frontiers and wildness in western India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 65–8Google Scholar.

48 Rashkow, ‘Making subaltern shikaris’, p. 306.

49 Crooke, Castes and tribes, Vol. 2, p. 473.

50 For example, Sinha, Nitin, ‘Mobility, control and criminality in early colonial India, 1760s–1850s’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 45, no. 1, 2008, pp. 1–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kothiyal, Tanuja, Nomadic narratives: a history of mobility and identity in the great Indian desert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 14–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Radhakrishna, Dishonoured by history, pp. 9–12; Bhattacharya, Neeladri, ‘Pastoralists in a colonial world’, in Nature, culture, imperialism: essays on the environmental history of South Asia, (eds) Arnold, David and Guha, Ramachandra (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 67–85Google Scholar.

51 Parker to IGP, NWP, 15 June 1877, in NAI/HD/JB/04/1878/64–66. See also G. Lang to Commissioner, Meerut, 14 December 1877, in NAI/HD/JB/04/1878/64-66.

52 Hobart to Edwards, 25 September 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/08/1873/61.

53 Crooke, Castes and tribes, Vol. 2, pp. 478–81.

54 DSIP, Muzaffarnagar, to IGP, NWP, 19 January 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/07/1872/97; Palmer, ‘Note’, 28 March 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/07/1872/97; Court, Memorandum, 22 February 1865, in NAI/HD/JB/07/1872/97; Parker to IGP, NWP, 15 June 1877, in NAI/HD/JB/04/1878/64-66.

55 Piliavsky, ‘Moghia menace’, p. 754.

56 Watson and Kaye (eds), People of India, Vol. 4, pp. 89–91; Wilson, Final report, p. 209.

57 ‘Report of … Operations for the Suppression of Thuggee and Dacoity’ (extract), in NAI/HD/JB/10/12/1870/32.

58 Piliavsky, ‘Moghia menace’, p. 751.

59 For example, Brown, Mark, ‘Ethnology and colonial administration in nineteenth-century British India: the question of native crime and criminality’, The British Journal for the History of Science 36, no. 2, 2003, p. 211CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Part II was only enforced in the NWP.

60 Hijras were the primary target, but Zananas (‘effeminate' men), ritual cross-dressers (for example, Sakhis), and performers were sometimes classified as ‘eunuchs’. In 1908, the NWP agreed to repeal Part II from the new CTA (eventually enacted in 1911) because Hijras were apparently ‘dying out’. This impression was largely due to extensive Hijra evasion of the police. The community fortunately survived in North India. Hinchy, Jessica, Governing gender and sexuality in colonial India: the Hijra, c. 1850–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hinchy, Jessica, ‘The eunuch archive: colonial records of non-normative gender and sexuality in India’, Culture, Theory and Critique 58, no. 2, 2017, pp. 127–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hinchy, Jessica, ‘Obscenity, moral contagion and masculinity: Hijras in public space in colonial North India’, Asian Studies Review 38, no. 2, 2014, pp. 274–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hinchy, Jessica, ‘Troubling bodies: “eunuchs,” masculinity and impotence in colonial North India’, South Asian History and Culture 4, no. 2, 2013, pp. 196–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Crooke, Tribes and castes, Vol. 1, p. 42.

62 Bayly, C. A., Empire and information: intelligence gathering and social communication in India, 1780–1870 (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 167–8, 335–6Google Scholar; Bayly, C. A., ‘Local control in Indian towns—the case of Allahabad 1880–1920’, Modern Asian Studies 5, no. 4, 1971, pp. 289–302CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 Bayly, Empire and information, pp. 352–61.

64 A. O. Hume quoted in Crooke, Tribes and castes, Vol. 2, p. 479.

65 Crooke, Tribes and castes, Vol. 1, p. 44.

66 Sleeman, W. H., A report on the system of Megpunnaism (Srirampur: Serampore Press, 1839)Google Scholar; C. Hervey, ‘General report …’ (extract), 15 September 1863, in NAI/FD/JB/11/1863/9-15; C. Daniell to Commissioner of Agra, 13 January 1870, in BL/IOR/P/92.

67 Parker to IGP, NWP, 15 June 1877, in NAI/HD/JB/04/1878/64-66.

68 E. Tyrwhitt, Report, 17 March 1864, quoted in Palmer, ‘Note’, 28 March 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/07/1872/97.

69 Palmer, ‘Note’, 28 March 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/07/1872/97.

70 Crooke, Tribes and castes, Vol. 1, pp. 233–4.

71 Crooke, Tribes and castes, Vol. 2, p. 475.

72 Parker to IGP, NWP, 15 June 1877, in NAI/HD/JB/04/1878/64-66.

73 Crooke, Tribes and castes, Vol. 1, pp. 234–6.

74 Crooke, Tribes and castes, Vol. 2, p. 478.

75 R. T. Hobart to Secretary, North-Western Provinces and Oudh (NWP&O), 26 March 1888, in BL/IOR/P/3382/A/Aug/1.

76 Parker to IGP, NWP, 15 June 1877, in NAI/HD/JB/04/1878/64-66; Palmer, ‘Note’, 28 March 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/07/1872/97.

77 The notification of this group was delayed because of their small numbers in Aligarh. Parker to IGP, NWP, 15 June 1877, in NAI/HD/JB/04/1878/64-66.

78 Daukes to Secretary, NWP, 17 April 1878, in NAI/HD/JB/04/1878/64-66.

79 Hinchy, Jessica, ‘Deviant domesticities and sexualised childhoods: female prostitutes, eunuchs and the limits of the state child “rescue” mission in colonial India’, in Divine domesticities: Christian paradoxes in Asia and the Pacific, (eds) Choi, Hyaewoel and Jolly, Margaret (Canberra: ANU Press, 2014), pp. 247–79Google Scholar.

80 Hinchy, Governing gender and sexuality.

81 Agyepong, Tera, ‘Aberrant sexualities and racialised masculinisation: race, gender and the criminalisation of African American girls at the Illinois Training School for Girls at Geneva, 1893–1945’, Gender and History 25, no. 2, 2013, pp. 270–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 Mayo Gazette, 20 July 1872, Selections, p. 399; Urdu Akhbar, 1 July 1871, Selections, pp. 347–8.

83 Bayly, Empire and information, p. 173.

84 Oudh Akhbar, 23 February 1872, Selections, p. 132.

85 For example, Nujm-ool Ukbar, 11 March 1868, Selections, pp. 154–5; Julwatoor, 25 July 1869, Selections, pp. 357–8.

86 Joshi, Sanjay, Fractured modernity: making of a middle class in colonial North India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 24–31Google Scholar.

87 Gupta, Gender of caste, pp. 30–43. See also Gupta, Charu, ‘Domestic anxieties, recalcitrant intimacies: representation of servants in Hindi print culture of colonial India’, Studies in History 34, no. 2, 2018, pp. 141–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88 Gupta, Gender of caste, pp. 30–43.

89 Malhotra, Gender, caste and religious identities, pp. 2–3.

90 Sarkar, Hindu wife, Hindu nation, pp. 7–18; Joshi, Fractured modernity, pp. 69–74.

91 Sarkar, Hindu wife, Hindu nation, pp. 4–5, 7–18, 29–43, 69, 82–4.

92 Sen, ‘The savage family’, pp. 54, 71–2. This is a corrective to Chatterjee's argument: Chatterjee, Partha, The nation and its fragments: colonial and postcolonial histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

93 Malhotra, Gender, caste and religious identities, pp. 2–3, 45–6, 49–50, 61–8.

94 Urdu Akhbar, 16 October 1871, Selections, pp. 624–5. See also Lawrence Gazette, 15 September 1871, Selections, pp. 562–3. On bride price, see Oldenburg, Dowry murder; Sen, Women and labour, pp. 85–9.

95 For example, Anjuman-i-Hind, 30 April 1870, Selections, pp. 184–5; Marwar Gazette, 15 January 1872, Selections, pp. 40–1; Marwar Gazette, 5 February 1872, Selections, p. 88. ‘Criminal tribe’ appears in English in the Selections and may be a translation of aparadhi jati (criminal caste) or aparadhi jan-jati (criminal tribe).

96 Singha, Radhika, ‘Punished by surveillance: policing “dangerousness” in colonial India, 1872–1918’, Modern Asian Studies 49, no. 2, 2015, p. 242CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

97 Lawrence Gazette, 23 September 1870, Selections, p. 366; Adebe Hind, 1 February 1868, Selections, p. 127; Dubduba Sekundree, 13 June 1868, Selections, pp. 323–4.

98 Singha, ‘Punished by surveillance’, p. 242.

99 Patiala Akhbar, 19 October 1874, Selections, p. 510.

100 In the Selections, translators used ‘budmash’ or, alternatively, ‘bad character’ or ‘persons of bad livelihood’, which are probably translations of badmash or possibly shohda (rogue or hooligan).

101 For example, Oudh Akhbar, 1 March 1872, Selections, pp. 135–6; Urdu Akhbar, 16 December 1872, Selections, p. 127; Marwar Gazette, 15 January 1872, Selections, pp. 40–1.

102 Lauh-i-Mahfuz, 28 June 1872, Selections, p. 342.

103 On middle-class gender norms in the NWP: Joshi, Fractured modernity, pp. 59–94.

104 C. Robertson to Secretary, Government of India (GI), 23 November 1878, in BL/IOR/P/1138/A/Dec/5.

105 J. R. Reid to IGP, NWP&O, 9 August 1882, in BL/IOR/P/1816/A/Aug/18.

106 J. Smith to Commissioner, Agra, 2 April 1880, in BL/IOR/P/1467/A/Aug/8.

107 Hobart, annual report, 1 July 1875, in BL/IOR/P/839/A/Jul/2; P. C. Dalmahoy, annual report, 21 September 1878, in BL/IOR/P/1138/A/Dec/2.

108 C. A. Elliott to H. L. Dampier, 26 September 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/12/1872/263.

109 Ibid.

110 Anderson, Clare, ‘Sepoys, servants and settlers: convict transportation in the Indian Ocean, 1787–1945’, in Cultures of confinement: a history of the prison in Africa, Asia and Latin America, (eds) Dikotter, Frank and Brown, Ian (London: Hurst and Company, 2007), pp. 198–9Google Scholar; Sen, Satadru, Disciplining punishment: colonialism and convict society in the Andaman Islands (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 86–9Google Scholar.

111 H. L. Dampier to Secretary, NWP, 24 December 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/12/1872/263-265; A. C. Lyall to C. A. Elliott, 15 March 1873, in NAI/HD/JB/03/1873/153-154.

112 C. A. Elliott to H. L. Dampier, 1 October 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/03/1873/153-154.

113 ‘Rules’, in NAI/HD/JB/01/1874/119-21.

114 S. Barrow, annual report, 26 May 1880, in BL/IOR/P/1467/A/Aug/5; R. T. Hobart, annual report, 21 September 1877, in BL/IOR/P/840/A/Nov/12.

115 ‘Rules’, in NAI/HD/JB/01/1874/119-21.

116 Act No. XXVII, in BL/IOR/V/8/42.

117 ‘Rules’, in NAI/HD/JB/01/1874/119-21.

118 J. Smith, statement of Aheriyas and Haburas for 1880–1, 23 April 1881, in BL/IOR/P/1614/A/Aug/12.

119 For example, J. Liston to Commissioner, Jhansi, 12 May 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Nov/14.

120 Elliott to Dampier, 26 September 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/12/1872/263. On the use of laws as ‘tactics’ in the management of population: Foucault, Michel, ‘Governmentality’, in The Foucault effect: studies in governmentality, with two lectures and an interview by Michel Foucault, (eds) Burchell, Graham, Gordon, Colin and Miller, Peter (Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), pp. 87–104Google Scholar.

121 B. W. Colvin to IGP, NWP, 17 July 1876, in BL/IOR/P/839/A/Jul/5.

122 Dalmahoy, annual report, 21 September 1878, in BL/IOR/P/1138/A/Dec/2.

123 Smith, annual report, 9 June 1883, in BL/IOR/P/2208/A/Jan/26.

124 Palmer, ‘Note’, 28 March 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/07/1872/97.

125 H. B. Webster to Secretary, NWP&O, 20 June 1883, in BL/IOR/P/2008/A/Jan/25; Inden, Ronald, Imagining India (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), pp. 133, 139–40Google Scholar.

126 Gilmartin, ‘Migration and modernity’, pp. 11–3.

127 Sen, ‘Rationing sex’, p. 31.

128 J. Liston to Commissioner, Jhansi, 24 April 1884, in BL/IOR/P/2208/A/Sep/19.

129 O. L. Smith, annual report, 13 June 1881, in BL/IOR/P/1614/A/Aug/8.

130 J. W. Quinton to IGP, NWP&O, 4 May 1880, in BL/IOR/P/1467/A/Aug/11.

131 Liston to Commissioner, Jhansi, 12 May 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Nov/14.

132 Hobart, annual report, 1 July 1875, in BL/IOR/P/839/A/Jul/2. See also J. Liston to Commissioner, Jhansi, 21 December 1878, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/May/45.

133 C. Robertson to IGP, NWP&O, 30 April 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/May/47.

134 J. W. Quinton to IGP, NWP&O, 27 May 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Nov/13.

135 Italics added. Webster to Secretary, NWP&O, 20 June 1883, in BL/IOR/P/2008/A/Jan/25.

136 W. C. Bennet to IGP, NWP&O, 19 October 1891, in BL/IOR/P/8389/A/Oct/27; J. Liston to Commissioner, Jhansi, 16 April 1885, in BL/IOR/P/2460/A/Jul/35; J. J. McLean to Commissioner, Jhansi, 17 October 1884, in BL/IOR/P/2460/A/Jan/11.

137 Liston to Commissioner, Jhansi, 16 April 1885, in BL/IOR/P/2460/A/Jul/35.

138 G. E. Ward to Secretary, NWP&O, 17 December 1884, in BL/IOR/P/2460/A/Jan/10.

139 Liston to Commissioner, Jhansi, 16 April 1885, in BL/IOR/P/2460/A/Jul/35.

140 See also H. B. Webster to Secretary, NWP&O, 15 June 1885, in BL/IOR/P/2460/A/Jul/23.

141 Palmer, ‘Note’, 28 March 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/07/1872/97.

142 Only adult labour was noted in J. W. Williams, ‘B—Statement showing the number of Baurias’, 13 December 1878, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/13.

143 W. C. Plowden to Secretary, NWP&O, 8 January 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/11.

144 Williams, ‘B—Statement’, 13 December 1878, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/13.

145 Nelson, Claudia, Family ties in Victorian England (London: Praeger, 2007), Chapter 1Google Scholar; Davidoff, Leonore and Hall, Catherine, Family fortunes: men and women of the English middle class, 1780–1850 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Tosh, John, Manliness and masculinities in nineteenth-century Britain: essays on gender, family, and empire (Harlow, UK: Pearson Longman, 2005), pp. 27–50Google Scholar; Steinbach, Susie, ‘Can we still use “separate spheres”? British history 25 years after Family fortunes’, History Compass 10, no. 11, 2012, pp. 826–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

146 Anderson, ‘Gender, subalternity and silence’, pp. 145–66; Anderson, Legible bodies, pp. 36–9; ‘Regulations’, in Straits Settlements Records (SSR), H14, 14/05/1825; 1857–58 Straits Settlements administration report in Colonial Office (CO)/275/1; McNair, John Frederick Adolphus, Prisoners their own warders (London: Archibald Constable and Company, 1899), p. 90Google Scholar.

147 Straits Settlements proceedings for the fourth quarter of 1855, in National Archives of Singapore (NAS)/NAB/1671/4/1855; Pieris, Anoma, Hidden hands and divided landscapes: a penal history of Singapore's plural society (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009), pp. 142–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Appendix to the report of the Committee on Prison-Discipline (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1838), Appendix 4, p. 257Google Scholar.

148 Sen, ‘Rationing sex’, pp. 33–4; Sen, Disciplining punishment, p. 105.

149 Plowden to Secretary, NWP&O, 8 January 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/11; A. Sells, ‘A—Statement showing the Bauria families who have cultivated continuously’, 27 December 1878, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/12; Williams, ‘B—Statement’, 13 December 1878, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/13.

150 Sen, Women and labour, pp. 63–5, 74–83.

151 I am not suggesting that masculinity was a cause of colonial agrarianization programmes.

152 Foucault, ‘Governmentality’.

153 Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DGIP), NWP, quoted in ‘Report of … Operations’, in NAI/HD/JB/10/12/1870/32.

154 This idea drew on the earlier establishment of the Khandesh Bhil Corps in the 1820s: Gordon, ‘Bhils’, pp. 136–8.

155 J. Sladen to F. M. Lind, 23 August 1876, in BL/IOR/P/840/A/Jan/30.

156 Singh, Hari, Report on the administration of the criminal tribes in the Punjab for the year ending December 1920 (Lahore: Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1921), pp. 16–7Google Scholar.

157 On colonial ideas about peasants and pastoralists: Bhattacharya, Neeladri, ‘Pastoralists in a colonial world’, in Nature, culture, imperialism: essays on the environmental history of South Asia, (eds) Arnold, David and Guha, Ramachandra (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 49–85Google Scholar.

158 W. C. Plowden to Secretary, NWP&O, 8 January 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/11.

159 Smith to Commissioner, Agra, 2 April 1880, in BL/IOR/P/1467/A/Aug/8; O. L. Smith, annual report, 30 June 1884, in BL/IOR/P/2008/A/Sep/12; J. W. Sharpe to Magistrate, Etah, 16 April 1884, in BL/IOR/P/2008/A/Sep/16; O. L. Smith, annual report, 9 June 1883, in BL/IOR/P/2208/A/Jan/26.

160 R. T. Hobart, annual report, 17 July 1876, in BL/IOR/P/840/A/Jan/21.

161 Italics added. F. M. Lind to IGP, NWP, 28 August 1876, in BL/IOR/P/840/A/Jan/24.

162 Tosh, Manliness and masculinities, pp. 86–98.

163 Inden, Imagining India, pp. 137–48.

164 Italics added. O. L. Smith, annual report, 26 May 1885, in BL/IOR/P/2460/A/Jul/25.

165 Pandian, Crooked stalks, pp. 19–22, 34–48, 68–75, 84–5.

166 Kasturi, Malavika, Embattled identities: Rajput lineages and the colonial state in nineteenth-century North India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 25Google Scholar.

167 This North–South contrast is based on the conflicting conclusions of Pandian, Kasturi, and Pinch. Pinch, William R., Peasants and monks in British India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), p. 112Google Scholar.

168 This was partly due to the Rent Act of 1859, which allowed tenants with limited occupancy rights who could prove 12 years of continuous cultivation to gain ‘prescriptive rights of occupancy’. Kasturi, Embattled identities, pp. 53–62.

169 Ibid.

170 Pinch, Peasants and monks, pp. 85–6.

171 Rawat, Reconsidering Untouchability, pp. 80–4.

172 Pinch, Peasants and monks, pp. 107–11; Rawat, Reconsidering Untouchability, pp. 162–3.

173 H. M. Stanley Clarke, annual report, 22 July 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Nov/2.

174 W. Holmes to Secretary, NWP&O, 2 October 1893, in BL/IOR/P/4514/A/Jan/13; R. H. Brereton to Secretary, NWP&O, 20 June 1900, in BL/IOR/P/5832/A/Aug/18.

175 M. Tweedie to IGP, NWP&O, 10 June 1887, in BL/IOR/P/2909/A/Aug/24; A. Ollivant to Secretary, NWP&O, 23 May 1890, in BL/IOR/P/3606/A/Aug/30.

176 W. C. Bennet to IGP, NWP&O, 19 October 1891, in BL/IOR/P/8389/A/Oct/27.

177 Italics in original. E. Tyrwhitt to Secretary, NWP&O, 27 September 1878, in BL/IOR/P/1138/A/Dec/1.

178 C. Robertson to Secretary, GI, 10 April 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/18.

179 C. Robertson to Secretary, GI, 14 October 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Nov/23.

180 Stoler, Ann Laura, ‘Epistemic politics: ontologies of colonial common sense’, The Philosophical Forum 39, no. 3, 2008, pp. 349–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

181 On the CTA's bodily dimensions: Tolen, ‘Colonizing and transforming’.

182 Plowden to Secretary, NWP&O, 8 January 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/11.

183 Mehndi Hassan Khan, statement given to J. Sladen, 3 August 1876, in BL/IOR/P/840/A/Jan/27.

184 O. L. Smith, annual report, 25 May 1882, in BL/IOR/P/1816/A/Aug/8.

185 R. T. Hobart to Secretary, NWP&O, 28 June 1882, in BL/IOR/P/1816/A/Aug/7.

186 Smith, annual report, 25 May 1882, in BL/IOR/P/1816/A/Aug/8.

187 J. Smith to Commissioner, Agra, 2 April 1880, in BL/IOR/P/1467/A/Aug/8; Smith, annual report, 30 June 1884, in BL/IOR/P/2008/A/Sep/12; Sharpe to Magistrate, Etah, 16 April 1884, in BL/IOR/P/2008/A/Sep/16; Smith, annual report, 9 June 1883, in BL/IOR/P/2208/A/Jan/26.

188 Smith to Commissioner, Agra, 2 April 1880, in BL/IOR/P/1467/A/Aug/8. See also J. C. Robertson to IGP, NWP&O, 9 April 1880, in BL/IOR/P/1467/A/Aug/7.

189 Webster to Secretary, NWP&O, 15 June 1885, in BL/IOR/P/2460/A/Jul/23.

190 Smith, annual report, 25 May 1882, in BL/IOR/P/1816/A/Aug/8.

191 A bigha was generally five-eighths of an acre.

192 Hobart to Secretary, NWP&O, 28 June 1882, in BL/IOR/P/1816/A/Aug/7.

193 Stanley Clarke, annual report, 22 July 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Nov/2.

194 Barrow, annual report, 26 May 1880, in BL/IOR/P/1467/A/Aug/5.

195 W. Kaye to IGP, NWP&O, 24 April 1882, in BL/IOR/P/1816/A/Aug/14.

196 Robertson to Secretary, GI, 10 April 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/18.

197 Plowden to Secretary, NWP&O, 8 January 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/11.

198 Singha, Radhika, A despotism of law: crime and justice in early colonial India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 179–93Google Scholar; Wagner, Kim A., Thuggee: banditry and the British in early nineteenth-century India (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 100–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

199 Pandian, Crooked stalks, p. 122.

200 J. D. Young to Magistrate, Etah, 24 April 1885, in BL/IOR/P/2460/A/Jul/32.

201 Palmer, ‘Note’, 28 March 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/07/1872/97; Plowden to Secretary, NWP&O, 8 January 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/11.

202 Sells, ‘A—Statement’, 27 December 1878, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/12; Williams, ‘B—Statement’, 13 December 1878, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/13.

203 C. Robertson to Secretary, GI, 5 June 1878, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/10.

204 See J. Smith, statement, 23 April 1881, in BL/IOR/P/1614/A/Aug/12; Smith, annual report, 25 May 1882, in BL/IOR/P/1816/A/Aug/8.

205 For example, Palmer, ‘Note’, 28 March 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/07/1872/97; Hobart to Edwards, 25 September 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/08/1873/61; Thomas, ‘List of villages’, 20 September 1872, in NAI/HD/JB/08/1873/61; Crooke, Tribes and castes, Vol. 2, pp. 475–8.

206 Sen, Women and labour, pp. 65, 69–73.

207 J. C. Leupolt to Commissioner, Agra, 8 April 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/May/52.

208 Extract of Leed's letter, 16 April 1878, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Apr/7.

209 Sen, Women and labour, pp. 83–5.

210 Hobart, annual report, 1 July 1875, in BL/IOR/P/839/A/Jul/2.

211 Freitag, ‘Crime’, p. 236.

212 Hobart, annual report, 17 July 1876, in BL/IOR/P/840/A/Jan/21.

213 Smith, annual report, 9 June 1883, in BL/IOR/P/2208/A/Jan/26.

214 R. S. Aikman to Commissioner, Agra, 30 April 1883, in BL/IOR/P/2208/Jan/33.

215 Dubey was spelt ‘Dobey’ or ‘Doobey’. Liston to Commissioner, Jhansi, 12 May 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Nov/14.

216 Hobart, annual report, 17 July 1876, in BL/IOR/P/840/A/Jan/21.

217 S. Clarke, annual report, 22 July 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Nov/2.

218 R. M. Pocock to DIGP, NWP&O, 17 September 1877, in BL/IOR/P/840/A/Nov/13.

219 A. Ollivant to IGP, NWP, 27 February 1887, in BL/IOR/P/3382/A/Aug/2.

220 Reportedly, some European officials had sexual relationships with Sansi women, but registered people were in more regular contact with Indian police. R. T. Hobart to Secretary, NWP&O, 26 March 1888, in BL/IOR/P/3382/A/Aug/1.

221 C. Donovan to Commissioner, Meerut, 8 May 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Nov/4.

222 J. L. Ogilvie to Magistrate, Muzaffarnagar, 2 May 1879, in BL/IOR/P/1281/A/Nov/5.

223 Benares Akhbar, 10 July 1873, Selections, p. 477. See also Roznamcha, 2 September 1873, Selections, pp. 565–7. For police rapes of respectable and ‘noble’ women: Matla-i-Nur, 3 March 1874, Selections, p. 99; Vritt Dhara, 13 April 1874, Selections, p. 145; Koh-i-Nur, 19 September 1874, Selections, p. 441; Vakil-i-Hindustan, 23 December 1874, Selections, pp. 650–2.

224 Radhakrishna, Dishonoured by history, p. 62.

225 ‘Citizenising the criminal’, Times of India, 29 May 1894, p. 4. On marriage expense funds and infanticide campaigns: Sen, ‘The savage family’, pp. 69–70.

226 J. Woodburn, to all Commissioners (except Kumaon and Jhansi), 16 June 1891, in BL/IOR/P/4071/A/May/320.

227 ‘Citizenising the criminal’, p. 4.

228 One ‘girl’ was returned from the emigration depot as ‘unfit’, however, and sent to Sultanpur. J. B. Thompson, annual report, 1 October 1894, in BL/IOR/P/4711/A/Jan/5.

229 Bajrange, Gandee and Gould, ‘Settling the citizen’.

230 Comaroff, ‘Colonialism, culture, and the law’, pp. 305–14.