Strangers in the Village? Colonial policing in rural Bengal, 1861 to 1892

Abstract

AbstractThe chief concern of this article is the organization and administration of rural policing in colonial Bengal during the last 40 years of the nineteenth century. It connects its design and implementation with the consolidation of India's colonial police force, while highlighting the ongoing negotiations made by the Bengal police in a wider colonial model. The article argues that the police administration of rural Bengal was shaped initially by the ordinary constraints of the colonial state which underpinned the design of the Indian police—namely its frugality and preference for collaborating with local intermediaries, a manifestation of salutary neglect. Yet, it highlights the role of Bengal's largely British police executive in renegotiating customs of governance and, ultimately, as an established model of policing in India. The article focuses, therefore, on ongoing and at times informal police reforms which were based upon notions contradictory to an official discourse about policing in India. This article thus contextualizes the development of rural police administration in Bengal in a strong tradition of police-led reform in the province. In so doing, the article redresses a traditional historiographical focus on the political origins and coercive function of the police, and problematizes current research which situates Indian policing within customs of British governance in the subcontinent.