Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia

Parsi Legal Culture, 1772–1947

Mitra Sharafi

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781107047976
• eBook ISBN: 9781139699280
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Indian & South Asian History
• Index: History

This book explores the legal culture of the Parsis, or Zoroastrians, an ethnoreligious community unusually invested in the colonial legal system of British India and Burma. Rather than trying to maintain collective autonomy and integrity by avoiding interaction with the state, the Parsis sank deep into the colonial legal system itself. From the late eighteenth century until India's independence in 1947, they became heavy users of colonial law, acting as lawyers, judges, litigants, lobbyists, and legislators. They de-Anglicized the law that governed them and enshrined in law their own distinctive models of the family and community by two routes: frequent intra-group litigation often managed by Parsi legal professionals in the areas of marriage, inheritance, religious trusts, and libel, and the creation of legislation that would become Parsi personal law. Other South Asian communities also turned to law, but none seem to have done so earlier or in more pronounced ways than the Parsis.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Series page
• Dedication
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Figures and Map
• Acknowledgments
• Table of Cases
• A Note on Transliteration, Citation, and Abbreviation
• Introduction
• Part I Parsi Legal Culture
• Part 2 The Creation of Parsi Personal Law
• Part 3 Beyond Personal Law
• Appendix: Legislation
• Glossary
• Selective Bibliography
• Index