Formal Writing, Questionnaires and Petitions: Colonial Governance and Law in Early British Malabar, 1792-1810

Abstract

This article examines the culture of ‘formal writing’ in the making of colonial law in early British India. As part of establishing the Western governmental practices in the colony, the British introduced formal writing practices in the colonial administration. Situating on the debate of ‘continuity and change’, this article argues that ‘formal writing’ marked a significant departure from pre-colonial legal practices in India. This article first focuses on the use of ‘questionnaires’ and ‘formal letters’ in the colonial construction of legal knowledge and identified these as new mechanisms of governance in the oral based pre-colonial domains in the colony. This was the important phase in the colonial governance where the traditional domain and practices of oral communication, correspondence, messages and spoken declarations were provided with a new focus and regularity. Second, this article examines how the natives used the new logic of ‘formal writing’ to write letters and petitions to present themselves...