Languages of Injustice: The Culture of ‘Prize-Giving’ and Information Gathering on Female Infanticide in Nineteenth-Century India

Abstract

Areas that remain understudied on female infanticide in India are information-gathering and the collaboration of elites. I examine the Company government’s shift from coercion to palliative approaches such as the institution of prize-cultures in nineteenth-century western India. Questions asked are: what was the role of reformers such as Bhau Daji as prize-winner in the essay competitions? how did it change notions of justice? How was the body of the Indian woman criminalised? I conclude that essay competitions in prize cultures acted as an instrument of rule whereby rebuke or reward allowed the easy importation of British notions of justice.