Making the Personal Civil: The Protector's Office and the Administration of Indian Personal Law in Colonial Natal, 1872 – 1907

Abstract

2 The contemporary legal meaning of personal law is ‘the system of law which applies to a person and his (sic) transactions determined by the law of his (sic) tribe, religious group, caste, or other personal factor, as distinct from the territorial law of the country to which he belongs, in which he finds himself, or in which the transaction takes place.’ See D.M Walker, Oxford Companion to Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. Historically, however, the creation and definition of Personal Law was more complicated. Under the British administration of India (East India Company) and sovereignty (British Charter for India), the Westminster and Common Law models were introduced. However, the imported Rule of Law was rendered almost unworkable by the existence in India of a great diversity of customs, cultural traditions, regional legal systems, group identities and community memberships. Initially colonialists tended to ignore traditional cultural practices, ritual legalism, textual records of moral thinking (Arthashastras, Dharmashastras, Yanjavalkyasmriti, nibandhas, Manusmirti, and so on). By the late 1700s, the British administration would attempt to accommodate aspects of the personal or an artificially separated private area of morality from the public civil and criminal codes under the newlyevolved jurisdiction of Personal Law. See http://www.law.emory.edu/IFL/cases/India.htm for more on this.