Making the Private Public: Witnessing Female Infanticide in Nineteenth‐Century Kathiawar

Abstract

AbstractNineteenth‐century British colonial discourses on female infanticide in India were marked not only by horror but also by frustration at being unable to detect its commission or identify its perpetrators. But in 1835, after years of thwarted efforts, three cases of daughter‐murder were successfully investigated in quick succession in the tributary of Kathiawar. This article uses manuscript transcripts of one of these cases to show the investigation's reliance on midwives and female servants as witnesses. Focusing on their testimony, the article shows how these women became critical participants in the colonial epistemology of female infanticide, informing and framing British understanding of this crime while also challenging it.