Discourse of Colonial Thought and Anthology in Indian Caste Peculiarity:A Study on Colonial Ethnography

This paper traces the origin of Indian caste peculiarity shown by colonial anthologists in British India. The second half of the nineteenth century, in the writings of colonial anthologists a certain tendency came out that those people who involved in the 1857 revolution were guilty and also criminals. Census and the district settlement report were playing the important part in the field of such discourse of caste and creed. Although the revenue system lent the reports also expressed the views of the people of those areas or parganas. To establish the strong foundation of British rule or of imperial purposes, the colonial writers like Crook, Ibbetson, Pursar, Franshawe, Oldham, Risley etc. always tried to ascertain the justification of British rule in India. In view of this, the influence of criminality and ethnology in the development of ideas about so-called native criminals in colonial British India is examined. The present study situates discourses about crime and criminality within a wider set of deliberations and critically examines the views of colonial ethnographers about the Indian caste system.