• DOI:10.1177/001946469002700201
• Corpus ID: 144018398

Disciplining and policing the 'criminals by birth', Part 1: The making of a colonial stereotype— The criminal tribes and castes of North India

@article{Nigam1990DiscipliningAP,
  title={Disciplining and policing the 'criminals by birth', Part 1: The making of a colonial stereotype— The criminal tribes and castes of North India},
  author={Sanjay K. Nigam},
  journal={Indian Economic \& Social History Review},
  year={1990},
  volume={27},
  pages={131 - 164}
}

• S. Nigam
• Published 1 June 1990
• History
• Indian Economic & Social History Review

The exigencies of colonial transformation and prevalent European ideas provided British rule with the frames of reference for the classification of the ’native’ population of India. Through an elaborate corpus of revenue, juridical and police records the British Raj produced for itself a colonial archive: a ready-at-hand knowledge which in turn provided manuals for modifying and when necessary thwarting the challenge of traditional, unchanging-and to that extent anticipated-behaviour of subject population. Inherent in the production of this colonialist knowledge was the conception of the essential types without history. This paper concerns itself with the history of a well-known but little studied