Policing Knowledge: Surveillance in Colonial Bengal, 1861 to 1913 Erin Margaret Giuliani Bachelor of Arts (Hons I)
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Policing Knowledge: Surveillance in Colonial Bengal, 1861 to 1913 Erin Margaret Giuliani Bachelor of Arts (Hons I) A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Queensland in 2012 School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics 1 Abstract The present study investigates the portion of colonial Bengal’s policing infrastructure that developed according to a surveillance epistemology between 1861 and 1913. It introduces the idea that a primary consideration of those who took charge of the new police was that public order could be secured via covert and distant police power. In Bengal, surveillance was used to monitor the movements, habits, and associations of people who the police assumed most likely to commit crime. It required the police to identify particular individuals, to record their habits and movements, and to exercise continual surveillance over them in an effort to reduce crime through preventative policing. This police abstraction can be understood as a by-product of an administrative preference for indirect rule in India, which had produced a small regular police force. Surveillance was a policing strategy viewed as a necessary corollary of a colonial police force whose presence in Bengal was far from pervasive. A police force with a limited presence across the territory could at least target areas where crimes were assumed likely to occur and people assumed likely to commit them. Simultaneously, surveillance was aimed at preventing the crimes of individuals who fell into a constructed category of habitual criminality. The nature of crime in Bengal, as the police authorities understood it, gave rise to a belief that police surveillance was an essential policing strategy. A continual police watch that occurred according to carefully classified information was viewed as a means to prevent the apparently inevitable crimes of suspected and actual repeat offenders. By the first decade of the twentieth century, surveillance was a clearly defined policing strategy aimed at preventing recidivism, and at extending limited caches of police power. The significance of a surveillance epistemology is demonstrated through an examination of its impact on three key areas of administrative development. The thesis reveals that surveillance defined the primary technological apparatus utilised by the police over the course of the nineteenth century, and this was made evident by a transformation of the role of written information in everyday policing. It moreover develops the idea that information-based surveillance consolidated the relationship between the enrolled colonial police and the non- enrolled village police, which had been co-opted as an adjunct to a minimally staffed police force in 1870. The third area of analysis is to demonstrate that a project of surveillance informed an ongoing project to reform the supervisory structures over the village police, which had major consequences for the shape of Bengal’s village administrative structure. 2 Such emphasis frames the study as a rejoinder to contemporary Indian police historiography, which has centred narrowly on the political purposes of colonial policing. Recent work on Indian police history that has drawn it into well-established historical discussions about the establishment, maintenance and demise of British power and authority in India, has inadvertently obscured an important bureaucratic and non-political function of surveillance. The study explicates the aspects of colonial policing that had little connection with establishing or maintaining foreign rule and which highlight a desire to establish a conciliatory framework for police administration. Its focus is the small powers of policing; the instrumentations that relied on knowledge and information, rather than coercion and brute force. This is achieved through the use and reformulation of dominant theories of modern and pre- industrial information states, and a subsequent re-evaluation of discourses of knowledge and power that have identified an ‘all-India information order’. The study presents a theory of colonial surveillance that expands the idea of an information order in India to include its hitherto peripheral police context. Overall, this thesis reconsiders dominant assumptions about the purpose and character of colonial policing in India. Through an analysis of the development and importance of preventative surveillance, the Bengal police are shown to have been simultaneously a force for imperial consolidation, and a conciliatory policing body reliant on paperwork; the collection, classification and utilisation of criminal information. 3 Declaration by author This thesis is composed of my original work, and contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference has been made in the text. I have clearly stated the contribution by others to jointly-authored works that I have included in my thesis. I have clearly stated the contribution of others to my thesis as a whole, including statistical assistance, survey design, data analysis, significant technical procedures, professional editorial advice, and any other original research work used or reported in my thesis. The content of my thesis is the result of work I have carried out since the commencement of my research higher degree candidature and does not include a substantial part of work that has been submitted to qualify for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution. I have clearly stated which parts of my thesis, if any, have been submitted to qualify for another award. I acknowledge that an electronic copy of my thesis must be lodged with the University Library and, subject to the General Award Rules of The University of Queensland, immediately made available for research and study in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968. I acknowledge that copyright of all material contained in my thesis resides with the copyright holder(s) of that material. Where appropriate I have obtained copyright permission from the copyright holder to reproduce material in this thesis. 4 Publications during candidature Giuliani, Erin. ‘Surveillance policières et technologies d'identification dans les colonies de Nouvelle Galles du Sud et du Queensland, 1880-1903’. In Vincent Denis and Catherine Denys (eds). Polices d'Empires: Experiences policières coloniales, 1750-1900. Presses Universitaires de Rennes: Rennes, forthcoming. Publications included in this thesis No publications included in this thesis Contributions by others to the thesis No contributions by others to the thesis Statement of parts of the thesis submitted to qualify for the award of another degree No parts of the thesis submitted for the award of another degree. 5 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I am grateful for the assistance and advice provided by my supervisor, Dr. Geoffrey Ginn. It has been his wisdom and expertise that I have found to be most valuable throughout the research, drafting and completion of the thesis. Without his ongoing cheeriness and support, and his wonderful capacity to reassure through storytelling, I would neither have embarked upon, nor completed this thesis. Thanks are moreover due to the staff of the history department at the University of Queensland. Prof. Marion Diamond, Dr. Andrew Bonnell, Dr. Kriston Rennie, and Assoc. Prof. Martin Crotty offered their ideas and comments at numerous seminars and were persistently optimistic about the viability of the project. Serena Bagely was a friendly face in the office, to whom I am grateful for her sunny outlook and helpfulness. Far away from the cloisters of UQ, I am indebted to several historians who read early drafts of the thesis and with whom I had the pleasure of discussing ideas. In the halls of King’s College, London, Dr. Frank Bongiorno and Dr. Jon Wilson provided invaluable feedback on early versions of the ideas and conclusions presented within the thesis. Dr. Simon Sleight in particular became a mentor and friend, who provided much needed encouragement to see the project through to completion. Prof. Carl Bridge is also deserved of many thanks, for providing me with workspace in the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies (KCL) between 2009 and 2012. Financially, I am grateful to the University of Queensland and to the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies for their exceptionally generous awards and grants. On a more personal note, thanks are due to particular friends and family members. Heidi and Arthur for allowing me to stay and study in their beautiful Northcote home; Mark and Rebecca for sharing the toil of postgraduate education with me; Elwyn, Avan, Luke and Dan, for their wonderful friendship, encouragement and laughter; Joe for saving rock and roll; Lori for total faith and support; Althea and Eddie, for their confidence, good humour and for supporting ongoing higher education despite more likely options; and finally to Jon, whose inventiveness and enthusiasm for ideas are continual sources of my motivation. 6 Keywords Indian police; Bengal police; surveillance; colonial knowledge; British empire; colonial policing. Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classifications (ANZSRC) ANZSRC code 210305 British History (90%) ANZSRC code 160204 Criminological Theories (10%) Fields of Research (FoR) Classification FoR code: 2103 Historical Studies (90%) FoR code: 1602 Criminology (10%) 7 Table of Contents Preliminary Pages 1 Table of Contents 8 List of Figures 9 List of Abbreviations 10 Glossary