Darkness and the making of the rule of law: Calcutta, 1760s-1800s

Nitin Sinha, ZMO

Security of private property and securing the life of the person were two defining features of the rule of law. The time of the night threatened both of them in specific aggravated ways. The emergence of the police in Calcutta, imbued with summary power that formally went against the rule of law, was a response to temporal challenges that darkness posed to the functioning of the rule of law. An otherwise illegal entity, that were the police until 1793 in Calcutta, became the medium to establish the rule of law. 

 

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