Changing Structures of Violence during the Territorial Expansion of the British Company-State in Bengal
In political philosophy, debates on violence usually presuppose the existence of a monopoly on violence on the side of the state. From Bodin and Hobbes to Weber the state is characterised as the only legitimate bearer of the power to use physical force. Different players try to achieve this monopoly by claiming (most of the times violently) and constantly legitimizing it or by challenging the existing power holders. But what about structures of legitimacy which neither fit the state of pure chaos, where one actor rises victoriously nor the binary opposition between an established power holder and a challenger?
In eighteenth-century Britain and the Indian subcontinent, a monopoly on violence was non-existent while there was also no state of nature where human life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (Hobbes). Rulers granted different rights to non-state or local actors, who had different responsibilities towards the population. This can be more accurately described as a multilayered structure of sovereignty, which was fluid and constantly changing. In such a structure, the right to exercise physical force is continuously questioned, negotiated and adapted.
In my research, I will trace the changes in the structure of violence in Bengal after the Battle of Palasi in 1757 and the territorial expansion of the East India Company (EIC). How did the EIC navigate in the already existing structure of sovereignty and how did it change this structure? What effects did these changes have on practices of everyday violence? Who exercised the violence and who was targeted? Can this violence be described as colonial violence? If yes, what are the characteristics of this form of colonial violence?
On the one hand, this research aims to critically engage with the philosophical debates on sovereignty and (colonial) violence. On the other hand, it sheds light on changing forms of everyday violence in colonial India.