Law of the Strongest? A Global Approach of Access to Law Studies and Its Social and Professional Impact in British India (1850s–1940s)

Sara Legrandjacques
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Sara Legrandjacques: Centre d’Histoire de l’Asie Contemporaine, Institut Pierre Renouvin, Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 17 rue de la Sorbonne, 75005 Paris, France

Social Sciences, 2021, vol. 10, issue 3, 1-15

Abstract: This paper examines how access to law studies in British India challenged social stratifications within the colony, from the 1850s up to the 1940s. It highlights the impact of educational trajectories—colonial, imperial and global—on social positions and professional careers. Universities in British India have included faculties of law since the foundation of the first three universities in 1857. Although numerous native students enrolled at these Indian institutions, some of them chose to pursue their legal training in the imperial metropole. Being admitted into an Inn of Court, they could consequently become barristers, a title that was not available for holders of an Indian degree. This dual system differentiated degree-holders, complexifying the colonial hierarchy in a way that was sometimes denounced by both the colonized and the imperial authorities. Last but not least, access to higher education also impacted gendered identities: academic migration at times allowed some Indian women to graduate in Law but these experiences remained quite exceptional until the end of the Second Word War.

Keywords: law; higher education; British India; student mobility; social hierarchy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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