STATE AND CRIMINALITY: THE COLONIAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST THUGGEE AND THE SUPPRESSION OF SIKH MILITANCY IN POSTCOLONIAL INDIA

Crime and policing, as outlined in the policies of independent India, can be traced to the definitions of criminality espoused by the British Empire. I am particularly interested in examining the role of the centralizing State, in colonial and postcolonial India, in defining ordinary (‘individual’) and extraordinary (‘collective’) crime. This project postulates a contextual definition of criminality, and interrogates the political ideology that links the colonial to the postcolonial by tracing the lineage of the Indian State’s policies toward Sikh separatism.