Over the past decade, research on the nature of empire and colonialism has been transformed by Reference MehtaUday Singh Mehta's (1999) pathbreaking work on the complex relationship between liberalism and empire. Karuna Mantena's book makes a new intervention that seeks to engage with Mehta's argument that the stance generated by liberalism toward other cultures endeavors to assimilate difference. Mantena argues that there is a deep complicity between liberalism and culturalism, which can be perceived by the culturalist reactions evoked by liberalism. Therefore one must focus on liberalism's unintended consequences, reactions, and resistance rather than limiting oneself to the theoretical assumptions behind its norms. Her work also engages with other scholarship on the question of liberalism and empire, such as that of Reference MuthuSankar Muthu (2003) and Reference PittsJennifer Pitts (2005).
In making this argument Mantena explicates the shift in the ideology of imperialism from a reformist perspective to a culturalist one through the work of the comparative jurist Henry Maine. The structure of the argument is well organized in the five chapters of the book. The first chapter provides an exhaustive account of the work of influential figures such as Edmund Burke, James Mill, Charles Grant, and James Fitzjames Stephen in the early phase of empire. This phase was characterized by the idea of welfare and reform, particularly reflected in the idea of improvement in Mill's political philosophy which was later sharply criticized by Stephen. These theoretical tensions in liberalism, along with the Indian Mutiny of 1857, led to a shift in attitudes: the goal of self-government was rejected in favor of new governing practices based on models provided by social theory. The second chapter demonstrates the connection between empire and social theory. The origins of nineteenth-century social theory lie in the distinction between ancient liberty and modern liberty made in the aftermath of the French Revolution. A new model of traditional society, in which Henry Maine was instrumental, was developed using the comparative method. The common history of Aryan peoples implicated India and Europe in an evolutionary framework. Early Aryan social structures were described as being in a process of transition from the patriarchal family to the village community. In the evolution into modern society, family dependency dissolved into individual obligation, wherein social relations were defined by the free agreement of individuals. These social categories of family and village community enabled the axis of comparison among the different Aryan peoples (Indian, Celtic, Germanic, and so on), thus allowing Maine to formulate his theory on the development of Western legal systems as being a movement from status to contract.
The third chapter analyzes Maine's role in the colonial project of codification in India, illustrating Mantena's contention that the invention of traditional society was essential to indirect rule. Mantena suggests that Maine was concerned with codification as a historically valid process and should not be understood as a reluctant legislator or as an advocate for complete codification. The historical development of Roman law, culminating in its systematized and coherent codes, embodied the right process of codification, unlike the distorted Brahmanical codes of Hindu law, which were not based on genuine custom.
The fourth chapter explains Maine's theory on the growth of individual obligations and its role in the emergence of private property. This led to the concern that liberal and utilitarian models of reform were undermining native society. The fifth chapter explains how Maine's view of native society in crisis influenced colonial administrators in developing representative institutions, leading to changes in policy, particularly agrarian strategy. It also shows how this model of traditional society was imported to other parts of the world, such as Africa and the Pacific.
Mantena's argument that liberal justifications became “culturalist alibis” suggests a problem and not an answer: why does liberalism evoke a culturalist reaction? Mantena's explanation that the structure of liberal imperialism engenders such a reaction merely renders liberalism illiberal and does not resolve the problem that she poses. For an adequate answer to the problem one needs to analyze the culturalist nature of such consequences. In failing to make such an analysis, Mantena takes European descriptions of Indian culture for granted. This becomes obvious in her criticism of the evolutionary framework used to describe the Aryan peoples, in which she comments that certain property-related concepts were used to create a history of the Aryan peoples that placed Europe at the apex. Such criticism, however, assumes that there is a common history to the Aryan peoples by failing to interrogate the project of comparative philology. In the context of the Aryan invasion of India, scholars (Reference BryantBryant 2001; Reference TrautmannTrautmann 1997) have conclusively argued that comparative philology is based on biblical chronology, and its main concern is to track the dispersal of the sons of Noah after the fall of the ark. Therefore, if the history of the Aryan peoples can read as a history of Christianity, questions arise on the role that religion has played in colonial policy and legal reform. Mantena fails to analyse these implications for the culturalist nature of liberalism.
Mantena's focus on the work and career of Henry Maine as evidence for her argument does not sufficiently emphasize how law as a liberal imperialist strategy was used to entrench cultural difference. In arguing that traditional society as an invented category was reflected in law and policy, she elaborates neither on the legal discourse that such a category produced nor on the fact that this legal discourse could have served as the basis for indirect rule. The characterization of Maine's position on codification as being different from those of the orientalists and the utilitarians does not tell us why he considered codification an important strategy. This is of importance, as the movement toward codification in Europe was actively resisted in England. In this context, Mantena's explanation that Indian codification served as an experiment with legal reform that could be reimported needs more evidence.
Despite weaknesses in the argument, Mantena's clarity and precision in analyzing and formulating the problem of the relationship between liberalism and empire makes this book required reading for historians, legal studies scholars, political theorists, and those in the field of empire studies.
