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RAMMOHAN ROY AND THE ADVENT OF CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERALISM IN INDIA, 1800–30

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 March 2007

C. A. BAYLY
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge

Abstract

This paper concerns the reformulation by British expatriates and the first generation of English-speaking Indian intellectuals of the key ideas of European constitutional liberalism between 1810 and 1835. The central figure is Rammohan Roy, usually seen as a “reformer” of Hinduism. Here Rammohan's thought is set in the context of the Iberian and Latin American constitutional revolutions and the movement for free trade and parliamentary reform in Britain. Rammohan and his coevals created a constitutional history for India that centred on the institution of the panchayat, a local judicial body. While some expatriates and Indian radicals discussed “independence” or “separation” for the country as early as the 1830s, Rammohan himself argued for constitutional limitations on the Company's power and Indian representation in Parliament. Under liberal British government, he believed, an Indian public would emerge, empowered by service on juries and the operations of a free press.

Type
Articles
Copyright
2007 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I have incurred many debts in the writing of this essay; apart from the contributors to this volume, I would like warmly to thank Bruce Robertson, David Armitage, Richard Tuck, Shruti Kapila, Fred Rosen, Emma Rothschild and Sunil Khilnani for their help.