Law Between Empires: The Impeachment of Warren Hastings (1787-1795) and the Origins of the Modern State in Britain and India

FAIN: FEL-289415-23

Thomas Robert Travers
Cornell University (Ithaca, NY 14850-2820)

Research and writing leading to a book on the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings, former British governor in Bengal (1787-1795), and the origins of the modern state in Britain and India.

My study of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, former Governor of Bengal, shows how British imperial thought at the dawn of modern colonialism was shaped by encounters with the political cultures of early modern South Asia. Whereas historians have previously focused on the speeches of British parliamentarians, notably Edmund Burke, my study reveals how diverse South Asians, from elite officials to ordinary peasants, played crucial roles in the impeachment as sources of evidence. Meanwhile, Hastings and his opponents mobilized a vast body of documents translated from Indian languages, justifying their claims in relation to norms of legality derived from the history of the Mughal empire. By examining these efforts to translate Islamicate, Persianate ideas of sovereignty and justice into British political discourse, I will treat the Hastings impeachment as an event in global intellectual history that illuminates broader transitions from early modern to modern forms of law and empire.