Colonial Terror: Torture and State Violence in Colonial India

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Prof Deana Heath (Chair of Indian and Colonial History, Chair in Indian and Colonial History, University of Liverpool)

Colonial Terror

Torture and State Violence in Colonial India

Prof Deana Heath (Chair of Indian and Colonial History, Chair in Indian and Colonial History, University of Liverpool)

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English

Oxford University Press
04 July 2025

Colonialism & imperialism; Violence in society; Law & society

Focusing on India between the early nineteenth century and the First World War, Colonial Terror explores the centrality of the torture of Indian bodies to the law-preserving violence of colonial rule and some of the ways in which extraordinary violence was embedded in the ordinary operation of colonial states. Although enacted largely by Indians on Indian bodies, particularly by subaltern members of the police, the book argues that torture was facilitated, systematized, and ultimately sanctioned by first the East India Company and then the Raj because it benefitted the colonial regime, since rendering the police a source of terror played a key role in the construction and maitenance of state sovereignty.

Drawing upon the work of both Giorgio Agamben and Michel Foucault, Colonial Terror contends, furthermore, that it is only possible to understand the terrorizing nature of the colonial police in India by viewing colonial India as a 'regime of exception' in which two different forms of exceptionality were in operation - one wrought through the exclusion of particular groups or segments of the Indian population from the law and the other by petty sovereigns in their enactment of illegal violence in the operation of the law. It was in such fertile ground, in which colonial subjects were both included within the domain of colonial law while also being abandoned by it, that torture was able to flourish.

By: Prof Deana Heath (Chair of Indian and Colonial History Chair in Indian and Colonial History University of Liverpool)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 154mm, Spine: 14mm
Weight: 354g
ISBN: 9780198951612
ISBN 10: 0198951612
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 04 July 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction: Torture, Empire, and the Exception 1: Violence, the Exception and Bare Life 2: The Facilitators I: Policing 3: The Facilitators II: Law and 'Justice' 4: The Perpetrators Conclusion: Torture in a State of Exception

Deana Heath received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley and has since held academic posts in four countries: the United States, Ireland, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Additionally, she has been the beneficiary of grants from numerous national and international funding bodies, including the Independent Social Research Foundation, The Indian Council for Cultural Relations, The Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, The American Institute of Indian Studies, and the Fulbright Scholar Programme. She is currently Chair of Indian and Colonial History at the University of Liverpool.

Reviews for Colonial Terror: Torture and State Violence in Colonial India

This well researched and historically informed book is a novel contribution to the existing literature on state violence and police torture in colonial India as well as Indian colonial history. * Prashant Maurya, South Asia Research * Surpassing the study of torture alone, Heath explores here the broader assemblage of colonial terror, enacted upon and explored through Indian bodies. These acts are situated through the compacts between facilitators, systems (policing and legal), and perpetrators. In doing so, Heath brilliantly creates ways for us to contemplate these unrepresentable spaces of terror. * Stephen Legg, Professor of Historical Geography, University of Nottingham * This fascinating book is a landmark study that, as the first systematic analysis of the infrastructure of torture and state violence in colonial India, also helps us understand state violence in postcolonial India. Heath Brilliantly traces the technologies of violence in colonial governance and bureaucracy that kept colonial rule in place and chillingly explains how the routine violence actually ""undid worlds"" and ""destroyed souls"" * Jinee Lokaneeta, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Drew University *