The Wicked City: Crime and Punishment in Colonial Calcutta

Présentation de l'éditeur : "From dusty official files to the half forgotten popular literature of a dark past The Wicked City unravels a fascinating panorama of crime in the colonial metropolis of Calcutta over two centuries. It begins in the eighteenth century with the plots of bribery and murderous vendetta hatched in Governor Warren Hastings office in the White Town the tiny European part of the city. The story then moves into the dingy back streets of the Black Town the vast sprawling Bengali habitation and offers a glimpse into the world of indigenous dacoits. As the eighteenth century flickers out a new century sees the dawn of new types of crimes like counterfeiting even as the technology used in old forms of crime like burglary becomes increasingly more sophisticated. In this onward march of crime in the course of Calcutta's rise from fledgling town to giant metropolis a procession of colourful characters emerged and thrived in all their diabolic grandeur. With all their imagination and creative devices they elevated crime to the status of art. After immersing itself in the world of criminals the book shifts its gaze towards the apparatus built by the colonial rulers to deal with them. In doing so what clearly emerges is the symbiotic relationship between urban crimes spawned by the colonial ethic of acquisitiveness and aggressive pursuit of self interest and the new laws and modes of punishment fashioned by the colonial rulers to control those crimes"