This book takes a closer look at colonial despotism in early nineteenth-century India and argues that it resulted from Indians forum shopping, the legal practice which resulted in jurisdictional jockeying between an executive, the East India Company, and a judiciary, the Kings Court. Focusing on the collisions that took place in Bombay during the 1820s, the book analyses how Indians of various descriptionspeasants, revenue defaulters, government employees, merchants, chiefs, and princesused the court to challenge the government (and vice versa) and demonstrates the mechanism through which the lawcourt hindered the governments indirect rule, which relied on local Indian rulers in newly conquered territories. The author concludes that existing political anxiety justified the East India Companys attempt to curtail the power of the court and strengthen their own power to intervene in emergencies through the renewal of the companys charter in 1834. An insightful read for those researching Indian history and judicial politics, this book engages with an understudied period of British rule in India, where the royal courts emerged as sites of conflict between the East India Company and a variety of Indian powers.

Haruki Inagaki is Associate Professor at Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan, having previously studied at Kings College London, UK. His research focuses on the history of British colonial rule in India. He is also interested in the comparative history of British and Japanese empires.

1. Law and Emergency: Two Logics of Colonial Governance.- 2. Reform Public and the Kings Court in Bombay City.- 3. Summonses, Writs, and Revenue Defaulters in the Mofussil.- 4. Indirect Rule Threatened by Raiders, Princes, and the Kings Court.- 5. Habeas Corpus in Times of Emergency: The Bombay Dispute.- 6. Bengal, Madras, and Imperial Debate on Despotism.- 7. Epilogue and Conclusion.