Decoding Crime and Punishment in Colonial India: Analysing Surjatamashi, Nibarsaptak, and Thugee or Thug

Abstract

Crime has been an intrinsic part of human society since its inception and has eventually shaped itself as a social phenomenon. Crime follows punishment even though not in all cases but both are considered to be intertwined with one another closely and the latter happens as a consequence of the former. Crime is a behaviour that is not socially acceptable and despite the viciousness associated with it, crime is a transgression of the social rules as to how humans need to conduct themselves. The advent of the British as a colonial power introduced India to western thoughts, ideals, and scientific and technological advancements. The dwellers of the Western world came with not solely what was desirable but also that which a healthy human society does not find worth welcoming. Criminal propensities of the human disposition in the Western world were perpetuated into Indian society with their arrival