Tales of Crimes Past: A Casebook of Crime in Colonial India

Sunil Nair

The criminal fraternity in colonial India was a diverse, bustling lot.

No man's life was worth much outside the security of his home or village, and lawlessness knew no bounds. In the unsettled state of the country during the Raj, dacoits, thugs, swindlers and mysterious stranglers plagued the roads, preying on the rich and poor alike. Policing, as we know it, and the 'rule of law', as we understand it, were in their infancy and chaos reigned supreme as the British scrambled to round up these notorious criminals.

A British official accuses a prince of attempting to poison him, a love-struck Anglo-Indian couple conspire to get rid of their respective spouses, a dancing girl is attacked by a maharaja's minions on a Bombay street, two British Army officers get into the fight of their lives in a moving train, a Bengal zamindar kills his step-brother using plague bacilli. Sunil Nair presents the most obscure and gripping tales of crime and criminals in the days of the Raj, taking us back to an age when foot-slogging police work – and a little bit of luck – were often all that could be counted on to bring a criminal to book!