Monday, March 17, 2014

Sharafi on Two Legal Views of Colonial Bombay

Mitra J. Sharafi, University of Wisconsin Law School, has posted Two Lives in Law: The Reminiscences of A.J.C. Mistry and Sir Norman Macleod, 1884-1926, which was published in A Heritage of Judging: The Bombay High Court through 150 Years (Mumbai: Maharashtra Judicial Academy, Indian Mediation Centre and Training Institute, 2012), 259-283.  Here is the abstract:
Few legal professionals in colonial India left memoirs or collections of personal papers. This article examines two rare exceptions from Bombay around the turn of the twentieth century. The Scottish Chief Justice of Bombay, Sir Norman Macleod, left a rich collection of private papers, including letters to his young son who was studying in Britain. A. J. C. Mistry was a Parsi managing clerk of the solicitors' firm Wadia Ghandy and Co. He published detailed accounts of the firm's creation and growth, and of his life there. On the occasion of the Bombay High Court's 150th anniversary, the article offers a portrait of late colonial views on mortality, mobility, loyalty and regret, in addition to the rising independence movement and the Indianization of the legal profession.