Page 103 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

78 Karine Bates

not immoral and not opposed to and expressing enactment or public
policy.
The kinds of sanctions were also transformed. As presented in the
previous section, the sanctions of the ‘traditional’ system took into
account the whole situation of the parties. However, in the modern
legal system, they were replaced by the compulsory execution of the
court’s decisions (Galanter 1989: 24). Gradually, the customary law
was restricted and replaced by the Dharmashastra as interpreted by
the British.
The shastric law was also rigidified. In order to select and interpret
the relevant positions of Hindu law, the courts appointed Brahman
pundits as law officers. However, dissatisfaction with the work of the
law officers, growth of translated texts, digests, manuals prepared by
the British as well as the increase of precedents from the courts them-
selves led eventually to the elimination of law officers in the 1860s and
resulted in the general re-organization of the legal system. The com-
mon law judges undertook the task of administering law directly from
the existing corpus of materials. Earlier, the shastra had changed and
developed by successive commentaries and had maintained its flexi-
bility by its complex and discretionary techniques of interpretation.
The British administration dissipated these techniques.
By modifying the techniques of analysis of the shastric law, the
British rendered some aspects of it more rigid. One significant change
resides in the fact that the emphasis was put on the varnas, or four
great classes into which Hindu society is theoretically divided by the
shastric texts. Varna distinctions received little attention from the
courts during the early years of British rule, but became a major fac-
tor in the administration of Hindu law after the courts undertook the
task of administering it without intermediaries and directly from the
shastric texts. Following with this orientation, they introduced major
legal reforms, which were a mixture of modern legal philosophy and
interpretation of the shastra.

Legal Reforms Concerning Women’s Rights during
the British Period
During British colonization the courts in the Bombay urban district
reinforced the ideal of pativrata (devoted wife). The tension during
the Peshwa period between shastric and local customs seems to have