What does this research mean for the field?

The coercive apparatus of colonial policing in India was not dismantled but reconfigured in the postcolonial nation-state to continue oppressing marginalized subjects, a continuity documented in the literary works of Raja Rao and Rohinton Mistry. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.INCREMENTAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

What question did this study set out to answer?

This paper examines the evolution of policing from colonial to postcolonial India through literary works.

June 21, 2026Open Access

The Sarkari Lathi and the Postcolonial State: Law, Violence, and the Continuities of Colonial Policing in Raja Rao's Kanthapura and Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance

Key Points

This paper examines the evolution of policing from colonial to postcolonial India through literary works.
Comparative literary analysis of Kanthapura and A Fine Balance
Integration of postcolonial frameworks and critical police studies
Exploration of colonial and postcolonial policing mechanisms
Colonial policing frameworks persist in postcolonial state structures, impacting marginalized groups.
Literary scrutiny exposes ongoing systemic violence by law enforcement against rural poor and minorities.
Calls for police reform resonate with themes presented in both novels.

Abstract

This paper undertakes a comparative literary analysis of policing as a site of post/colonial continuity and rupture in two landmark works of Indian English fiction: Raja Rao's Kanthapura (1938) and Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance (1995). Situated at the intersection of postcolonial studies, critical legal theory, and the sociology of policing, the paper argues that the coercive apparatus of colonial policing, designed to maintain the hierarchies of empire, was not dismantled but reconfigured in the postcolonial nation-state, continuing to operate against the most marginalised subjects: the rural poor, lower castes, women, religious minorities, and migrant labour. Drawing on foundational postcolonial frameworks (Fanon; Spivak; Bhabha) alongside more recent interventions in critical police studies (Vitale; Neocleous; Chatterjee), the paper reads both novels as literary archives of state violence, tracing the institutional logic that connects the colonial constable to the Emergency-era policeman. The paper further situates its arguments within contemporary debates about police reform in India, the caste-class nexus of law enforcement, and the structural impunity that literary fiction has long sought to document and critique.

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