The Displacement of Traditional Law in Modern India,' Journal of Social Issues 24:65-91 (1968) [included in LSMI]
Abstract
Contemporary Indian law is, for the most part, palpably foreign in origin or inspiration and it is notoriously inconvenience with the attitudes and concerns of much of the population which lives under it. However, the present legal system is firmly established and the likelihood of its replacement by a revived "indigenous" system is extremely small. The modern Indian legal system, then, presents an instance of the apparent displacement of a major intellectual and institutional complex within a highly developed civilization by one largely of foreign inspiration. This paper attempts to trace the process by which the modern system, introduced by the British, transformed and supplanted the indigenous legal systems'in particular, that system known as Hindu law.
