Abstract
There were various routes by which an Indian could be admitted to a lunatic asylum in the period 1859-80. The Rules for the Management and Control of the Lunatic Asylum at Lucknow, included in the published responses to Sir James Clark’s enquiry1 into the treatment of lunatics in India, give a fair summary of these routes:
The authorities empowered to order the admission of lunatics are: First — Officers exercising the powers of a Magistrate, in respect of wandering or dangerous lunatics, or lunatics who are neglected or maltreated (Sections 4+5 of Act XXXVI of 1858). Second — Judges of the principal Civil Courts of Districts, in respect of all other lunatics except the two classes hereafter mentioned (Section 8 of Act XXXVI of 1858). Third — The Local Government as regards criminal lunatics (Sections 390, 394, 396 of the Criminal Procedure Code). Fourth — Military Officers commanding Divisions, in respect of native non-commissioned officers and soldiers afflicted with insanity (Section 41, page 291 Bengal Military Regulations). Fifth — The Inspector of Jails, as regards the removal of any lunatic from one public asylum to any other within the circle of his inspection (Section 11, Act XXXVI of 1858).
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Notes
W. Theobald, The Legislative Acts of the Governor-General of India in Council (Calcutta 1868).
M. Radhakrishna, ‘The Criminal Tribes Act in Madras Presidency: implications for itinerant trading communities’, in Indian Economic and Social History Review, xxvi, 1989, p. 271.
R. Jutte, Poverty and Deviance in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press Cambridge 1994), p. 147; G. Salgado, The Elizabethan Underworld (Dent London 1977), chapters 6, 7, 10; P. Slack, Poverty and Policy in Tudor and Stuart England (Longman London 1988), pp. 113–31; D. Garland, Punishment and Welfare: a history of penal strategies (Gower Aldershot 1985), p. 64.
N. Rose, The Psychological Complex: psychology, politics and society in England 1869–1939 (Routledge London 1985), p. 45.
V. Oldenburg, The Making of Colonial Lucknow 1856–1877 (Oxford University Press New Delhi 1989), pp. 18–64; A. King, Colonial Urban Development: culture, social power and environment (Routledge London 1976), p. 214.
D. Hardiman (ed.), Peasant Resistance in India 1858–1914 (Oxford University Press New Delhi 1993), p. 1.
T. Metcalf, The Aftermath of Revolt: India 1857–1870 (Princeton University Press Princeton 1965), p. 305.
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J. Saunders, Magistrates and Madmen: segregating the criminally insane in late nineteenth-century Warwickshire in V. Bailey (ed.), Policing and Punishment in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Groom Helm London 1981), pp. 221–2.
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N. Walker and S. McCabe, Crime and Insanity in England: new solutions and new problems, volume H (Edinburgh University Press Edinburgh 1973), p. 50.
J. Eigen, Witnessing Insanity: madness and mad-doctors in the English court (Yale University Press London 1995), p. 106.
‘The labelling of the mad African as carried out in the colonial court room then, was often a confused and hesitant business’, M. Vaughan, Curing their Ills: colonial power and African illness (Polity Press Cambridge 1991), p. 107.
For a consideration of the difficulties in using colonial legal records, see for example R. Guha, ‘Chandra’s Death’ in R. Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies II (Oxford University Press New Delhi 1983), or S. Amin, ‘Approver’s Testimony, Judicial Discourse: the case of Chauri Chaura’ in R. Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies V (Oxford University Press New Delhi 1987).
S. Watson, ‘Malingerers, the “weak-minded” criminal and the “moral imbecile”: how the English prison medical officer became an expert in mental deficiency, 1880–1930’, in M. Clark and C. Crawford (eds), Legal Medicine in Histoty (Cambridge University Press Cambridge 1994), p. 234.
Note on Jails and Jail Discipline in India 1867–68 by Arthur Howell in Home (Judicial) 9 January 1869, 39–52A.
See D. Arnold, ‘The Colonial Prison: power, knowledge and penology in nineteenth-century India’, in D. Arnold and D. Hardiman (eds), Subaltern Studies VIII (Oxford University Press New Delhi 1994), pp. 166–7.
V. Raghavan, Law of Crimes: a single volume commentary on Indian Penal Code 1860 (Act no. 45 of 1860) (Orient Law House New Delhi 1993).
R. Harris, Murders and Madness: medicine, law and society in the fin de siecle (Clarendon Press Oxford 1989), p. 35.
J. Wilson, History of the Suppression of Infanticide in Western India under the Government of Bombay (Smith and Taylor Bombay 1855), p. 430.
L. Panigrahi, British Social Policy and Female Infanticide in India (Munshiram Manoharlal New Delhi 1972), p. 121.
W. Ernst, ‘Idioms of Madness and Colonial Boundaries: the case of the European and “Native” mentally ill in early nineteenth-century British India’, in Society and History, 39, 1997, p. 174.
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© 2000 James H. Mills
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Mills, J.H. (2000). Disciplining Populations: British Admissions to ‘Native-Only’ Lunatic Asylums. In: Madness, Cannabis and Colonialism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230286047_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230286047_4
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