Village Courts and the Police

Cooperation and Conflict in Modernizing India

Bibliographic Data

ID21177992
AuthorsLynn Vincentnathan (Schlumberger (Ireland), corresponding author), S George Vincentnathan
Year2007
Volume8
Issue5
Pages445-459
Publication date2007-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolice Practice and Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1561-4263 • E-ISSN: 1477-271X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/15614260701764314
OpenAlexW1965358234
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited29

This study examines the impact of modernization on India’s panchayats (village courts) and the police. Because of modernization, people’s attachment to groups and caste hierarchy is declining, and their needs for personal autonomy and social equality are increasing. Some accept these changes and others oppose them, leading to interpersonal and intercaste conflicts in communities, which panchayats find difficult to resolve. Panchayats are weakening and disappearing, while the police are expanding. While these changes are occurring, both the police and the panchayat elders, caught between tradition and modernity, respond to disputes in cooperative and conflicting ways. Keywords: IndiaPanchayatsVillage CourtsInformal JusticePolice in IndiaModernization Acknowledgments This study is based upon fieldwork supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. SES‐8721483, and subsequent recent visits to India. Notes [1] The original castes included Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (rulers, warriors), Vaishyas (merchants), and Shudras (craftsmen and laborers). Below this, were untouchables (dalits) who lived on village outskirts and performed work considered polluting. The belief is that God created castes, each with different and unequal intrinsic qualities. A person could not change castes, except after death, when one would be born into a higher or lower caste, depending on the person’s good or bad deeds. Over the centuries these five castes split into thousands of subcastes or jatis, each acting as a separate caste. Higher castes controlled lower castes and expected them to behave within their allowed boundaries. In modern India, caste‐based discrimination is illegal, but social traditions persist, conflicting with modern, egalitarian ideas. [2] For example, the shift in China from communistic control to capitalistic development has caused growing economic desires. Local and informal systems of dispute settlement have given way to official processing. Crimes and riots have increased, and public security forces have expanded to confront this (Wong, Citation2002). In Russia the people’s desires to be free and rich (Krygier, Citation1990, pp. 633–663) facilitated the fall of communism. Frictions between old and new regime supporters as to how to reduce social problems, along with social discontent from growing expectations, have resulted in protests and violence, while crime has skyrocketed. Informal methods for disputes resolution have given way to formal intervention, and police control has increased, along with the growth of corruption (Gilinskiy, Citation2003). In Europe’s modernization over the centuries, increasing discontent and rising crime led to formal police expansion displacing traditional dispute settlement (Bayley, Citation1999; Critchley, Citation1975; Jones, Citation1985)

Autonomy · Caste · Criminology · Modernity · Modernization theory · Political science · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Gender Studies · Law · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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