ABSTRACT
One of the more typical situations was actually that of the people of India, who were gradually dissociated from their mode of organization by the British administration.
Within the caste system where, involved in a network of relationships of variable reach, the status of individuals matters more than their functions within a defined field, the part played by kings and state hierarchies was different from that of their own counterparts in the West. There was no functional relationship between the political and the social. Consequently small territorial entities could be confined within the caste system which included the monarch as well as the village community. Jacques Pouchepadass has correctly shown how the practice of conferring on rulers the title of zamindars, responsible for the levying of income part of which was paid back to the colonial government, transformed them into owners in the western sense of the expression. This practice transplanted the rules of Western private law onto the customs of the Indians. Nonetheless the zamindars continued to levy customary dues and accordingly perpetuated the relationship of authority which existed before the arrival of the British. Nevertheless some traditional social practices did become “illegal”, following the enactment of the Criminal Castes and Tribes Act, which dispossessed the individuals of their true social identity.
