ABSTRACT
Disputes between the right and left hand caste divisions continued to occur in Madras throughout the eighteenth century. Moreover, by the 1780s the British presence in South India had expanded significantly, entirely altering the context within which disputes between castes of the right and left hands were articulated. The word dubash literally means a man of some languages and the dubashes were employed as various kinds of intermediary between Europeans and Indians – often as personal servants of the former – in early colonial South India. In fact, the expanding British presence in South India was accompanied by a clear separation between the judicial systems applying to European and indigenous inhabitants. In the 1780s, the discourse on Indian society – the seeds of which can be traced back to the early eighteenth century – established that every innovation in ceremonial matters was an aggression which ought to be suspended.
