ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a number of caste disputes taking place in the districts of the Madras Presidency in the first half of the nineteenth century. It aims to qualify the implications of the analysis of caste disputes in the town of Madras in the first decades of the nineteenth century. In the first half of the nineteenth century, on the other hand, caste disputes occurring in the districts of the Presidency became an issue that was routinely referred to the ordinary judicial institutions. While the management of caste disputes offered by the judiciary was very different from the model of kingly arbitration, a large number of disputes probably never reached the courts but were adjudicated informally by local leaders. Bureaucratic standards might well have been a relatively significant feature in the town of Madras and in the higher courts, while being much less significant in local institutions throughout the Presidency.
