This volume investigates how, where and when subjects and citizens come into being, assert themselves, and exercise subjecthood or citizenship in the formation of modern India. It argues for the importance of understanding legal practice how rights are performed in dispute and negotiation from the parliament and courts to street corners and field sites. The essays in the book explore themes such as land law and rights, court procedure, freedom of speech, sex workers union rights, refugee status, adivasi people, and non-state actors, and bring together studies from across north India, spanning from early colonial to contemporary times.

Acknowledgements List of contributors List of abbreviations Becoming and being a subject: an introduction GUNNEL CEDERL 1 The making of subjects on British India's North-Eastern Frontier GUNNEL CEDERL 2 The temperament of empire: law and conquest in late 19th-century India JON WILSON3 Contagious contestations: sex work, medicine and law in colonial and postcolonial Sonagachhi SIMANTI DASGUPTA4 Laws and colonial subjects: the subject citizen riddle and the making of section 295 (A) NISHANT KUMAR5 A homeland for tribal subjects: revisiting British colonial experimentations in the Kolhan Government EstateSANJUKTA DAS GUPTA6 Conflict and governance: participation and strategic veto in Bihar and Jharkhand, IndiaAMIT PRAKASH7 Refugees in India: a study into (un)equal status, treatment and prospects ANNE-SOPHIE BENTZ8 Law, agro-ecology and colonialism in mid-Gangetic India, 1770s 1910s NITIN SINHASubjects, citizens and law: a postscript TANIKA SARKARGlossary Bibliography Index