Human and social sciences
Rahul Govind
The King’s Plunder, The King’s Bodies: Prize Laws, the British Empire and the Modern Legal Order
Focusing on the King’s rights of conquest and prize among other forms of royal jurisdiction, as well as laws of allegiance and subjecthood, this work establishes the monarchical form of the British empire between CE 1600 and 1900. It gives special attention to the East India Company’s administration and conquests in India as well as ‘direct’ Crown rule thereafter, which indicate this specific form of jurisdiction, raise questions on the nature of subjecthood, and play a crucial role in the development of ‘international law’ in the late nineteenth century.
Rahul Govind teaches history at the University of Delhi. He has held fellowships at Columbia University, the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (Delhi), Indian Institute of Advanced Study (Shimla), and the University of Cambridge.