Chronicles of Property after the Great Fire of Bombay in 1803
Chronicles of Property after the Great Fire of Bombay in 1803
A View of Bombay from Malabar Point - R. Cribb (King George III Topo Collection)
OSC Scientific Seminar 2020-2021
Friday, 26th March 2021, 11:30 am / 1 pm (Zoom video conference)
Chronicles of Property after the Great Fire of Bombay in 1803
Sukriti Issar
Assistant Professor, Sciences Po - OSC
In this talk, I will present the outline of my book project on the aftermath of the Bombay fire of 1803.
After this ‘calamitous conflagration’, the East India Company attempted to organize the rebuilding of the town. The Company was seized by the sorry state of land records and difficulty of ascertaining ‘what did belong of right to the Crown and what did belong to the people’. Through chronicles of property written by the Company and its officials and lawyers, and chronicles written by local residents, this talk explores property rights in urban colonial South Asia.
What understandings of property were marshaled by different actors? What forms of argument or reasoning, what standards of proof were considered legitimate? And what does this tell us about the evolution of property rights in urban colonial South Asia?
Registration is mandatory to join the ZOOM meeting (the link will be sent one day before)
