Mitra Sharafi’s South Asian Legal History Resources

Date: 2010.07.21 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 0

I am a legal historian of colonial India, and teach at the University of Wisconsin Law School (with History affiliation).

For my bio and CV, please see my faculty webpage.

The aim of this website is to share tools and resources for the historical study of law in South Asia.

These include:

• a research guide to case law
• a list of abbreviations used in case law citation
• a list of published primary sources
• holdings of a colonial law library from Bombay, c.1911
• a list of articles in colonial law journals, 1891-1947
• a list of South Asian law students at the Inns of Court in London, 1863-1947
• a bibliography of secondary sources
• a list of ideas for future research projects
• a list of journals to consider for publishing opportunities
• a set of resources on professional development in academia
• a tab about my work on Parsi legal history

Many of these resources focus on the later colonial period of South Asian legal history, when British India was under the Raj (1858-1947). For an excellent set of resources on the early colonial period, see Mitch Fraas’ Anglo-Indian Legal History blog. For general guides to doing research on Indian law, see Theodore A. Mahr’s “An Introduction to Indian Legal Research and Indian Law” (Delhi: Indian Law Institute, 1986) and Sunil Rao’s “India: A Legal Research Guide” (a UW Law Library online guide).

I am a member of the UW South Asia Legal Studies Working Group and the UW Legal History Working Group.

With colleagues Sumudu Atapattu and Don Davis, I organize the Annual South Asia Legal Studies Pre-Conference Workshop in Madison, Wisconsin, every October. This workshop immediately precedes the Annual Conference on South Asia in Madison. The next workshop will take place on Thursday, Oct.17, 2013. Here is the Draft Program.

With colleague  Marc Galanter, I also organize the Law and Society Association’s South Asia Collaborative Research Network (CRN), a group that meets once a year and presents panels on South Asia at the Annual Law and Society Association meeting. Here is the  CRN’s home page. To sign up, send me an e-mail.

I am interested to know whether you find these resources useful, and if they can be improved in any way. Please e-mail me with your comments and suggestions at sharafi@wisc.edu.

I thank the UW Law School’s webmaster, Karen Koethe, for her help in developing this site.

[updated on 29 April 2013]