Justice and Equity, by Harsukh Rai

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THE powerful fly before the weak, and robbers and highwaymen show the way to benighted travellers. All enjoy rest under their protection, and all are comforted by their justice.* If a brief account of the rules and regulations which are made by these great people for the adminstration of justice were given, it would much lengthen this work. The judges, at the time of hearing complaints, look on all, poor and rich, respectable and mean, with an impartial eye, and punish them according to the law, in proportion to the atrocity of their deeds, so that others may take warning from them, and avoid to commit crime. May Almighty God preserve the shadow of their favour and kindness over the heads of all people, as long as the world exists!*

by Harsukh Rai fl. 1799-1805

From Majma’u-l Akhbar, by Harsukh Rai (fl. 1799-1805), as given in ‘The history of India: as told by its own historians. Volume VIII’ (1877), edited from the papers of Sir Henry Miers Elliot (1808-1853). The translation was made by a ‘munshi’ (secretary).

* Harsukh Rai’s contemporary Mirza Abu Taleb Khan (1752-1806) was less impressed with British justice, both on his visit to London and in Calcutta, but he acknowledged that sometimes justice was done: see A Shabby Suit and Pillars of Justice.

* If Harsukh Rai is to be believed, English administration had come a long way since Edmund Burke gave his assessment of it before the Commons in 1783. See A Dereliction of Duty.

Précis

Harsukh Rai picked out the British justice system for special praise. It was, he said, complex and exhaustive but also strict and impartial, avenging and deterring crime regardless of wealth or social class. So efficient were the courts, that even highwaymen had resigned their trade, and were courteously directing lost travellers safely to their destination.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

Précis

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