Deana Heath and Jinee Lokaneeta, "Policing and Violence in India: Colonial Origins and Contemporary Realities" (Speaking Tiger, 2025)

Jan 2, 2026

Jinee Lokaneeta, a Political Science professor at Drew University, and Deana Heath, an Indian and Colonial History professor at the University of Liverpool, delve into the colonial origins of India's police force. They discuss how the legacy of British rule continues to shape police violence and the marginalization of specific groups. The conversation reveals the interplay between law and systemic issues, with a focus on the need for accountability and reform. They also explore the impact of technology on policing practices and challenge listeners to critique the normalization of violence.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

ANECDOTE

Image Echoed Globally

Shailza describes an image of an officer pressing a protester's face that echoed George Floyd's killing.
The comparison illustrated how comparable spectacles of police violence travel and resonate globally.

INSIGHT

Normalization Of Custodial Violence

India's custodial violence is normalized and often invisible in public life.
The book intervenes in that silence to explain colonial continuities behind policing brutality.

INSIGHT

Structured Multi‑Angle Analysis

The book dedicates sections to colonial continuities, legal facilitation, and complexities within police identities.
It includes reflections and interviews to broaden perspectives beyond academic essays.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Why does Indias police force, created under British rule, still echo the priorities of a bygone empire? And what is it about this institution, tasked with maintaining the law and order, that has led to a normalization of daily violence? These are the key questions that inform the analyses in this volume by lawyers, academics and activists. Divided into four broad sections, it begins by looking at the origins of the modern police force in the 1860s and demonstrates their role in maintaining socio-cultural, economic and political hierarchies even in post-Independence India. The second section explores how the law and legal infrastructure, as well as the bureaucracy in India, work to effectively facilitate police violence and to further marginalize and criminalize certain groups, like lower castes and Muslims. The penultimate section complicates this picture, examining how police violence is shaped by historical ambivalence towards democracy, the personal and systemic dynamics between police personnel and the accused, and the fraught identity of police in conflict zones like Kashmir, where authority is both granted and withheld by the state. The final section contains interviews of and reflections by prominent critics of police violence, including former Haryana DGP V.N. Rai and Abdul Wahid Shaikh, falsely accused of involvement in the 2006 Mumbai blasts. Questioning its foundational purpose and envisioning pathways to accountability and reform, Policing and Violence in India ignites a long-overdue conversation about the nature of policing in India.

Deana Heath is Professor of Indian and Colonial History at the University of Liverpool. She has written widely on issues relating to policing and violence in colonial India, particularly on torture and sexual violence. Her latest book, Colonial Terror: Torture and State Violence in Colonial India, was published by Oxford University Press in 2021.

Jinee Lokaneeta is Professor in Political Science and International Relations at Drew University, New Jersey. She is the author of The Truth Machines: Policing, Violence, and Scientific Interrogations in India, published in 2020 by the University of Michigan Press and Orient Blackswan, and Transnational Torture: Law, Violence, and State Power in the United States and India, published by New York University Press in 2011 and Orient Blackswan in 2012.

Shailza Sharma is an Assistant Professor at Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network