"Parsing Law: Zoroastrians and Litigation in Late Colonial South Asia" is a project that examines the unusual relationship between one ethno-religious community and colonial law. The Parsis, who followed the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, migrated to India after the seventh-century conquest of Persia by Arab Muslims. Under British rule, they prospered as an Anglicized elite of intermediary traders and professionals. To a degree perhaps unparalleled in the British Empire, Parsis turned to "outside law," rather than to "inside: priestly or community authorities, to resolve key religious and family-related disputes. The community's extreme state-oriented legalism--exemplified not only by the large number of civil suits between Parsis, but also by the many Parsi lawyers and judges involved in these cases--cut across the class spectrum, as it did across the religious orthodox-liberal divide. Historically and in the contemporary context, minority communities often avoid state law, making the Parsi pattern unusual and distinctive. "Parsing Law" will be the first scholarly examination of the colonial Parsi legal phenomenon. The PI's archival research focuses upon English-language case papers and judges' notebooks from the Bombay High Court and the Parsi Chief Matrimonial Court (both in Mumbai) and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (London), newspapers and government records, and Gujarati-language Parsi sources. The project aims to make an important contribution to the fields of Zoroastrian, South Asian, and British imperial studies, as well as "Anglosphere" legal history. It will also speak to scholars of diaspora and minority studies, law and religion, legal pluralism, and the history of the legal profession.
