Chapter 19
In: Sights, Sounds, and Sensibilities of Atrocity Prosecutions
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Abstract
This chapter zooms in on two colonial trials held in the 19th century by the British imperialists. The accused (read victims) at these trials were 82 year-old Mughal Badshah Bahadur Shah Zafar and Tikendrajit Singh, the 35 year-old Prince of Manipur (a federal unit of modern-day India). This contribution highlights the aesthetical aspects of Zafar’s trial, who was tried as a British subject, despite being the Indian sovereign. In so doing, it emphasises the desperate attempt by the British to gain sympathy for their actions as they displayed Zafar to the Europeans ‘like a beast in a cage’, here invoking their sense of sight. The chapter also introduces the trial of prince Tikendrajit who, following his conviction, was hanged in front of thousands of his subjects. This public hanging symbolised the appropriation of sovereignty over Manipur by the British empire. Thus, the chapter argues that these trials were used as a tool to colonise India and Manipur. The treatment of Tikendrajit at the hands of the British contrasts from that of Zafar but paradoxically sheds light on the continuities of staged trial spectacles in buttressing colonial oppression and discrediting liberation movements.