Colonial legal defence can become a platform for imperial citizenship claims

Evidence

A zealous critic of corruption, Anstey quarrelled with the governor in Hong Kong and was suspended from his post. He shifted his legal practice to Bombay, where he briefly served as a judge in the High Court. Despite his often remarked upon ‘imperfections of temper’, Anstey acquired a reputation among his colleagues for his passionate defence of the legal rights of Indians. Drawing on his own far-ranging imperial connections, Anstey transformed his defence of the Khan brothers into a political platform from which he argued that all British subjects, regardless of where they lived in the empire, had the right to equal protection of the law. — Julia Stephens, The Phantom Wahhabi, 79

Categorization

• XREF: Resonates with The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Maps as literature of imperial law and belonging.
• SEED: Angle: how colonial barristers turned individual defences into arguments for empire-wide equal protection.