Political conflict in Pakistan

unrelenting passion – the result of a pre-meditated diabolic plan hatched by a cabal of imperialist schemers? Highly unlikely, many would say. No less importantly, were not a large number of those measures, however imperfectly conceived or executed, justified by the local conditions existing in many of the colonies – to which Ford herself alludes in her narration, albeit with qualifications – e.g., the presence of ‘arsonists, looters, and rioters’ in Boston [p. 224] or the ‘ungovernability’ of Bengalis’ in India [p. 225]? Ford’s analysis can also be faulted for not paying sufficient attention to the civilising influence of English law in many of the colonies, especially in relation to certain social evils which were rampant at the time, e.g., suttee (the burning of Hindu widows with their husband’s corpses) in India or cliterodectomy in East Africa. Another critique that can be made of the thesis advocated by Ford is that, while the influence of colonial laws and approaches to peace-keeping in many of Britain’s former possessions cannot be denied, it is highly arguable that all the present-day ills in those countries can be laid at the doorstep of their imperial masters. It is worth remembering that several decades have now passed since the colonies saw the end of British rule, and there have been no constraints on, or excuses for, local parliaments and other decision-making bodies in erasing the legacy of colonial laws. Strikingly, in some former colonies, their postindependence leaders have chosen to enact measures which are at least as draconian as, and sometimes harsher than, the ones castigated by Ford. All that having been said, books such as these do serve a useful purpose, not least in encouraging readers to think about many commonly encountered but insufficiently understood matters, such as the content of what is encapsulated by the potent phrase the ‘King’s peace’, the relationship between normality in governance and states of exception, the nature and limits of prerogative powers, and, more broadly, the ‘jurisprudence of empire’. The book, notes the author in her introduction, ‘forms one strand of a much larger tale about the rise of the crown and the modern police state’ (p. 9). It is to be hoped that future historians – as well as scholars from other disciplines – will explore many more aspects of this fascinating and practically not unimportant subject.