Efforts of Colonial State to Suppress Female Infanticide: Use of Sacred Texts, Generation of Knowledge

Abstract

The British first discovered female infanticide in India in 1789. Jonathan Duncan, then the resident in Benares province was asked by the Bengal council to settle the revenues in the province acquired by the raja of Benares. Duncan found during his tour for settling the revenues, that the Rajkumar rajputs in Jaunpur district destroyed their female children. Duncan immediately informed Lord Cornwallis the then governor-general of British Indian about his discovery. A few years later in 1794. Sir John Shore informed the Asiatic Society of Bengal of Duncan's discovery. In 1795, Duncan was appointed governor of Bombay. He visited Surat in 1800 and was informed during his visit by a minister of the Nawab of Surat that the Jadeja rajputs of peninsular Gujarat in Kathiawad (now Saurashtra) and Kutch killed their female children.