Who was the first governor general? Why did he insist on compiling a digest of Hindu and Muslim laws in the sphere of justice? Answer in 50-60 words.
Answers
Warren Hastings
Warren Hastings FRS (6 December 1732 – 22 August 1818), an English statesman, was the first Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and thereby the first de facto Governor-General of Bengal from 1772 to 1785.
Under Hastings's term as governor-general, much administrative precedent set profoundly shaped later attitudes towards the government of British India. Hastings had great respect for the ancient scripture of Hinduism and set the British position on governance as one of looking back to the earliest precedents possible. This allowed Brahmin advisors to mould the law, as no English person thoroughly understood Sanskrit until Sir William Jones, and even then, a literal translation was of little use – it needed to be elucidated by religious commentators well-versed in the lore and its application. This approach accentuated the Hindu caste system and to an extent the frameworks of other religions, which had at least in recent centuries been somewhat more flexibly applied. So British influence on the fluid social structure of India can largely be seen as a solidification of the privileges of the Hindu caste system through the influence of exclusively high-caste scholars advising the British on their laws. In short, under Hastings there was a codification of Hindu laws, and a digest of Muslim law books. Where British translators or interpreters read in the Artha Shastra a caste system in India, the actual wording speaks of varna and jati: skin-colour and birth, i. e. clan, and it speaks of the four societal classes, not castes: from upper-class Brahmin to lower-class Shudra.
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