Transition from Traditional to Modern Legal System in India: Socio Legal Analysis

Abstract

Contemporary legal system of India is called modern legal system mostly foreign in origin
and different from traditional legal system of India. But nothing can be done in one night and
similarly, modern legal system which is followed in present India has experienced a phase of
transition where India was struggling with its traditional beliefs and values system along with new
implemented modern legal system. This paper firstly gives a brief introduction on how colonist
changes traditional legal system in India which can be studied with the help of writing of Lakshmi
Subramanian. This case. Analyse the tradition period how the courts and merchant ’s identities
changed during 1800. This was the era of transition when company rule began in administrative, civil
and criminal matters but in order to keep the support of public in terms of finance and to avoid conflict
English east India company did not fully denied the importance of traditional legal system. To order
to better understand the social transformation from traditional to modern legal system it is necessary
to understand as what constitutes traditional legal system. It is later on used to compare modern legal
system with traditional legal system along with the compromises made during transition. This can be
easily done by understanding and analysing writings of Marc Galanter. The writing of Lakshmi
Subramanian analyse the compromises made during the transition period. It is the time when though
company rule was applicable in some parts of India but because company understood the fact that
culture, values and tradition of India cannot be separated from its people, it still followed some aspect
of traditional legal system. During the transition period, Britishers has realised that they cannot go
away with the Indian tradition and hence in order to have a better control over Indian legal system
they began the project of codification of customary practices prevalent in India. However it differed
from the actual practices because they could only codify those practices which is in written form.
Later, this paper analyse how codification project led to less friendly legal system in India which was
different from traditional customary practice. Lastly, paper conclude with the analyses whether social
transformation brought by codification of customary practices is advantageous or not?