Book Talks@NLS Library | ‘Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia’
May 16, 2025
The NLSIU Library Committee organised a book talk by NLS alumna Dr. Priyasha Saksena (NLS BA LLB 2010) on her book ‘Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia.’ The talk took place from 4 pm to 5:30 pm on May 16, 2025.
Prof. (Dr.) Arun Thiruvengadam and Dr. Samyak Ghosh were the discussants.
About the Book
What constitutes a sovereign state in the international legal sphere? This question has been central to international law for centuries. Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia provides a compelling exploration of the history of sovereignty through an analysis of the jurisdictional politics involving a specific set of historical legal entities.
Governed by local rulers, the princely states of colonial South Asia were subject to British paramountcy whilst remaining legally distinct from directly ruled British India. Their legal status and the extent of their rights remained the subject of feverish debates through the entirety of British colonial rule. This book traces the ways in which the language of sovereignty shaped the discourse surrounding the legal status of the princely states to illustrate how the doctrine of sovereignty came to structure political imagination in colonial South Asia and the framework of the modern Indian state.
Opening with a survey of the place of the princely states in the colonial structures of South Asia, Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia goes on to illustrate how international lawyers, British politicians, colonial officials, rulers and bureaucrats of princely states, and anti-colonial nationalists in British India used definitions of sovereignty to construct political orders in line with their interests and aspirations. By invoking the vernacular of sovereignty in contrasting ways to support their differing visions of imperial and world order, these actors also attempted to reconfigure the boundaries among the spheres of the national, the imperial, and the international. Throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, debates and disputes over the princely states continually defined and redefined the concept of sovereignty and international legitimacy in South Asia.
Using rich material from the colonial archives, Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia conveys an understanding of the history of sovereignty and the construction of the modern Indian nation-state that is still relevant today. A riveting read, this book will be of considerable interest and importance to scholars of international law and South Asia, legal historians, and political scientists.
About the Author
Dr. Priyasha Saksena is a legal historian focussing on the development of legal concepts and institutions within the British Empire and their contemporary effects. She is a graduate of Harvard University (SJD) and National Law School of India University (BA LLB). Currently, she is an Associate Professor at the School of Law, University of Leeds. Prior to joining the University of Leeds, she was a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory. She also has experience of working at a corporate law firm.
Reflections from the Author
Speaking to us, Dr. Saksena said:
“It’s so wonderful to be back after 15 years to an unrecognisable campus, and have such a wonderful and warm welcome. I enjoyed a very engaged audience with some fantastic questions.
The book started out as a doctoral dissertation. But I guess the idea can be traced back to my time here at NLS when I took history courses with Professor Elizabeth, which sparked my interest in history. So I think this book can be seen as a culmination of what I started out here back in 2005.”
Related reads:
- Book Review | Indian Law Review
- ‘Alumni in the Archives: An Interview with Legal Historians – Part I’ | Quirk
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