Podcast Summary: New Books Network

Episode: Deana Heath, "Colonial Terror: Torture and State Violence in Colonial India"
Date: October 26, 2025
Host: Roland Clark
Guest: Deana Heath, Professor of Indian and Colonial History, University of Liverpool; author of Colonial Terror: Torture and State Violence in Colonial India (Oxford UP, 2021)

Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation between Roland Clark and Deana Heath about her groundbreaking book, Colonial Terror: Torture and State Violence in Colonial India. Heath challenges the prevailing narrative that British rule in India was relatively benign, arguing instead that terror and state violence—including systematic torture—were central to British colonial governance. The discussion explores how exceptional legal powers, biopolitics (such as the management of famines), and corrupt policing formed a regime of fear that has left a continued legacy in India’s contemporary justice system.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Central Thesis: Terror as Instrument of Colonial Rule

• Heath asserts that terror—not just violence, but systemic, legitimized extralegal violence—was fundamental to British rule in India.
  • “The British established what I call a regime of exception in India...marked both by exceptional laws and the legitimization of extralegal violence…” – Deana Heath [02:18]
• Terror targeted primarily the poor, lower castes, religious minorities, and increasingly middle-class Indians with the rise of nationalist movements.

2. Comparison: British Colonial Violence vs. Mughal Rule

• British governance was markedly more totalizing and violent compared to previous empires, such as the Mughal.
  • Mughals left "gaps" that allowed Indian traditions to persist; the British sought to impose a “more totalizing form of power” and legal system that criminalized many more actions.
  • “The British were not an indigenous force: they were sent in India to exploit it. They didn’t indigenize themselves, the Mughals did.” – Deana Heath [05:39]

3. The “Regime of Exception” and Policing

• Drawing on theorists like Giorgio Agamben and Michel Foucault, Heath describes how the British invoked both legal and extralegal powers—creating a “regime of exception.”
  • Extraordinary legal powers enabled police to act as “petty sovereigns” wielding unchecked violence.
  • “Exceptional measures…coexisted with other forms of exception,” giving Indian police wide latitude to commit violence on behalf of the colonial state. – Deana Heath [06:43]

4. Famine as Biopolitics

• British policy during famines reflected biopolitical reasoning: the deaths of “residual poor” were rationalized as beneficial.
  • “This seemingly nonsensical idea was the result of…biopolitical ideas. So…those who died were the residual poor who were a drain on both state and society...it was in Britain’s interest for these so-called residual poor die in famines.” – Deana Heath [08:00]

5. Torture as a Tool of Government

• Torture was routine, normalized, and central to police work.
  • “Torture was central to the operation of policing in colonial India and legitimated through its legal system…at the heart of the terror the Indian police and by extension the colonial state evoked…” – Deana Heath [10:01]
• Used less to extract valuable information than to elicit confessions and maintain fear and compliance.

6. British Responsibility for Indian-on-Indian Violence

• Although Indian police did most of the torturing, the British created, maintained, and benefited from the violent system.
  • “The British were responsible for the torture because it was essentially their policing system…they accorded Indians tremendous power to enact violence on their behalf…” – Deana Heath [10:56]
• British authorities repeatedly investigated and denounced police violence, but made no structural reforms.

7. Incentives and Police Behavior

• Policemen were evaluated by convictions, not justice, which fueled coercive tactics and torture.
  • “Their method was to go to a village...round up...troublemakers or even an entire village and put these under various forms of violence and other duress until they secured confession.” – Deana Heath [13:46]
• Illiteracy, inadequate training, and abysmally low pay led police to collude with elites, rely on confession-based convictions, and engage in bribery.

8. The Role of Judges and Legal System Dysfunction

• Judges (both British and Indian) were often inadequately trained, sometimes more ignorant of the law than policemen.
  • “Most British judges…were catapulted from other branches of the colonial state onto the bench and often had very little in the way of legal training…a widespread sentiment that it didn’t really matter who was convicted as long as justice was seen to be done. So this meant…accepting evidence obtained through torture…” – Deana Heath [16:28]

9. Social Position & Views of the Police

• Police were widely feared by the marginalized and lower castes, but embraced by elites who used them as enforcers.
  • “How the police were viewed depended a lot on social position...local elites certainly would view them well because they could use the police to their own ends. They were definitely feared by the lower castes and classes and religious minorities and women…” – Deana Heath [22:44]

10. Endurance of Colonial Policing Legacies

• Colonial policing practices and legal structures have outlasted the British Empire—continuing to shape contemporary Indian policing and state violence.
  • “The issues it addresses...continued into the 20th century and in fact still plague India today…All of the legal issues that I explore in the book pretty much in you.” – Deana Heath [24:30]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On colonial governance:
  • “British rule has got off the hook in India far too much.” – Deana Heath [02:18]
• On why torture persisted:
  • “They weren’t willing to make the changes that would have curbed the enactment of police violence. Even things like the wages that police constables were paid weren’t enough...Such violence ultimately benefited them.” – Deana Heath [12:42]
• On the ongoing legacy:
  • “The legal system, the laws, the policing system...were developed in colonial India, and they actually haven’t changed a lot since then. So it’s not surprising that these problems will continue.” – Deana Heath [25:58]
• On constructing torturers:
  • “Torturers are constructed and they’re constructed by systems...people are not born evil.” – Deana Heath [19:17]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:18] – Challenging the myth of benign British colonialism; introducing the "regime of exception"
• [04:04] – Contrasting Mughal and British rule; totalizing power and state violence
• [06:43] – Defining "regime of exception" and its operation in colonial police practice
• [08:00] – Biopolitics, famine, “let die” policies, and the economics of population management
• [10:01] – The centrality and normalization of torture in colonial policing
• [10:56] – British responsibility for police violence, despite Indian participation
• [13:46] – Incentives for confessions: training, illiteracy, and the economics of policing
• [16:28] – The inadequacy of the colonial legal and judicial systems
• [19:17] – How conditions and systems create torturers
• [22:44] – Societal perceptions of police; collaboration between police and elites
• [24:30] – Continuity of violence and policing structures into contemporary India

Conclusion

This episode compellingly demonstrates that systemic violence, particularly through torture and coercive policing, was not an aberrant aspect but an operational cornerstone of British colonial rule in India. Heath’s research reveals the mechanics of fear, legal exception, and complicity that underpinned colonial statecraft and exposes the long, troubling legacy of these structures in present-day India.

For more, see Deana Heath’s Colonial Terror: Torture and State Violence in Colonial India (Oxford UP, 2021).