My research analyses the paradoxical discourse of ‘imperial justice’ and ‘Indian criminality’ in the four novels of Philip Meadows Taylor: Confessions of a Thug (1839), Tara (1863), Ralph Darnell (1865) and Seeta (1872). These four novels from a single author portray landmark events in four different periods in Indian history, mapping the evolution of British colonialism in India. By combining theoretical approaches with literary close reading, I present a multifaceted analysis of Taylor’s works that firmly positions his fiction in the intersecting discourses of nineteenth century British fiction on India; the social and cultural milieu in India at that time; nineteenth century British literary discourse in general; and the political and cultural narratives that constructed the ideological foundations of British colonialism. I especially utilize the theoretical frameworks propounded by David Spurr in his seminal work The Rhetoric of Empire (1993); the concept of criminality in nineteenth century Indian literature as expounded by Upamanyu Mukherjee in his work Crime and Empire: The Colony in Nineteenth-Century Fictions of Crime (2004); the notion of ‘Homo Sacer’ by Giorgio Agamben; and seminal theories in works such as Orientalism (1978) and Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975) by Edward Said and Michel Foucault respectively. I analyse in my thesis the eugenical and Eurocentric foundations of colonial discourse that gave colonialism pseudo-scientific underpinnings and legitimation to illustrate, ultimately, the contradictions of nineteenth century colonial discourse. Analysing the latent influence of colonial discourse even in the writings of an author like Taylor who was more sympathetic to the natives of nineteenth century India in contrast to authors like Flora Annie Steele, James Grant and Rudyard Kipling, I prove through my thesis that the ‘paternalistic’ school of colonial discourse championed by Edmund Burke and exemplified in the writings of Taylor was equally pernicious and regressive in its foundation as compared to the ‘utilitarian’ school of colonial discourse championed by James Mill and exemplified in the writings of authors like Flora Annie Steele and James Grant.

Key Words: Colonialism, nineteenth century India, David Spurr, Philip Meadows Taylor, Eugenics, Race.