An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India

by Shashi Tharoor

A certain type of case popped up frequently in the British colonial courts. Many Indians suffered from enlarged spleens as a result of malaria (or other diseases); when a British master kicked a native servant in the stomach—a not uncommon form of conduct in those days—the Indian’s enlarged spleen would rupture, causing his death. The jurisprudential question was: did the fatal kick amount to murder or criminal misconduct? When Robert Augustus Fuller fatally assaulted his servant in these circumstances in 1875—Fuller claimed he struck him on the face, but three witnesses testified that he had kicked him in the stomach—he was found guilty only of ‘voluntarily causing hurt’, and was sentenced to fifteen days’ imprisonment or a fine of thirty rupees to be paid to the widow. (According to the coroner, the servant’s spleen was so enlarged that even ‘moderate’ violence would have ruptured it.)