Abstract
This article examines the 1920 trial of Musammat Kelee, a Hindu widow from Ajmer-Merwara, accused of drowning her illegitimate infant son in a lake. Drawing on extensive trial records, police reports, and official correspondence, it reconstructs the procedural history of her case and situates it within broader colonial debates on female sexuality, widowhood, and infanticide. Kelee’s conviction under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, despite weak evidence, hinged on judicial emphasis on her widowhood and the perceived illegitimacy of her child as proof of motive. Yet her subsequent pardon by the Viceroy’s office reflected a contradictory administrative impulse that simultaneously vilified and victimised widows suspected of infanticide. By tracing Kelee’s trial alongside the longer history of official debates on “infanticidal women” from the late nineteenth century, beginning with T. Madhava Rao’s 1876 tract on punishment for maternal infanticide, the article reveals how colonial law and governance produced ambivalent narratives around culpability. Colonial officials consistently linked reproductive crimes to “deviant” female sexuality, while also recognising the oppressive constraints of widowhood and caste norms in India. This dual framing influenced judicial outcomes, where conviction and mercy frequently coexisted. Engaging with scholarship on gender, law, and colonial governance, the article argues that Kelee’s trial exemplifies how colonial officials perceived the sexual lives of Indian women as matters of public concern. Her case foregrounds the entanglement of administrative and public discourses on female sexuality and criminality and how they shaped colonial gendered anxieties in early twentieth century India.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.55496/ACDB7513
Included in
Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, History of Gender Commons, Legal Commons, Women's History Commons
