BOMBAY LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL CHAMBERS
In 1862, the Mumbai Legislative Council debated a seemingly technical question about prisoners sentenced to rigorous imprisonment. But the proposed rule exposed something much bigger.
Commander-in-Chief Sir W. Mansfield proposed that European officers sentenced to rigorous imprisonment should be exempt from wearing shackles, on the grounds that they should be treated according to English law. Indian prisoners, meanwhile, would continue to be chained.
Nana objected. He challenged the idea that the same government could impose different standards of punishment according to race. In the Legislative Council, he argued passionately for equal rights and equal punishment for all subjects under the Queen's government, gaining the support of Governor Bartle Frere.
It was not enough. The European majority voted along racial lines, and Nana lost the vote 5 to 4.
That defeat is what makes the episode worth remembering.
Nana did not wait until he knew he could win before challenging the rule. He stood up in the Council and forced the principle of racial equality into the debate, even when the numbers were against him.
The stand laid the ideological foundation for future legal challenges to British racial exceptionalism, echoing forward to the Ilbert Bill controversy of 1883 and the protests against the discriminatory Whipping Act of 1909.