Imprint of the Raj: How Fingerprinting was Born in Colonial India

by Chandak Sengoopta

A fascinating account of the invention of fingerprinting in colonial India and the story of how the technique was exported back to Victorian England. Opening with the first case in a British criminal court to use the radical new technique of fingerprinting to identify the perpetrators of crime in 1902 this riveting book takes us back to the origins of fingerprinting in India. Despite many books on the subject of fingerprints in general, none have looked closely at the fact that this standard tool of forensic science was born in India during the Raj. As the author points out, with the exception of curry there is not one other instance of something so fundamental to British life being imported fully-formed from the Empire and then being tailored to fit conditions at home. Based on original and hitherto unpublished research Imprint of the Raj gives a unique insight into our colonial past and offers a vivid account of this extraordinary and largely ignored story. Chandak Sengoopta is the Wellcome Research Lecturer at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Manchester. His first academic book, Otto Sex, Science, and Self in Imperial Vienna was published by the, University of Chicago Press in 2000. Imprint of the Raj is his first book for the general reader.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Indian Literature

234 pages, Hardcover

First published February 21, 2003

Reviews

[Sharad Pandian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun pop-science, pop-history survey of the use of finger-printing in government, which uses the alternative techniques, sites, and controversies very effectively to create a quick, informative read. The last third, where the author touches on the controversies of credibility (judges arguing about exert witnesses, juries overruling experts and then being overruled by judges, etc) were the most interesting for me, but even the rest of the book, while not particularly analytic, has cool enough material (who doesn't love crime?) to hold its own.

[Vicki Beyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good description of how formal use of fingerprinting arose, how it came to be used predominately for identification and some speculation on the demise of personal rights due to the rise of biometrics.

[Krzysztof Iwanek · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gem of a study. I had no idea that fingerprinting as a police method is so much historically connected to British colonial practices in India. Also, the parts of the book on indigo cultivation were an additional gem within this gem.