Abstract :
     John Lang (1816-64) is a prolific figure of the 19th centuryBritish empire. Born in Sydney, Lang was a lawyer, journalist and writerwho sailed to India in search of a legal career in 1842, and made it hishome. As a lawyer, Lang fought cases of Indian clients against the East India Company, and his success made the Rani of Jhansi appoint him hersolicitor. As a journalist, Lang was a scathing critic of the British rulein India, and yet most of his readers were from the army. As a writer, Lang’s output is prolific – 24 novels, books of poetry and plays. Lang waslost to all the three nationalities he belonged to, for over a century andhas been brought back to historical discourse by this research. This pushes the shared history of India and Australia back by fifty years.

         In aninteresting development, PM Modi gifted Lang’s documents to his Australiancounterpart in 2014. As a legal personality, Lang is important to understand the history ofIndian jurisprudence and its current shape. In his novels, he takes on thecolonial legal systems, not just of civil but also of military courts. Hepoints to the colonial mistrust of ‘native’ witnesses, which therefore led to a culture of massive paperwork and sworn affidavits. He also lampoonsthe culture of ‘character certificates’ bestowed by British officers tonative subjects as testimony of their loyalty to the Empire. Nana Sahib, the great rebel of 1857, himself had several of such testimonies. As alawyer, Lang fought only cases of Indians against the East India Company;and in a famous case of 1851, he fought for Lala Jotee Persaud. He won for the Lala a sum upwards of Rs 50 lakh, and tremendous fame for himself. Hisfame reached the ears of the Rani of Jhansi, who appointed him to fight her Doctrine of Lapse case.

About the Speaker:
        Amit Ranjan is an Assistant Professor in theDepartment of English at Zakir Hussain Delhi College, Delhi University. Heholds a PhD and an MPhil, both from JNU. His doctoral research about JohnLang, a 19th century Australian writer, lawyer and journalist engages with rich primary archival material; and it throws new light at mid-19th centuryBritish empire vis-à-vis the characters of “interlopers” like Lang. He haspublished on this subject in Women’s Link journal, as also in various newspapers, and a non-fiction book on Lang in under publication. He iscurrently working on another book about colonial ties between India andAustralia with support from Australia India Youth Dialogue.

Ranjan also holds an honorary fellow position at Florida InternationalUniversity, Miami. He was a Fulbright scholar for 2015-16 at the sameuniversity. He has also been a recipient Endeavour Research Fellowship of Australia, as also the Inlaks Research Grant, courtesy of which he was a Visiting Fellow at UNSW, Sydney. He has also been a delegate at AustraliaIndia Youth Dialogue, 2015, and a writer-in-residence at Sangam House Writers’ residency, 2010. He also held the honorary position of AustraliaAwards Ambassador in India for two years, 2014 and 2015. As a creativewriter, Ranjan’s poetry, fiction and essays have been published in ariousjournals.