Detecting judicial bias in British India's High Courts: a quantitative and qualitative examination

The High Courts of British India operated from the middle of the 19^th to the middle of the 20^th century.  These courts were responsible for adjudicating both criminal and civil cases which were appealed from British India’s lower courts. Judges to the High Courts were either British or Indian males with a background in the civil services or in the judiciary. This study will attempt to examine the existence of judicial bias in the High Courts and will look at three sources of bias: gender, race, and religion. We will look at the background of judges as well as the background of plaintiffs and see if any of the three abovementioned sources of bias existed.  We pay attention to gender bias because the High Court judges were exclusively male, and Indian women faced numerous cultural and legal barriers to the utilization of the court system. Our study will also discuss bias on the basis of religion because earlier discussions of British India have alleged that the British pursued a policy of “divide and rule” that favored particular religious groups over others. Finally, racial bias will be examined as we wish to see if Europeans and Indians were treated differently by the High Courts.  Our study will look at plaintiff win rates to examine the existence of bias and will utilize econometric tools including logit regressions.  The judges are classified as Hindu, Muslim, European, or Zoroastrian.  Plaintiffs are classified per religion, race, and gender. The cases are categorized according to their type (though we exclude criminal cases and limit the discussion to civil cases.) Our study will buttress quantitative findings with qualitative results.  This study hopes to add to the growing literature on Indian economic and legal history.