Western Legal Transplants and India

Abstract

Alan \%tsons theory on legal ·transplants can be used to examine some particularities of Indian legal history. British colonizers not only imported in India many rules and features of their legal system, but they have also re-invented the tradition of Hindu law and experimented in India some new legal devices through the codification process. These legal transplants have also played the role of "irritants" - according to Teubner's terminology - by provoking unforeseen changes in the Indian legal scene. The originality of the Indian legal order since the independence is thus linked with the construction of a complex legacy of various transplants.