This chapter, set in the southernmost districts of British India in the first half of the twentieth century, argues that the colonial police were not an entity distant from rural society, appearing only to restore order at moments of rebellion. Rather, they held a widespread and regular, albeit selective, presence in the colonial countryside. Drawing on, and reproducing, colonial knowledge which objectified community and privileged property, routine police practices redirected the constable’s gaze and stave towards ‘dangerous’ spaces and ‘criminal’ subjects. Using detailed planning documents produced by European police officers and routine, previously unexplored, notes maintained by native inspectors at local stations, the chapter argues that colonial policemen also acted as agents of state surveillance and coercion at the level of the quotidian.
