Overview

This volume presents an integrated collection of essays around the theme of India’s failure to grapple with the big questions of human rights protections affecting marginalized minority groups in the country’s recent rush to modernization. The book traverses a broad range of rights violations from: gender equality to sexual orientation, from judicial review of national security law to national security concerns, from water rights to forest rights of those in need, and from the persecution of Muslims in Gulberg to India’s parallel legal system of Lok Adalats to resolve disputes. It calls into question India’s claim to be a contemporary liberal democracy. The thesis is given added strength by the authors’ diverse perspectives which ultimately create a synergy that stimulates the thinking of the entire field of human rights, but in the context of a non-western country, thereby prompting many specialists in human rights to think in new ways about their research and the direction of the field, both in India and beyond. In an area that has been under-researched, the work will provide valuable guidance for new research ideas, experimental designs and analyses in key cutting-edge issues covered in this work, such as acid attacks or the right to protest against the ‘nuclear’ state in India.

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9781032088761

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Reviews

'India's Courts have developed an enviable human rights jurisprudence admired throughout the world. At the same time, it has a questionable human rights record on ground realities. This is not a dichotomy but, like so many nations, India has a bi-focal ability, to perceive the ground realities as a state of 'being' and its normative jurisprudence as a state of 'becoming.' This anthology does not seek to expose but remind us of this mighty dissonance. Perhaps, some but, not all courts, were more vigilant in their concerns to evolve a masterly jurisprudence despite the compromises inherent in India's Constitution. Even so cruel human rights absurdities persist. These essays take us to national security massively trumping rights, the parallel 'legal' system of khap panchayats (caste communities) severely punishing people, the legal mimicry of the Gujarat and other riots, the increasing lawlessness, acid attacks, forest rights, the wayward law on death penalty, the water crisis and the shadow of the World Bank on India's economy. I put this book down with a sadness that I had reached the end, but spirited by the hope that more books like this will be written.' - Dr Rajeev Dhavan, supreme court lawyer, New Delhi

Author Information

Satvinder Juss is a Professor of Law at King’s College London and a Barrister.

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