Law, Justice and Human Rights in India is a collection of short essays on a range of contemporary issues—prisoners’ rights, campus violence, women’s rights, state impunity, judicial accountability, citizen engagement in law-making, and questions of discrimination against Dalits, Adivasis, persons with disabilities, and sexual and religious minorities. Framed by the Constitution of India, the chapters provide a sense of the times we are living through, with each essay addressing an urgent debate that has arisen at a particular moment in India’s contemporary history. Kalpana Kannabiran brings her formal training in law, sociology and gender studies, and her work as a feminist socio-legal counsellor with a women’s collective, into her essays, allowing them to open up alternative spaces for dialogue and public discourse on dissent. Reflecting upon issues of social justice and human rights, she offers insights into the Constitution and law, moving these out of the sacred, unreachable precincts of constitutional courts and into the realities of everyday life. This volume presents an account of the making and unmaking of laws through resistance struggles and movements, encouraging readers to engage with the language, protocols and practices of legislations. The continuing relevance of the concerns raised in this collection and its level critique of power and dominance will interest anyone who wishes to trace the development of human rights debates in India over the past two decades. Contents: Foreword by Anand Teltumbde Introduction Part A—Understanding Discrimination one The Adivasi Experience 1. Adivasis and Gujarat 2002 2. The Burden of Criminal Neglect 3. Constitutional Conversations on Adivasi Rights 4. Without Land or Recourse two Blocked by Caste 5. Caste, the Academy and Dalit Women 6. Reservation and the Creamy Layer 7. Chunduru: On the Road to Justice 8. Roadmap for Reservation in Higher Education 9. Atrocities That No Longer Shock 10. Scope of Constitutional Morality 11. The Annihilation by Caste 12. Post-truths about Rohith Vemula three Disability Rights 13. Creating Enabling Environments 14. The Rights of Prisoners with Disabilities 15. Between the Divine and the Diabolical: Disability Rights over the Edge 16. Right to Privacy as Right to Life four Minority Rights 17. An Apology to Mohammed Akhlaq 18. Kashmir and Una Define a New Practice of Politics 19. Babri Masjid Revisited 20. We Shall Not Be Silenced, nor Shall We Ever Forget five Queer Rights 21. From ‘Perversion’ to Right to Life with Dignity 22. It’s Time to Scrap the Eunuchs Act six Women’s Rights 23. Rethinking the Law on Sexual Assault 24. Girl Punk, Interrupted 25. A Moment of Triumph for Women 26. Lessons from Badaun and Beyond 27. Article 17 is at the Heart of the Matter 28. Graded Patriarchies and Graded Inequality: Sabarimala 29. Judicial Opacity on Women’s Entry in Sabarimala Part B—Civil Liberties, Human Rights and Law seven Civil Liberties 30. On Human Rights and Radical Evil 31. The Abolition of the Death Penalty 32. Something is Rotten in the States of … 33. And We Must Say It Again … Again Yet Again 34. Democratic Futures in Peril: An Assault on the Right to Privacy 35. Constitutional Justice is Non-negotiable eight Free Speech 36. Free Speech is the Cornerstone of Constitution 37. ‘Hard Words Break No Bones’: Sedition, Free Speech, Academic Freedoms and Sovereignty in India 38. Mourning the Loss of Gauri Lankesh 39. Taking Aim at the Messenger 40. No Rollback on the Right to Dissent 41. Kancha Ilaiah: For Lives Lived in Labour 42. ‘They Cannot Stop Me from Teaching Marx and Ambedkar’: A Conversation with K. Satyanarayana 43. Hate Speech and the Barbarity of ‘False Equivalence’ nine Professions and Civil Rights 44. Of Lawyers and the Law 45. Lawyer, Judge and Aam Aadmi 46. When Professional Associations Start Promoting Narrow Sectarian Agendas ten Judges are Equal Citizens 47. Parables of Justice and Women Therein 48. Privacy, Sequestered Courts and the Place of Dissent 49. The Court is not above the Constitution 50. Redeeming the Constitution 51. Juridical Viralities, Courts and the Question of Justice eleven ‘Freedom to Be’ in Universities 52. Education, Campuses and Violence 53. Disrupting Caste in Class 54. A Call to Resurrect the Constitution, or What is a University? 55. Urgent Notes from a University in Crisis 56. The University is not a Feudal Village 57. A Year after Rohith Vemula’s Death … 58. ‘I Don’t See What is Happening within Universities as Separate from What is Happening in the Political Arena’ twelve Human Rights Cultures 59. Development, Justice and the Constitution 60. Regulating Cultures through Food Policing 61. Paresh Rawal Must Be Asked to Forfeit His Seat thirteen Futures of Citizenship 62. Of Law, Resurrection and a Future 63. Constitution, Hostile Environments and ‘Atrocious’ Interpretation: A Sign of Our Times 64. Through the Clouds of Protest, Sightings of Hope 65. Retrieving the Idea of Citizenship 66. Safoora Zargar and the Search for India’s Soul 67. Governance by Annihilation and by Hate