Cold SnapDragon

I critique the rule of law with reference to violence and its own history, pointing out that it has often been 'the voice of the immensely privileged codified in statute and subordinate legislation' in a piece that was published by Smashboard and later by Firstpost . Extracts "...the rule of law is not an egalitarian concept and its history demonstrates that it not underlain by gender neutrality. It may be possible to force it into another, less discriminatory mould more mindful of equality and individual rights but that would require recognising our current understanding of the rule of law for what it often is: an idea perpetuated by white men living in sexist societies themselves and forming the theoretical basis for the racial hierarchies which plague all of us today, often with their ideas being used to support economic drain and worse of countries primarily populated by non-white peoples. [....] The Constitution of India promises individuals equality and dig

Over at Scroll , I argue that advocating the death penalty is not an appropriate response to rape, and it completely ignores our own role in facilitating not only rape but also other forms of abuse, all of which exist on a continuum. Although it's easily implementable, there's no convincing evidence that the death penalty will stem rape. It stinks of retribution, is always susceptible to irreversible error, disproportionately targets those without privilege, violates decency, and is expensive. Rape is itself largely a manifestation of toxic masculinity. [....] Putting rapists to death, [the possibility of which may not deter them from committing rape], reeks of machismo and patriarchy. In a society that routinely creates the impression that women are destroyed by rape, death for rape simply realises the old norm of an eye for an eye. It is a form of retributive justice in an age when justice is meant to be reformative. [....] If we are to address rape, we need to develop legal

A light read by me about the person who became India's first woman lawyer over at  dailyo.in : Cornelia Sorabji is, of course, best-known as India’s first woman lawyer, after having been the first woman graduate of Bombay University and the first woman to study law at Oxford University. It is easy to co-opt her into the role of a committed feminist who changed women’s lives but to do so would likely be to essentialise her life, flatten the many layers of her personality, and possibly to impose on her philosophies which she would not immediately have claimed as her own. Read more. 2017 tweets: India's first woman lawyer, Cornelia Sorabji, born #otd 1866, didn't have an easy start despite being privileged but that didn't stop her.  She managed to begin practising not as a lawyer permitted to but as a "person for the defence", thus exploiting a legal loophole. pic.twitter.com/iSQ6S61Zdf — Nandita Saikia (@nsaikia) November 15, 2017 Unsurpris

What I understood of the Court's discussion of consent in its acquittal of Mahmood Farooqui for rape made me very uncomfortable. I've talked about why that was the case in two pieces, links to which I've shared here: Asia Times :  Mahmood Farooqui :  HC's  Troubling Interpretation of Consent  & Scroll :  No may not mean no: Order acquitting Peepli Live co-director of rape opens terrifying possibilities

An article published at Legally India: Why is death for rape even on the table? Lawyer Nandita Saikia discusses how the recent criminal law recent reforms, imposing the death penalty for rape, are a symptom of the problem but not a solution. "The notion that rape is death is precisely what the patriarchal understanding of rape is, and seen from this perspective, whilst bearing in mind that Indian society is deeply patriarchal, it isn’t difficult to understand why death being brought to the table in some cases of rape is seen as a good thing: a society that doesn't value women who have been raped or their lives is liable to cheer death-for-rape, and to assume that in doing so it is acting in the interest of those who have been raped." [ Read the rest of this piece at LegallyIndia.com . ]