A People's Court? Insurgent Lawyering and Social Movements in India in the 1980s

CASI Seminar

in partnership with the South Asia Center, South Asia Studies Dept & Dept of History

Rohit De
Associate Professor, Department of History, Yale University
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science & Economics
133 South 36th Street, Suite 230
Philadelphia PA 19104-6215

About the Seminar:
Following the Emergency and through the 1980s, a new generation of lawyers began to litigate and craft legal responses to “take suffering seriously” and bring the concerns of social movements to court. Representing victims of caste and communal violence, environmental disasters, prisoners, residents of women's shelters, slum dwellers, bonded laborers, consumers, and women, these lawyers formed new organizations, developed new tactics and strategies, and generated India's public interest jurisprudence. At a time when public interest litigations (PILs) are criticized for expanding judicial power at the cost of public interest, or seen as, at best, an establishment revolt, this seminar attempts to reexamine the debate by focusing on the labor and craft of lawyering.

About the Speaker:
Rohit De is an Associate Professor of History at Yale University, and a lawyer and a historian of South Asia and the British common law world. He is the author of A People's Constitution: The Everyday Life of Law in the Indian Republic (Princeton University Press, 2018). His second book, Assembling India's Constitution (forthcoming, 2024) co-authored with Ornit Shani, examines how thousands of ordinary Indians read, deliberated, debated, and substantially engaged with the anticipated constitution at the time of its writing. Supported by a Carnegie Fellowship he is currently working on a history of human rights and civil liberties lawyering across the decolonizing world.

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Full CASI Fall 2024 Events Flyer

The Nand & Jeet Khemka Distinguished Lecture Series is an endowed public program of the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI). Launched in the 2007-08 academic year, and made possible through the generous support of the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, the series brings renowned India specialists to the Penn community and serves as a critical forum for analyzing and understanding the complex economic, political, social, and cultural changes that the world’s largest democracy is experiencing, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.
The Saluja Global Fellows Program has been made possible by the generous gift from Vishal Saluja ENG’89 W’89. CASI was excited to launch the program during the 2022–23 academic year, coinciding with the Center’s 30th Anniversary. This new program enables CASI to invite eminent leaders and rising experts on contemporary India preferably from the fields of media, culture, law, and contemporary history to be in residence for one to two weeks at CASI.