An anthropological study on judicial practices in South Asia, this volume takes criminal cases as frameworks to examine power dynamics within a legal setting. Case studies in this book analyse a set of state and non-state institutions and the practices of people associated with them. The essays delve into the underlying tension in institutional contexts between legal practitioners such as police officers, lawyers, and judges who orient their claims towards neutralism, objectivity, and equality and a set of everyday interactions and decisions where cultural, social, and political factors play a major role.
This volume is based on the premise that the study of judiciary cases, in all their multifaceted complexity, provides a pertinent and original angle from which to access some issues of South Asia. The contributors examine the discourses and relationships around criminal cases that shape how ideas circulate in the public sphere and how mediation and negotiation between different actors characterize police and court practices.
Acknowledgements ; Foreword by Anthony Good ; Introduction ; Daniela Berti and Devika Bordia ; 1.'3 punishments for 3 mistakes': Negotiating between Courts, Police, and Mediation in Family Law and Family Violence ; Srimati Basu ; 2 . ' Pyar Kiya to Darna Kya ': On Criminalizing Love ; Pratiksha Baxi ; 3 . Binding Fictions: Contradicting Facts and Judicial ; Constraints in a Narcotics Case in Himachal Pradesh ; Daniela Berti ; 4 . The 'Secularism Case': Prosecution of a Hindu Activist ; before a Quasi-judicial Authority in the Nepal Tarai ; Chiara Letizia ; 5 . A Strong Law for the Weak: Dalit Activism in a ; District Court of Uttar Pradesh ; Nicolas Jaoul ; 6 . Cultures of Policing: Panchayat-Police Practices and ; the Making of a Criminal Case ; Devika Bordia ; 7. The Devil's Court!' The Trial of 'Katta Panchayat' in ; Tamil Nadu ; Zoe E. Headley ; 8 . From 'She-males' to 'Unix': Transgender Rights and the ; Productive Paradoxes of Pakistani Policing ; Jeffrey A. Redding ; 9 . From a Comparative Perspective: Criminal Cases ; involving South Asian People at French Assize Courts ; Veronique Bouillier ; Index ; Notes on Editors and Contributors
