Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia
Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia

Author: Mitra Sharafi

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-04-21

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1107047978

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This book explores the legal culture of the Parsis, or Zoroastrians, an ethnoreligious community unusually invested in the colonial legal system of British India and Burma. Rather than trying to maintain collective autonomy and integrity by avoiding interaction with the state, the Parsis sank deep into the colonial legal system itself. From the late eighteenth century until India's independence in 1947, they became heavy users of colonial law, acting as lawyers, judges, litigants, lobbyists, and legislators. They de-Anglicized the law that governed them and enshrined in law their own distinctive models of the family and community by two routes: frequent intra-group litigation often managed by Parsi legal professionals in the areas of marriage, inheritance, religious trusts, and libel, and the creation of legislation that would become Parsi personal law. Other South Asian communities also turned to law, but none seems to have done so earlier or in more pronounced ways than the Parsis.

Networks, Labour and Migration among Indian Muslim Artisans
Networks, Labour and Migration among Indian Muslim Artisans

Author: Thomas Chambers

Publisher: UCL Press

Published: 2020-04-30

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1787354539

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Networks, Labour and Migration among Indian Muslim Artisans provides an ethnography of life, work and migration in a North Indian Muslim-dominated woodworking industry. It traces artisanal connections within the local context, during migration within India, and to the Gulf, examining how woodworkers utilise local and transnational networks, based on identity, religiosity, and affective circulations, to access resources, support and forms of mutuality. However, the book also illustrates how liberalisation, intensifying forms of marginalisation and incorporation into global production networks have led to spatial pressures, fragmentation of artisanal labour, and forms of enclavement that persist despite geographical mobility and connectedness. By working across the dialectic of marginality and connectedness, Thomas Chambers thinks through these complexities and dualities by providing an ethnographic account that shares everyday life with artisans and others in the industry. Descriptive detail is intersected with spatial scales of ‘local’, ‘national’ and ‘international’, with the demands of supply chains and labour markets within India and abroad, with structural conditions, and with forms of change and continuity. Empirically, then, the book provides a detailed account of a specific locale, but also contributes to broader theoretical debates centring on theorisations of margins, borders, connections, networks, embeddedness, neoliberalism, subjectivities, and economic or social flux.

Precedent in English Law
Precedent in English Law

Author: Rupert Cross

Publisher: Clarendon Press

Published: 1991-06-13

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0191024449

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This fourth edition of Precedent in English Law presents a basic guide to the current doctrine of precedent in England, set in the wider context of the jurisprudential problems which any treatment of this topic involves. Such problems include the nature of _ratio_ _decidendi_ of a precedent and of its binding force, the significance of precedents alongside other sources of law, their role in legal reasoning, and the account which must be taken of them by any general theory of law. Considerable re-writing has been undertaken to update case-law and take account of the possible implications for the doctrine of precedent of the impact of European Community law, making it an indispensable work of reference for readers interested in the past history, present state, and future developments of English rules of precedent.

The Law of Emergency Powers
The Law of Emergency Powers

Author: Abhishek Singhvi

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-10-30

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9811529973

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This book presents a comprehensive legal and constitutional study of emergency powers from a comparative common law perspective. It is one of very few comparative studies on three jurisdictions and arguably the first one to explore in detail various emergency powers, statutory and common law, constitutional and statutory law, martial law and military acting-in-aid of civil authority, wartime and peacetime invocations, and several related and vital themes like judicial review of emergency powers (existence, scope and degree). The three jurisdictions compared here are: the pure implied common law model (employed by the UK), implied constitutional model (employed by the USA) and the explicit constitutional model (employed by India). The book’s content has important implications, as these three jurisdictions collectively cover the largest population within the common law world, and also provide maximum representative diversity. The book covers the various positions on external emergencies as opposed to internal emergencies, economic/financial emergencies, and emergent inroads being made into state autonomy by the central or federal governments, through use of powers like Article 356 of the Indian Constitution. By providing a detailed examination of the law and practice of emergency powers, the book shares a wealth of valuable insights. Specific sub-chapters address questions like – what is the true meaning of ‘martial law’; who can invoke ‘martial law’; when can it be invoked and suspended; what happens when the military is called in to aid civilian authorities; can martial law be deemed to exist or coexist when this happens; what are the limits on state powers when an economic emergency is declared; and, above all, can, and if so, when and how should courts judicially review emergency powers? These and several other questions are asked and answered in this study. Though several checks and constraints have been devised regarding the scope and extent of ‘emergency powers,’ these powers are still prone to misuse, as all vast powers are. A study of the legal propositions on this subject, especially from a comparative perspective, is valuable for any body politic that aspires to practice democracy, while also allowing constitutionally controlled aberrations to protect that democracy.

Unravelling the Kashmir Knot
Unravelling the Kashmir Knot

Author: Aman Hingorani

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Published: 2024-06-28

Total Pages: 507

ISBN-13: 9361137050

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'Since the partition of India in 1947, Jammu & Kashmir has been a site of frequent unrest and violence. In Unravelling the Kashmir Knot, author and senior advocate Aman Hingorani applies a legal lens to ongoing debates surrounding the national identity of the region and its people, recounting how decades of misconceived policies have culminated in its current state of affairs. The book decrypts major milestones in the history of J&K, from the signing of the Instrument of Accession in 1947 and the Reference to the United Nations in 1948 to the Abrogation of Article 370 in 2023, critically examining their stipulations and impact on global opinion on the Kashmir issue. Drawing from personal correspondences and official documentation, Hingorani explores the role that larger-than-life figures like Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Louis Mountbatten played in shaping the Kashmir policies of their nations. He discusses the influence of Pakistan and China in J&K in the context of geo-political and strategic realities, and the possible depoliticization of the Kashmir issue through the International Court of Justice. Comprehensive yet accessible, Unravelling the Kashmir Knot plucks lesser-known details about J&K’s history from obscurity and emphasizes the importance of charting a realistic path forward to resolve the Kashmir issue.