RIGHTS OF THE OPPRESSED: An Indian Inventory

Description

Rights of the Oppressed offers a rethink of how we understand the relationship between law, state, and people in India. Moving away from the conventional understanding of legislation as a top-down exercise in governance, the book advances a rights-based perspective rooted in democratic struggles. It traces how rights of the people are hard-won outcomes of grassroots mobilizations and recasts law as a terrain of popular democratic engagement.

The book serves as a detailed inventory of legislated categories in India. Divided into six parts, three based on social location (Social Groups, Occupational Groups, Economic Status) and three thematic (Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights, Social and Economic Rights, Extraordinary Laws), the book offers an in-depth analysis of each with a conceptual introductions, followed by relevant constitutional provisions, key legislations, landmark judicial decisions, and relevant institutions. This structure allows readers to engage both with the legal foundation of rights and the political struggles that have shaped them.

Locating the authorship of rights with the people rather than with the state, the book demonstrates how law can evolve as an instrument shaped by those it seeks to govern, and as a powerful tool for resisting marginalization and affirming collective identity.

K.B. Saxena is Distinguished Professor, Council for Social Development, New Delhi and a former Secretary, Government of India.

Manoranjan Mohanty is Distinguished Professor, Council for Social Development, New Delhi, and former Professor of Political Science, University of Delhi.

Anushka Singh is Assistant Professor, School of Legal and Socio-Political Studies, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, University of Delhi, Delhi.

Lawrence Liang is Professor, School of Legal and Socio-Political Studies, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, University of Delhi.