Special Issue on Law, Literature, and Justice in the SAARC Region: An Inquiry through Marginal Voices

The minutely intertwined interdisciplinary domain of Law and Literature has been an established academic and empirical field of inquiry in the West since the early twentieth century. It began to take shape and develop its roots with the outstanding and remarkably genius works of John Wigmore, James Boyd White and Richard Posner. Wigmore in his List of Legal Novels (1908) created an annotated bibliography of works that dealt with aspects of law, courtroom scenes and all forms of justice. James Boyd White, in his The Legal Imagination (1973) explored law as a rhetorical and literary activity, and Richard Posner’s Law and Literature (2009) established and systematized the domain. He was foundational in not only popularizing the domain of law and literature but also established it as an academic domain of critical inquiry. Posner has been fundamental in charting out the nuances and aspects in which law and literature share certain commonalities. These include sharing an inherent and strong foundation on language and rhetoric, both domains resting on sharp storytelling and the power of expression, and both shaping and reflecting societal values, power structures and human experiences.

Despite this, Law and Literature remains a neglected domain in South Asia, particularly the SAARC nations encompassing India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan, and the Maldives. Despite shared colonial legal legacies (particularly the British common law tradition inherited by India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka) and extraordinarily rich literary traditions that document injustice, resistance, and social transformation, this interdisciplinary scholarship has not taken institutional roots. In most law schools across the SAARC regions, particularly in India, the discipline of law and literature either does not exist at all or remains an elective choice for the students which they often bypass in favour of domains that study law theoretically and practically rather than through an interdisciplinary lens. There are several factors that contribute to this neglect such as a shared colonial legacy of legal education that has often pedestralized technical training of the lawyers and jurists over a humanistic inquiry. Moreover, legal education in these regions, as we know today, is practiced as it was learnt from the West without any interference of the traditional value systems of these nations which would have played a significant role in humanizing the domain. This has resulted in creating strict boundaries and preventing cross-pollination between law and literature departments; a lack of institutional support through dedicated journals, conferences, or research centers; along with an absence of a theoretical framework that names and legitimizes this interdisciplinary work. While activists, writers, and legal advocates engage with narratives of injustice regularly across the region, their work is not recognized as "Law and Literature" scholarship. This special issue aims to address that neglect by examining how literary and testimonial narratives have served, and continues to serve, the advancement and legal recognition of underrepresented communities across South Asia.

Literature has long been instrumental in serving as a catalyst for legal reform across the world and also within South Asia. It abounds with examples where texts have been significant in bringing about a legal reform. Of India, Katherine Mayo's controversial Mother India (1927) contributed to debates leading to the Child Marriage Restraint Act (1929). Mulk Raj Anand's Coolie (1936) and Untouchable (1935) have sensitized the readers on labor exploitation and caste discrimination. Mahasweta Devi's documentation of tribal oppression informed activists and lawyers fighting for land and tribal rights. Dalit autobiographies such as Bama's Karukku(1992) and Omprakash Valmiki's Joothan (1997) have become crucial readings of anti-caste legal activism. Arundhati Roy's essays on displacement, dissent, and justice have influenced public opinion and legal debates on environmental rights and state violence.

Many literary texts across South Asia speak specifically of underrepresented sections of society such as the women, religious and ethnic minorities, tribal and indigenous communities, economically weaker sections, migrants, refugees, stateless populations to name a few. Such works have been consistently documenting how these groups face systemic injustice because laws and judicial systems fail to grant them dignified living. Literature here becomes a mirror reflecting the collapse of legal frameworks, exposing the gaps between constitutional ideals and lived realities. Beyond India, South Asian literature has consistently engaged with themes of legal injustice and inspired reform movements. In Pakistan, Saadat Hasan Manto's partition stories, particularly tales such as Khol Do [trans. Open It] and Chutgtai’s Lihaaf (1942) and his obscenity trials raised critical questions about censorship, morality laws, and artistic freedom especially at a juncture when the two newly formed nations were struggling with nation building. In Bangladesh, Taslima Nasrin's writings on religious freedom and women's rights sparked national debates on blasphemy laws and gender inequality. In Sri Lanka, post-civil war literature documenting Tamil minority experiences has informed truth and transitional justice mechanisms. In Nepal, Dalit literature and narratives of Madhesi marginalization have fueled movements for constitutional recognition and rights. In Afghanistan, women's poetry and testimonies have become international appeals for human rights intervention. Works like Premchand's Godaan (1936) in India depict the plight of indebted peasants. Qurratulain Hyder's Aag Ka Darya (1970) traces communal violence and minority persecution across the Indian subcontinent. Bapsi Sidhwa's Cracking India documents Partition's gendered violence and Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy explores LGBTQ+ persecution in Sri Lanka. These narratives expose regional patterns of exclusion, statelessness, and rights denial suggesting where legal reform is urgently needed. Many of these works of literature have faced censorship and that fact itself speaks of the idea that it presents something gruesome enough to urge for a reshaping of the legal frameworks and the societal thought process in general. These works demonstrate that literature does not merely reflect law, it actively shapes, challenges, and transforms it across national boundaries.

Aside from written literature, storytelling itself has become a powerful tool in legal advocacy across South Asia. Heinous crimes witnessed in recent times have evoked protests across borders and are presented in the courts like a grand epic of systemic legal collapse raising a plea for urgent and serious legal reforms.  Some of these real life incidents include the Bhopal Gas Tragedy of 1984, India. The harrowing testimonies of victims who faced medical, personal and property loss had raised serious questions on threat to life due to unmitigated industrial growth leading to severe reformations in environmental law. The Nirbhaya rape case of 2012 galvanized national protests, and the victim’s demise led to the Criminal Law Amendment Act, (2013), which significantly reformed sexual assault laws. The Mathura rape case (1972) and subsequent public outcry fueled by the victim's narrative resulted in the Criminal Law Amendment Act (1983). In the Niyamgiri case, the oral testimonies of the Dongria Kondh tribe about their sacred mountains became legal evidence in environmental litigation. In Bangladesh, testimonies from the 1971 Liberation War and subsequent trials for crimes against humanity demonstrate how narratives become evidence in delivering justice. In Sri Lanka, survivor testimonies from the civil war have been central to truth commissions and accountability mechanisms. These cases reveal that narrative and storytelling are not peripheral to legal processes but are central to justice mechanisms across the region.

Prominent jurists across South Asia have recognized the vital connection between law and literature. In India, former Finance Minister and senior advocate P. Chidambaram has urged lawyers to read widely beyond law. Legal scholar Upendra Baxi writes eloquently about law's relationship to culture, suffering, and human rights. Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Ramasubramanium have meticulously quoted literature in their judgments and speeches, encouraging law schools and legal professionals to engage with timeless literary works. Sri Lankan judges have referenced post-conflict literature in transitional justice cases. These judicial voices highlight a serious need for reform in legal education across the region, specifically of a curricula almost entirely devoid of literature and other humanities disciplines. Law schools must recognize that training empathetic, ethically grounded, and intellectually rigorous lawyers requires engagement with narrative, interpretation, and the human condition. Keeping the above factors in mind, this special issue calls attention to the continuing gap between the lived legal experience of underrepresented communities and the frameworks meant to protect them, a gap that literary and testimonial narrative has often been left alone to document. 

We invite scholarship that connects literary texts to real case studies and measurable outcomes for underrepresented communities across the SAARC region along with a comparative analysis that explores how different South Asian countries' legal systems respond to similar injustices. The issue invites contributions from readers, observers, thinkers, and cultural theorists who can propose pathways toward justice. We welcome interdisciplinary scholarship that positions literature not as decoration or supplement to law, but as essential to understanding and achieving justice across borders, languages, and legal traditions.

Sub-Themes:

1. Representations of marginalized communities such as Dalit, tribal, indigenous, religious and ethnic minorities in South Asian legal and literary narratives.
2. Lived experiences of trauma, assault and disaster of marginalized individuals and communities as testimonial accounts that have driven legal reform or activism (Bhopal Gas Tragedy(1984), Nirbhaya Rape Case (2012), Mathura Rape Case (1972), Niyamgiri Case (2013), and comparable cases)
3. Storytelling and testimony as legal advocacy: survivor narratives, PILs, and oral accounts in South Asian courts.
4. Lived legal exclusion of displaced communities expressed in literature of Partition, migration and statelessness.
5. How far does literature function as a cited source shaping legal proceedings in South Asian jurisdictions beyond India?
6. Alternative and community-based justice systems (panchayats, jirgas, restorative justice) and their literary or narrative documentation.
7. Censorship, obscenity trials, and free-expression cases involving South Asian writers, read as sites where law and community voice collide.
8. Literary texts as Legal Subjects framing obscenity laws and ideas of free expression.

Scholars from law, literature, cultural studies, sociology, human rights, South Asian studies, and allied fields across the region and internationally are encouraged to contribute. Additionally, the call invites advocates, policy makers, jurists and any enthusiast of the field to contribute through their doctrinal and empirical research towards this issue.

References:

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Anand, M. R. (1936). Coolie. Wishart Books.

Arudpragasam, A. (2016). The story of a brief marriage. Fourth Estate.

Arudpragasam, A. (2022). A Passage North. Penguin.

Bama, F. (2000). Karukku (Trans. L. Holmström). Oxford University Press.

Baxi, U. (1998). Voices of suffering and the future of human rights. Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems, 8, 125–169.

Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, No. 19, Acts of Parliament, 1929 (India).

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(2019). Blue mimosa (T. V. Varya, Trans.). Educational Publishing House.

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(2007). Godan: A Novel Of Peasant India (Trans. J. Ratan & P. Lal, Trans.). Jaico Publishing House.

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