In recent years, South Asia’s legal history has attracted intense political debate. Contemporary controversies involving fundamental questions of governance and policy have turned on contested reconstructions of past legal arrangements. On the one hand various groups–including secularists, feminists and those endorsing divergent orthodoxies–have turned to historical evidence to support their visions of governance. On the other, every society in South Asia has been drawn into an international dialogue regarding putatively universal human rights in a socially heterogeneous world. In this lively and wide-ranging volume, an international team of contributors tackles highly controversial questions regarding legal procedure, forms of punishment, and the interaction of state and religious authorities. The issues extend from concepts of justice in pre-colonial Maharashtra to the ideas of Dalit women in Lucknow, and from women’s rights and family law in Malabar to political strife in Punjab and Sri Lanka in the 1990s. Although the contributions are predominantly on India, they offer insights crucial to all other South Asian societies. This volume will be essential reading for all those interested in human rights law, religion and law, and the social and legal history of South Asia. Students, teachers, practitioners and professionals will all find much that is useful within these covers.
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