Discourse on Rights in India: Debates and Dilemmas

435 Pages·2019·1.479 MB·English

by  Bijayalaxmi Nanda, Nupur Ray

Discourse on Rights in India
This book is a compelling examination of the theoretical discourse on rights and
its relationship with ideas, institutions and practices in the Indian context. By
engaging with the crucial categories of class, caste, gender, region and religion, it
draws attention to the contradictions and contestations in the arena of rights and
entitlements. The chapters by eminent experts provide deep and nuanced insights on
the intersecting issues and concerns of individual and group identities as well as their
connection with the state along with its multifarious institutions and practices. The
volume not only engages with the dilemmas emerging out of the rights discourse
but also sets out to recognize the significance of a shared commitment to a rights-
based framework towards the promotion of justice and democracy in society.
The book will be useful to academics, social scientists, researchers and policymakers.
It will be of special interest to teachers and students in the fields of politics, development
studies, philosophy, ethics, sociology, gender/women’s studies and social movements.
Bijayalaxmi Nanda is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Miranda
House, University of Delhi, India. Her areas of specialization include political theory,
feminist politics and human rights. She has been conferred the Teacher’s Excellence
Award (2017) by the University of Delhi. She is actively involved with campaigns
for the rights of girl children and women in India for the past two decades. Her
publications include Sex-Selective Abortion and the State: Politics, Laws and Institutions
in India (2018), H uman Rights, Gender and Environment (co-authored, 2007) and
Understanding Social Inequality: Concerns of Human Rights, Gender and Environment
(co-edited, 2010). She has also contributed chapters to edited volumes and has
written extensively on issues of gender discrimination, girl-child rights, health and
education policies, human development and human rights.
Nupur Ray is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Kamala Nehru
College, University of Delhi, India. Her areas of interest include political philosophy,
feminist politics and political theory. She is associated with campaigns to counter
violence against women in India. She has written extensively on the rights discourse
and has published ‘Exploring ‘empowerment’ and ‘agency’ in Ronald Dworkin’s
Theory of Rights: A Study of Women’s Abortion Rights in India’ in the I ndian Journal
of Gender Studies (2014). She has contributed chapters to edited volumes and
presented papers at various national and international conferences.
Not only does this study engage with the rights discourse on its broader
theoretical terrain but it also carries a particular relevance for an India whose
unmatched diversity of cross-cutting identities poses distinctive problems
that need to be addressed if we are to move towards a more humane and
democratic order.
Achin Vanaik, Professor and former Head, Department
of Political Science, University of Delhi, Delhi, India
This book takes an in-depth and a contemporaneous look at some of these
vexed dilemmas to provide us the much-needed clarity on how best the
framing of rights through the discourse of intersectionality can reconcile
these insurmountable tensions.
Ajay Gudavarthy, Associate Professor, Centre for Political
Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
In these times when human rights are in peculiar jeopardy, this book brings
the dilemma of rights in the centre stage of discourse and debates by the-
orising the issues, examining the contestations and critiquing the state.
Nothing could be as timely as this erudite work of high academic intensity.
Sanghmitra Sheel Acharya, Professor and Director,
Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi, India
Discourse on
Rights in India
Debates and Dilemmas
Edited by Bijayalaxmi Nanda
and Nupur Ray
First published 2019
by Routledge
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© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Bijayalaxmi Nanda and Nupur Ray;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Bijayalaxmi Nanda and Nupur Ray to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
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without intent to infringe.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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ISBN: 978-1-138-05624-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-44825-6 (ebk)
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To my mother Manorama and my daughter Akshara
– Bijayalaxmi Nanda
To my parents Rai Anand Ray and Dr Nutan Ray
– Nupur Ray

Contents
List of contributors x
Preface xiii
Acknowledgements xv
List of abbreviations xviii
Introduction: discourse on rights in India:
debates and dilemmas 1
BIJAYALAXMI NANDA AND NUPUR RAY
PART I
Theorizing rights: diversity and difference 31
1 Dimensions of power and social transformation 33
MANORANJAN MOHANTY
2 Constitutionalizing rights, negotiating difference:
the Indian experiment 57
ASHOK ACHARYA
3 Gender, rights and the justice gap: going beyond
the politics of difference 88
VIDHU VERMA
4 Law, rights and politics: dilemmas and responses 113
ANITA TAGORE
5 Human rights, climate change and climate justice 135
BROOKE ACKERLY
viii Contents
6 What can human rights add to the fight
against corruption? Some lessons from India 151
MITU SENGUPTA
PART II
Gender, religion, family, work, caste and
community: issues and contestations 177
7 Sex-selective abortion and reproductive rights:
a syncretic feminist approach 179
BIJAYALAXMI NANDA
8 Bodily rights and agency: looking at the rights
discourse of women in prostitution 215
NUPUR RAY
9 Women in politics and the subject of reservations 247
MARY E. JOHN
10 The triple talaq controversy: gender concerns
and minority safeguards 273
FLAVIA AGNES
11 Women and disability: issues of care 297
ANITA GHAI
PART III
The ‘myth’ of conflicting rights: a critique
of the Indian state 317
12 India’s education policy and failures of empathy 319
HARSH MANDER
13 The ‘right’ music: caste and ‘classical’ music
in south India 338
KRISHNA MENON
Contents ix
14 The trajectories of work, sexuality and citizenship:
the rights of the transgender in India 346
SKYLAB SAHU
15 People and the terrains: PESA reconsidered 358
AJAY DANDEKAR
16 Dilemmas in Kashmir: a human rights perspective 367
SIMPLE MOHANTY
17 Beyond conclusions: discourse on rights in India:
a case for reflective autonomy 381
BIJAYALAXMI NANDA AND NUPUR RAY
Index 403