Human Rights in Everyday Life in India: The Praxis from Below

Human Rights in Everyday Life in India: The Praxis From Below

Cambridge Scholar Publishing UK  

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-0364-4929-2

Today, I received the author copies of this book. It deals with the rhetoric of human rights that is being contested and debated theoretically at various levels. Drawing on several field-based examples from the Indian context, it illustrates how the frameworks of oppression and resistance operate in tandem. It argues that the oppressors manipulate the rights paradigm to justify oppression, whereas the oppressed leverage the same discourse to contest marginalization and assert their dignity in everyday lives. Despite challenges, the wretched of the Earth articulate the language of rights to ‘educate, organize, and agitate’ to challenge oppression and formulate positive rights to demand their dues. In the process, these people's struggles harness lok-shakti (people’s power) to consolidate the idea of swaraj (self-rule) while shattering the monolithic discourse of rights to imagine a diverse worldview. This work suggests reimagining a just world by strengthening the struggles of ordinary people to consolidate the rights framework. 

While relying on Richard Falk's theory of globalization, which contrasts the phenomenon of Globalization from above with Globalization from below, in the context of the Third World, this work argues that the situation of marginalization is based on dual dynamics. The dominant regressive narrative is hostile, whereas the progressive discourse emerging from everyday struggles of the poor and the vulnerable is based on the praxis of rights and challenges the dual hegemony of neoliberalism and authoritarianism. Human rights advocacy, therefore, is more than just ratifying treaties or addressing the cases of rights violations. It is a tool for the defranchised to right the wrongs. The vocabulary of rights operates in numerous ways, from demanding policies and laws to check barbarism and foster democracy. The rights-based approach is being used to contest for redistributing resources and challenging oppression, guised as patriarchy, casteism, poverty, and other forms of structural discrimination.  

In the pursuit of justice

 In the pursuit of justice

 

They say justice could be found in courts and police stations

I ran around but couldn’t locate it in the dusty files, or the lawyer’s argumentation

No justice can be done when a judge writes a technical decision

For those privileged, thriving in mansions,

Overlook the starving, hungry, and their desperation that is causing tension

The elite assumed that eliminating the poor, rather than eradicating poverty, is the only solution

Those authoritarian rulers say justice lies in running bulldozers over the hearts and souls of the poor, mocking their deprivation

I could not find justice in those teary eyes full of pain, anger, and frustration

They say justice is mobocracy

In the deep fault lines of inequality, I found dying humanity

I found hateful mobs shattering the love into pieces, killing the democracy

They say justice lies in bombing the innocent

I saw fear and agony in those young eyes whose lives are in a dangerous situation

Those powerful reduced justice to the narrow boundaries of revenge and retribution

The oppressors are deprived of the shred of kindness and compassion

So, where is justice?

Not in the bulky books written by scholars

I found justice in the blooming hope of the innocent eyes of a child desperately waiting for her parents in the middle of the war field,

Justice is the optimism, warmth, and care that a nurse shows when treating patients.

Justice is the blood and sweat of toiling farmers who starved and yet grow food for all, and workers who construct homes for all and yet remain homeless all through their lives

Justice is the confidence and courage of a student who wishes to transform the oppressive situation.

In the ardent rebellious hearts of those who wish for relentless peace and hope, I felt the zest of reasonableness

In the righteousness of empathetic souls lies the zeal for fairness,

Justice lies in the minds that are caring and gentle

Away from the toxicity of hate, war, inequality, or starvation,

Justice exists in the dreams of a happy and equitable world with no discrimination 

Justice imagines a world that is humane and full of consideration

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Justice Dies Every Day in the Courtrooms

 

The death of a client is always difficult. But when that death also marks the quiet burial of justice, the loss feels deeper, more systemic, more damning. That is true when the litigant is a woman who has been fighting for justice for a long time. 

Recently, I lost a client. She had been fighting her case for over two decades. She was a seasoned journalist—dignified, articulate, and principled. She had joined a prominent media company many years ago, only to face a fate that countless working women still endure in silence: sexual harassment by senior management.

From Courage to Punishment

Unlike many, she refused to be silenced. She chose to speak up, file a complaint, and challenge those in power. This occurred long before the # MeToo movement. Additionally, at the time, the POSH law had not been enacted.

But the misogynist environment persisted, and instead of receiving protection or support, she was punished. The company suspended the victim, while the perpetrators retained their positions. It was a clear act of institutional retaliation.

She took the matter to the labour court. After a long and difficult legal battle, the court ruled in her favour. It directed the company to reinstate her and pay her full back wages. The judgment validated her ordeal and reinforced the principle that justice, though delayed, could still be delivered.

Weaponizing the Legal Process

But the company had no intention of complying. Instead, it filed an appeal before the High Court—an appeal not grounded in strong legal arguments, but in a delay strategy. Over the years, the management's legal team employed every procedural tactic available to stall the case.

They filed extensive documents—not to clarify the matter, but to create complexity. They sought repeated adjournments, frequently citing trivial or manufactured reasons. When that wasn't enough, they filed an application to summon records from the labour court, further slowing proceedings.

This wasn’t litigation. It was legal suffocation.

A System That Outlives the Victims and Survivors 

Meanwhile, my client aged. Time, stress, and uncertainty took their toll. She refused to accept the company’s meager compensation offers—insulting amounts meant to silence, not settle.

But justice never arrived.

She died while the case was still pending.

No reinstatement. No compensation. No closure. Just a thick case file buried somewhere in the High Court registry—another statistic in a system that too often allows the powerful to outlast the powerless.

The Broader Failure

This case is not an anomaly. It’s a symptom of a larger malaise within our judicial process. While courts remain the last resort for the oppressed, they have become too accessible for those seeking only to delay, dilute, or derail justice.

Procedural laws intended to ensure fairness are routinely weaponized. Adjournments are granted too freely. Cases involving vulnerable litigants are allowed to linger until those litigants no longer remain alive to see the outcome.

In this system, justice doesn’t just get delayed—it gets destroyed.

Conclusion: A Call for Urgency

As legal professionals, we must ask ourselves—how many more must die waiting? How long can we accept this as “just the way it is”? The law is meant to protect, to remedy, and to deter—not to become an instrument of exhaustion.

With the death of my client, a woman who fought bravely for her dignity and rights, a small piece of justice also died. But let it not be in vain. Let it serve as a call to reform the system, to restore efficiency, compassion, and urgency to our courts.

Because justice that arrives too late is justice denied—and, all too often, justice buried.

Why has the process of justice become particularly difficult for women survivors, especially in cases of sexual harassment, assault, or discrimination?

Why do the Indian courts fail to recognize the dynamics of SLAPP suits? 

Millions of women are fighting for justice. Despite facing various odds such as the high cost of litigation, difficult access to justice, social stigma, societal pressure, the fear of losing their job, and so on, the women are striving hard. And yet, the courts, the legal system, and society failed them. This is tragic. Why has the system failed to recognize the odds that women survivors face? 

Bulldozing Humanity: The Rise of Extrajudicial Power

 

Despite a Constitution that promises equality and social justice, a culture of discrimination, marginalization, and state-sanctioned violence continues to flourish in India. For over seven decades, institutional bias and bureaucratic apathy have persisted. Today, this toxic collaboration between a bureaucratic elite ("Babudom" or Kafkaseque bureaucracy) and political power structures ("Babadom" used by Partha Chatterjee in 2004 in the Politics of the Governed to depict the cult of leaders where thousands of people blindly follow one person), now armed with bulldozers, is systematically bulldozing not just homes, but humanity itself. The Constitution, the rule of law, justice, rationality, and dignity are being razed in the name of order.

Bulldozer Politics Is Not New

Article 21 of the Indian Constitution guarantees the right to life with dignity. The Supreme Court, through landmark cases like Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985) 3 SCC 545, affirmed that this right includes the right to livelihood. In that case, the Court recognized the socioeconomic realities of pavement dwellers and ruled that evicting them without proper rehabilitation amounted to violating their right to life.

The Court declared, “There can be no estoppel against the Constitution,” emphasizing that constitutional provisions serve public interest and human dignity. Despite this jurisprudence, courts have not always upheld such humane interpretations. (See Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Gurnam Kaur, (1989) 1 SCC 101. Also, Sodan Singh v. NDMC (1989) 4 SCC 155)

 A notorious precedent occurred during the Emergency in 1976, when Indira Gandhi’s government forcibly demolished homes of poor Muslim residents in Delhi’s Turkman Gate (See Engineer Asghar Ali (2007) The Minority Votes, DNAIndia.com, August 13 https://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/main-article-the-minority-votes-1115376.) The demolitions were accompanied by brutal police firing and a broader authoritarian agenda that included slum clearance, forced sterilizations, and curtailment of civil liberties (Raza Danish (2015) Tragedy and Turkman Gate: Witnesses recount horror of Emergency, The Hindustan Times, June 29, https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/tragedy-at-turkman-gate-witnesses-recount-horror-of-emergency/story-UD6kxHbROYSBMlDbjQLYpJ.html). The political strategy was armed with four major tactics moves that include compulsory sterilization (nas bandi), slum removal, police firing and curtailment of civil liberties (Wright Theodore P (1977) Muslims and the 1977 Indian Elections: A Watershed? Asian Survey 17(12) 1207-1220). The bulldozer, then as now, became a symbol of state repression.

---

New India, Same Bulldozers

Today, decades later, the bulldozer has returned—not merely as a machine but as an extrajudicial instrument of state power. The targets remain eerily similar: the urban poor and Muslim minorities.

Despite laws that require due process—such as serving eviction notices and offering appeals—these procedures are increasingly ignored. Demolitions are often sudden, violent, and unaccompanied by any plans for resettlement.

Take the example of Khori Gaon, a 50-year-old settlement in Delhi with nearly 100,000 residents. In the middle of a pandemic and monsoon season, the settlement was demolished without warning. The residents were labeled as “forest encroachers,” and the court ordered their eviction without considering the humanitarian crisis. “We don’t want these Covid excuses,” the court stated. No hearings, no relief, no compensation—just brute force.

The state deployed heavy police presence, and residents—men, women, and children—were subjected to violence and trauma. No notices were served, no rehabilitation was planned, and no temporary shelters were provided. The very people who build and sustain cities were treated as disposable.

---

The Politics of Slum Clearance

Slums are not a problem of illegality—they are a consequence of systemic failure. Displacement, poverty, lack of affordable housing, and urban exclusion force people into informal settlements. Often, these slums are not only known to state authorities but also unofficially sanctioned or even encouraged.

Yet, instead of addressing root causes, the state responds with violence. Slum clearance becomes a euphemism for class cleansing. Policies prioritize erasure over inclusion, and the poor are vilified as “encroachers,” “rioters,” or “illegal occupants.”

Forced evictions disproportionately affect women and children, causing generational harm—malnutrition, school dropouts, lost livelihoods, and increased vulnerability. Urban planning continues to ignore these costs, and the idea of humane rehabilitation remains absent from public discourse.

---

Criminalizing and Dehumanizing the Poor

In places like Khori Gaon, Jahangirpuri, and Shaheen Bagh, homes are bulldozed under the pretext of punishing rioters or reclaiming land. But these demolitions function as collective punishment—used not to enforce law, but to signal power and reinforce prejudice.

By using bulldozers as punitive tools, the state legitimizes a narrative of criminality around the urban poor. Rehabilitation schemes, when they exist, are narrow in scope and exclude most affected families. The selective nature of demolitions—often targeting Muslim and marginalized communities—deepens social divisions.

This pattern reveals an alarming trend: the bulldozer is no longer just a machine. It is a weapon of majoritarian assertion, a symbol of control, and a tool for the dehumanization of the “other.”

---

From Constitution to Control

The use of bulldozers today reflects a broader erosion of democratic values. What we are witnessing is not just the demolition of homes, but the systematic dismantling of constitutional rights, especially for the poor and minorities.

By bypassing legal safeguards and justifying state violence in the name of law, the bulldozer has become the face of impunity in “New India.” It is no longer about removing structures—it is about erasing people, otherizing them, diminishing their rights, and voices that do not fit into the state’s vision of urban order and cultural conformity.

True justice demands that we rebuild not just homes, but the very foundations of compassion, equality, and lawfulness that are being flattened under the tracks of bulldozer politics.

Why Are Courts Ignoring the Everyday Realities of Women’s Struggle for Justice?

 Why Are Courts Ignoring the Everyday Realities of Women’s Struggle for Justice?

In recent years, a troubling narrative has taken hold in many Indian courtrooms: the idea that women are misusing the Domestic Violence Act. This narrative, often repeated without thorough evidence, reflects a deep-rooted suspicion of women's voices, especially when they speak out against abuse. What the courts fail to see—or choose to ignore—are the everyday, lived realities of women who are systematically silenced, disbelieved, and denied justice.

Let me share the story of one of my clients, which highlights the grave injustice being carried out in the name of procedure and skepticism.

She was a government employee, financially independent, and had a daughter from a previous marriage. Hoping for companionship and stability, she married a man from Calcutta who had been divorced. What unfolded after the marriage, however, was nothing short of betrayal and abuse. This man emotionally and financially exploited her. Under the pretext of buying a house for their future together, he took control of her salary, drained her savings, and even coerced her into taking loans in her name.

Then he vanished, leaving her with mounting debt, false promises, and a child to support.

When we approached the court under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, hoping for relief and protection, the response was disheartening. Despite repeated efforts, the man refused to appear before the court. Instead, he sent her threatening messages, harassing her from a distance. When we presented these messages as evidence and requested a protection order, the court did not act. Rather than offering urgent protection to a woman clearly under duress, the court insisted on giving the man yet another chance to appear.

For nearly a year, this cycle continued. The police claimed they had pasted the summons at his address in Calcutta—a symbolic gesture at best. The legal system moved at a glacial pace while my client lived in fear, burdened by debt, and emotionally shattered. Eleven months later, she received news that he had died. Just like that, the court closed the case.

No protection. No justice. No acknowledgment of the harm she endured.

And now, she is left with nothing but the consequences of his lies—trapped under the weight of loans taken in her name, with no recourse, no restitution, and no home. The documents for the house were fake. There is no property to claim, no inheritance to fight for, only a lingering sense of abandonment—not just by the man who exploited her, but by the very system that was supposed to protect her.

She tried to console herself, thinking of this as her karma. But are these really her failures, or is it because of the indifference of the system that she suffered? 

Is this what justice looks like?

The courts' reluctance to believe women’s experiences of domestic violence reflects a dangerous and systemic failure. While concerns about misuse of the law exist and should be addressed responsibly, they cannot become an excuse to dismiss genuine cases outright. Every time the courts delay action, demand yet another piece of evidence, or wait endlessly for the accused to respond, they are enabling abusers and endangering survivors.

Justice delayed is not only justice denied—it is justice undone.

We need a judicial system that understands the complexity of domestic abuse, especially when it involves financial manipulation, coercive control, and emotional trauma. Women don’t just need legal provisions; they need courts that act swiftly, sensitively, and decisively.

Until then, the law remains a promise unfulfilled. And women like my client will continue to pay the price.