Shalu Nigam

  Demystifying the Power of Law | Shalu Nigam | TEDxSIBMBengaluru The legal system has always been touted as an esoteric myriad of complex and intertwined laws, completely out of reach of the common man. Adv. Dr. Shalu Nigam breaks these myths down and exemplifies how it is the common people who wield the full power of law to bring justice to the world Advocate Dr. Shalu Nigam is a thinker, a dreamer, and a doer. She is a passionate feminist advocate, researcher, non-fiction author, and activist working at the intersection of gender, law, governance, and human rights issues for several years while integrating social theory with legal practice. She has obtained her Ph.D. in social work besides graduating in law. Currently, she is practicing in courts in Delhi. Along with this, she is associated with several grassroots movements and organizations working on issues related to access to justice, legal research, awareness, paralegal training, legal literacy, and gender sensitization. This t

 Dowry Violence  Excerpts from the title Dowry is a Serious Economic Violence: Rethinking Dowry Law in India For more see this book https://www.amazon.in/Dowry-Serious-Economic-Violence-Rethinking/dp/B0C5KLDF3P Arendt [1] in her renowned book titled Eichmann in Jerusalem, applied the phrase ` banality of evil’ to determine how, during the Holocaust, ordinary people committed extraordinary crimes and yet escaped their criminal liabilities because the grave seriousness of the crime was trivialized, routinized, and reduced to `banality’. In the Nazi regime, irrevocable crimes against humanity were committed in a systematic way on a daily basis and accepted without moral repulsion or political indignation [2] . In the same way, for decades, the horrific crimes of dowry violence and wrongful deaths have been reduced to ` banality’ in India.  Dowry-related violence is not only destroying lives, but it is also adversely affecting the way society contemplates it and distances itself from

  Judith Butler (2020) described some lives as `ungrievable’ which cannot be mourned for because they never lived and remained uncounted. Perhaps, women who are dying due to dowry violence in homes are such ungrievable, uncounted lives – the lives that no one wants to protect, no one wants to mourn, and no one wants to remember.   For more see this book https://www.amazon.in/Dowry-Serious-Economic-Violence-Rethinking/dp/B0C5KLDF3P

  Combating Everyday Gender Stereotypes in the Courtrooms The Supreme Court of India recently published a Handbook on  Combating Gender Stereotypes [2] , which highlights how gender-unjust terms are used in pleadings, orders, and judgements to reiterate common stereotypes about women and end up denying them justice. It suggests using alternate terms. This piece argues that to ensure gender justice, what is required is not only countering and challenging the stereotypes in the day-to-day language deployed in courtrooms but also changing the patriarchal mindset. The war against women started in the minds. Patriarchy manifested itself in the form of sexism, misogyny, toxic masculinity, ghettoizing, and labelling, women, and therefore, it is essential to consciously examine the ways subjectivities operate on a daily basis, dismantling the sexist biases, shattering prejudices, countering myths and misogyny, developing an empathetic approach to judging, and more importantly, rethinking the c

  The monetization of the `sacred’ bond is creating chaos: It happens only in India Shalu Nigam   From the Book  Dowry is a Serious Economic Violence: Rethinking Dowry Violence Law in India “Women are not for burning; women are human beings.” (A slogan raised in post-colonial India against the dreadful practice of the dowry in post-independent India.)   Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, in their famous thesis titled ‘ The Manifesto of the Communist Party’ in 1848, wrote,   “ The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation”.   Likewise, in the patriarchal context of North India, the institution of marriage, though deemed `sacred’ is considerably reduced to a commercial relationship where money is prioritized over sentiments. The barbaric practice of dowry has been institutionalized and entrenched gradually, with religion playing a vital role in stubbornly determining the norms of sexual