FOREWORD
The inter-relationship between law and violence has been a popular terrain of scholarly interest, explored in the past from different prisms and perspectives; but the very nature of evolving socio-political circumstances necessitates that the critical attention to this relationship be continued over time-rethinking the existing angles and adding new dimensions as well. It is in this backdrop that I am glad to introduce you to this collection of essays that explore the intricacies of 'law' and 'violence'. The book explores the idea of 'law', critically analyses its various underpinnings, and reconciles these insights with scrutiny of the idea of 'violence', to provide us with the awareness that often times law itself could be complicit in violence. An example to this is the remark by K.G. Kannabiran in his work Wages of Impunity: Power, Justice and Human Rights that 'if violence in society is perceived as breach of law, the law itself is equally violent and in fact has an even more debilitating effect because of its ruthlessness backed by official sanction'.
The conceptualization of 'law' in terms of what it is and how it should be by various scholars has been contradicting and conflicting since inception, and it is reminiscent of the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Through these essays, I hope, the reader would realize that 'law', 'violence', and the inter-relationship between them cannot be limited to a single ultimate conception; rather, each perception of the three would vary according to the perspective from which we look upon it and to derive a conclusion that what we perceive is the absolute truth would be to fall into the same trap as the parable above depicts. Instead, as these essays portray, various conceptualizations of law and violence are possible, all of them true and relevant simultaneously; and a meaningful effort must be made by us all to engage with these various perceptions-complementary, contradictory, conflicting-in order to appreciate the holistic picture. Each essay provides to us a different perspective from which to look at law and violence conceptually and practically and each could make the readers realize how their subjective perceptions could not accommodate these new insights, necessarily pushing us to expand our under-standing beyond those subjectivities.
This book and its multiple perspectives surrounding law and violence demand a serious engagement with these aspects, and this would in turn help us rethink the way we look at law, deal with the law, critique the law and also formulate the law in future. The essays explore diverse terrains such as sexuality, death penalty, child rights, and so forth which provide different discourses to the ideas of law and violence, and we are made to see how all these diverse issues ultimately reveal violence as inherently present in our systems the psyche, the society, and even the law. Despite this flaw in the legal system, the book does not expect the reader to give up on law altogether; on the contrary, it implores us to acknowledge the inherent violence, and makes us realize that the issues need solutions. However, it stops short of providing such solutions in the same breath in a 'problem-solution' solution capsule. Instead, it leaves it wide open for the reader to introspect, analyse, weigh potential solutions and their shortfalls, and arrive at their own discourses on the law and violence. In short, this collection makes us think, and that, I believe, is its most important contribution to scholarship.
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