Werner F Menski

Hindu law : beyond tradition and modernity

This book examines the development of Hindu laws from ancient period to its emergence as postmodern phenomenon. The book is divided into three parts. The first part, comprising of seven chapters, examines in depth our current deficient understanding of the historical development of central Hindu concepts within the classical, postclassical, colonial and postcolonial context. The second part, composed of five chapters, relies on the theoretical arguments developed in part I, providing detailed analysis of selected areas of Hindu family law. In examining the maintenance from the Vedic period to the turn of this millennium. The study criitcally evaluates the legal evidence to examine how Hindu law has developed into a postmodern condition which modernist scholarship seems both unable and unwilling to recognize. The third part has the concluding analyses dealing with the inadequacies of the modernist discourses in relation to Hindu law. This volume will be of immense value to scholars and students of law, religion, sociology, modern social history and philosophy. This book will also be of interest to social theorists and comparatives as well as general readers.

South Asian Women in Britain, Family Integrity and the Primary Purpose Rule

Modern state masculinism in Britain takes many forms. With particular reference to immigration law, it is not difficult at all to point not only to the racist but also the gender-biased nature of the British entry control system which has been put into place gradually, since the Aliens Act of 1905, the Commonwealth Immigrants Acts of 1962 and 1968, and especially under the Immigration Act of 1971, with its complex web of constantly changing Immigration Rules and secret instructions to immigration officials.1

Justice, Epistemic Violence in South Asian Studies and the Nebulous Entity of Caste in Our Age of Chaos

This editorial article covers much more than Dalits and untouchability, because ‘caste’ itself is about life, similar to the inevitably related human constructs of ‘law’, ‘religion’, ‘society’, ‘culture’ and also ‘race’ and ‘gender’. This article and the contributions in this Special Issue will not resolve the ongoing turbulences over caste, but may be useful tools to identify avenues for more constructive debates, rather than acrimonious exchanges. The key argument of the present article is that while difference is part of the human experience everywhere, ‘caste’, however disagreeable, remains an ancient culture-specific component of the intensely plural current identity of South Asia and South Asians, wherever they may be in the world today. It seems impossible to deny, ban or abolish this entity, which continues to serve as an identity marker, often in efforts to resist ongoing discriminations. Academic debates thus need to develop more constructive and sophisticated methods in various current attempts to acknowledge the multivocal stances on ‘caste’ and to negotiate better justice rather than falling into traps of all kinds of phobias, old and new. Approaches which simply deny that caste still exists, posit that it can just be abolished or claim that it cannot ever be adequately debated are unhelpful and just increase the heat in existing chaotic and largely self-righteous discourses. The article suggests that ancient Indians seem to have known much more about diversity management than we care to admit, while messiness and chaos remain prominent all around us today. This is not idolising a glorious past, but critiquing the present chaos while searching for justice-conscious remedies in diversity management.

Governance and governability in South Asian family laws and in diaspora

This paper, providing one example each from Indian and from Pakistani law, with heavily contested litigation fallouts under English law and in English courts, discusses first why there are significant elements of mistrust in local and particularly translocal relationships that impact on how individuals and whole communities make choices in relation to dispute resolution. Conflicts arise not only over legal processes, costs and delays, but also increasingly in relation to the value systems involved in different types of family law regulation. This may be more so when people cross the boundaries between formal and informal methods of dispute settlement and when non-state jurisdiction and formal governance, in South Asia and elsewhere in the world, are seen to be clashing. South Asians as skilled cultural and legal navigators on a global scale are shown to be more resourceful kite flyers in this regard than states, which may have institutional power, but often do not possess the cultural knowledge and sensitivities needed to inspire trust in bringing about satisfactory resolutions of disputes.

Hindus and the Law in Bangladesh

official operation is concerned; in real life it appears to be a largely localised, customary lav. The legal system of Bangladesh, like that of modern India, is characterised by the co-existence of a general national lav, applicable to all citizens, and a system of concurrent personal lavs of the Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Buddhists, Parsis and Jevs. The Hindu lav of Bangladesh is thus applied as the personal lav of the Hindus, vho constitute approximately 15 per cent of the total population of about 96 million.1 In other vords, Hindu lav applies to betveen 10-15 million people. This is a fact not commonly knovn and realised; to some extent this is due to the fact that Bangladesh portrays itself increasingly as an Islamic country. The present article aims, firstly, to bring out the major characteristics of the Hindu lav of Bangladesh in the context of the legal system as a vhole. Secondly, it provides an analytical discussion of the Hindu case-lav. As ve shall shov, Hindu lav in its traditional form is rarely applied in Bangladesh. Instead, the courts seem to be engaged in developing general principles of lav. Thus ve find the scope for the official application of Hindu lav curtailed, while the general lav is being expanded. In viev of this finding ve consider, finally, the future of Hindu lav in the country.

Book Review: Malavika Rajkotia, Intimacy Undone. Marriage, Divorce and Family Law in IndiaRajkotiaMalavika, Intimacy Undone. Marriage, Divorce and Family Law in India (New Delhi: Speaking Tiger Publishing, 2017), xiv + 418 pp.

of Uk–US approaches towards kashmir the moment communist China was added to the game. The final 21 pages include a bibliography with primary and secondary sources and an index. Overall, Ankit is largely successful in delivering an objective archival analysis that brings some new perspectives and insights on the international dimension of the kashmir conflict. But as indicated, anyone seeking to learn about kashmir itself would need to look elsewhere.

Book Review: James Wise, Notes on the Races, Castes and Trades of Eastern Bengal. Edited with an introduction by Ananda BhattacharyyaWiseJames, Notes on the Races, Castes and Trades of Eastern Bengal. Edited with an introduction by BhattacharyyaAnanda (New Delhi: Manohar, 2016), xxxi + 509 pp.

a revised partnership. This involved the United States eliminating Osama Bin Laden, which was achieved on 2 May 2011, protecting US troops in Afghanistan, and carrying out drone attacks in various parts of Pakistan. Resulting turbulences in the relationship of the two countries were inevitable, but Jaffrelot argues that, over time, this trust deficit has been reduced and their relationships improved again. Farah Jan and Serge Granger, in ‘Pakistan–China Symbiotic Relations’ (pp. 279–300), examine the evolution of this relationship since Pakistan became the third noncommunist country to recognise China in 1950. The 1962 India–China war cemented Pakistan’s relationship with China and, in 1963, the two countries settled their border issues in Jammu and kashmir. During the 1970s, Pakistan played a significant mediator role between the United States and China. The authors portray Pakistan’s dual role for China, keeping India engaged on its western border and providing China access to the Arabian Sea via the Gwadar port and a network of pipelines, rail and road connections. The pertinent conclusion here is that the stability of Pakistan is more important to China than for the United States. Finally, Sana Haroon, in ‘Pakistan Between Saudi Arabia and Iran: Islam in the Politics and Economics of Western Asia’ (pp. 301–34), traces Pakistan’s relationship to Gulf countries. While earlier Saudi Arabia was critical of Pakistan, in 1967 both countries signed an agreement, whereby Pakistan would train the Saudi Armed Forces. Economic aid began to flow from the Middle East after 1974. In 1981, Zia ul Haq first engaged diplomatically with post-revolutionary Iran through an official state visit. Though at times Pakistan developed some differences with Iran, linked especially to Pakistan’s insistence on hosting the Islamic Conference summit in 1997 at the 50th anniversary of Pakistan’s creation, the relationship improved later. Changing political dynamics across the world and in South Asia have made the Middle East and its influence over the domestic politics and economy of Pakistan highly significant. The volume as a whole shows how well Pakistan is integrated into the region and wider geostrategic patterns and, indeed, will not just collapse as a state, but will keep navigating, albeit not without precarity, at the interface of domestic and external dynamics, verifying the editor’s introductory premise through this richly documented study.

Law as a global entity through Italian eyes and minds

ABSTRACT This contribution discusses, from the perspective of global comparative law, how Mariano Croce’s English translation of a major book by an important early-Italian scholar, Santi Romano, allows helpful insights into early twentieth-century Italian thinking about the intrinsically plural nature of law. This debate connects directly to current worldwide discourses about legal pluralism, showing how Romano’s exciting project forms an early precursor of the gradual movement towards obtaining a better grasp of the inner nature of the deeply plural concept of law. Romano’s work, as a remarkably pertinent early contribution, of lasting relevance to global legal theorizing, indicates that a reductionist, positivistic conceptualization of law that ignores the legal agency of common citizens could easily lead to disastrous outcomes through abuses of state-centric powers. Connecting Romano’s early theorizing to many currently ongoing debates in different jurisdictions and legal orders about the plurality of laws, this article seeks to demonstrate the powerful impact that such kind of pioneering work can have even today. It strengthens, above all, the currently growing realization that law is certainly much more than state law, and that people’s laws and their diverse values and ethics should be treated with more respect by legal orders.

Book Review: Pawan Agarwal (Ed.), A Half-century of Indian Higher Education: Essays by Philip G. Altbach

building a strong base of heavy industries, his ambitions to make India’s parliament the model parliament of Asia, his courage to chart the course of non-alignment in a bipolar world were remarkable. He laid foundations for a large number of institutions of scientific research, socio-economic studies, art, literature, theatre and culture. India’s scientific progress, especially the nuclear and space programme, owe a lot to Nehru. Second, many of the positions of the author are opinionated and heavily influenced by the views of others. His assessment of Nehru would have carried more weight had he used more archival materials and untrammeled documents in support of his arguments. This seems to be the main objective of the author, and to that extent he has done his job honestly. The questions raised in this book are bound to draw the attention of both Nehru’s followers and critics. The study fits into the wider current scenario of a critical re-assessment of the Congress-dominated first few decades of India, in which the Nehru dynasty, despite its flaws, played a dominant and critical role.

Book Review: C.K. Lal, To Be a Nepalese…

readers to academics and scholars. There seems very little space left for commonplace, light-hearted reading for the sake of entertainment, relaxation and adventure. There is also quite a generalisation of the not-so-high quality of ‘literature today’. Mentioning Martel and Smith to represent today’s literature, khair bemoans the lack of ‘gaps and silences’ that catapults any piece of writing into good literature. One cannot help wondering why there is no mention of writers like Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri, kiran Desai, Toni Morrison, Orhan Pamuk, or Mo Yan, to randomly name a few. Certainly one may not deny how these writers have masterfully utilised the failures and limits of language to speak of (or, more often than not, voice through silence) the unnarratable human experience. Many of their works have not only been patronised by today’s (consumer-oriented) publishing industry but have also been best-sellers. Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth (2008) topped the New York Times Bestseller list, while Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies (2008) topped the Hindustan Times Bestseller list recently, and the list can go on. In other words, in this book’s assessment of, and lament for, the standard of today’s literature, there is a notable blind spot concerning these more serious, nevertheless greatly successful and widely appreciated, authors and their works. To conclude, one may not deny the greatness of art and the timelessness of appeal of Conrad, Forster, Baudelaire or Proust, but one need not despair of talent and great literature in our times.