BEING AND BECOMING

Excerpts from First Lotika Sarkar memorial lecture delivered by Prof. Upendra Baxi , Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Warwick at Faculty of Law, University of Delhi-------------------- It is good to meet on the first anniversary of Professor Lotika Sarkar’s death. Hers was a life lived well. And she would have wanted her friends on this occasion to greet her with a smile, not tears. Still, the ache remains. I feel somewhat like Adlai Stevenson (on losing his Democrat nomination twice over) who said- ‘it hurts to laugh but I am too old to cry!’ The impulse to shed tears stands accentuated by the sad demise of Professor Vasudha Dhagamwar on 10th instant; Vasudha was a good friend and dear colleague, though occasionally she did not share my overt enthusiasm for Lotika Sarkar. I am now incidentally the sole survivor of Mathura Open Letter to Chief Justice of India! I was also heard to say to their Lordships in the petition against the Shah Bano Case that I was the co-surv