Discursive Repression: A Note towards the Science of Possibility

Sanitisation of language through literature was an epoch-making phenomenon, which produced repression as a rule, a discourse, to develop a science of standard attitude, while personification produced the "maskification" (attitudes to appear better in public), all the violent and aggressive behaviours were denounced for homely affairs, not necessarily captivated for house-holds, but permeated through a science of privacy. Panoptic consciousness of discourse compelled human subjectivity to appear good, to look better, and to behave gently, under the fear of condemnation and rustication from the standard discourse. Such a desire of discursive power was immanently reflected through Victorian morality, whereas love was elevated as blessing while sex was denuded and condemned as sin (See Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality). And power to speak about sex was institutionalised for professional, doctors, theologians; the manly and womanly attitudes were demarcated; their social prestige and psychic construction were examined in isolation; and the life of patrimonial, matriarchal, and patriarchal discourses emerged as an anti-thesis to a newly emerging science of Power-Knowledge-Pleasure. Feminism, as a science of experience, emerged, which belied the attitudinal apparatus of power/knowledge, in search of possibility, in quest of emancipation from other-worldly wisdom, from the terror of standardisation, a possibility was always already present; a journey of actuality is now in making!

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Meeting Justice Rohinton Nariman in a Sunday Morning

Aristotle once wrote in his Nicomachean Ethics that there are four significant virtues for human beings, namely Prudence, Temperance, Justice, and Courage. There are a few judges who have courage and sense of justice, both. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Rohinton Nariman has been truly an exemplar judge and erudite historian, theologian and philologist, a great scholar of music as well as a courageous and meticulous jurist of our country. He did his Master of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1980-81 and taught by one of the finest jurists of the last century, Roberto Unger. He became Senior Advocate in 1993 in the age of 37 and also served as Solicitor General of India in 2011 before he was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court of India in 2014. He delivered many landmark judgments, including Shreya Singhal v. Union of India. There are a few people with whom time moves too fast, but to count that experience takes ages. Justice Rohinton Nariman is one of those great jurists with whom a meet

Same Sex Marriage Verdict: Apolitical Politics of Court

Every judgment of the Constitutional court solves and unsolves certain fundamental questions. Court often takes two steps forward and one step backward (Shklar). Navtej Johar was rightly celebrated as a progressive judgment which recognised same sex relationships on the touchstone of constitutional morality. In a way, judgment progressively explored the colonial and post-colonial politics and reviewed Section 377, IPC from the perspective of constitutional morality emanating from the "objective purposive interpretation", a concept devised by Justice Aharon Barack, a former judge of Israel Supreme Court. NALSA judgment already went ahead with the recommendations to broaden the scope of reservation policy in India to allow the constitutional protection of sexual minorities. The latest judgment has attracted widespread criticism from the intellectuals. Many of them have argued that the Court has not taken its responsibility in protecting the rights of sexual minorities. There i

The Rhythm of Law: A Book Review

Book Cover of the Book Law is the subject and object of curiosity since the ancient civilizations started its journey of contemplation about the order within the nature; its mysterious paths inspired the germination of metaphysics. Initially, human's mode of existence lived as instinctual life as per the call of nature. Instincts were primarily used as a medium for survival and to receive the call of wisdom from the “order of nature”. Humans are primarily one of the modes of expression of the nature, as Spinoza calls it attributes which express the essence of God and modes which are derived from the essence of God or nature (Spinoza, Ethics). The doorway of all the laws, as brooding presence of harmony, may be received if one is alert to recognize its call. Prof. Raman Mittal has penned a beautiful book titled “The Rhythm of Law”. The uniqueness of the book is its potentialities to express the inexpressible wisdom. Martin Heidegger in his Magnum Opus, Being and Time, expresses the

BEING AND BECOMING

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